For a Seattle building permit search, start with SDCI’s Permit and Site History map to identify the address and development site, then use the Seattle Services Portal for project, permit, inspection, related-record, and document information generally available from 2005 forward. For older work, follow SDCI’s permit and property records, scanned microfilm, and public disclosure routes instead of treating a portal blank as a no-permit finding.
At a glance
- Address search: Yes. The Seattle Services Portal and the Permit & Site History tool search by address (SDCI research page).
- Online records start: 2005 for permits and inspections in the portal; scanned microfiche covers 1970–2004; pre-1970 film by request (SDCI).
- Older records: SDCI Microfilm Library or the City public records request center; copies $0.15 per page (SDCI public disclosure). Processing time: not confirmed.
- Checked: October 21, 2026. Compare 15 other jurisdictions in our permit lookup by address comparison.
Building Permit History tool · for buyers and owners
Permit status decoder
Copy the permit rows from the city or county portal and paste them below, one permit per line. The decoder explains each status, flags the ones to ask about, and lists what to request before you rely on the record.
Match the Seattle property before reading permits
Seattle permit research depends on more than the mailing address. SDCI uses a development site as a property boundary for applying code standards, and one site can involve several addresses or parcels. Write down the full civic address, unit if relevant, parcel number, corner or range address, and any former street form you can support.
Open SDCI’s Permit and Site History map. The city tool lets a user start with an address or select a site on the map and describes its purpose as discovering site information, permits, and other records. Confirm the selected geometry before downloading or recording results. A pin on an adjacent parcel can produce a plausible but wrong permit history.
The address not found guide provides a recovery sequence for range addresses, missing units, and parent-site records.
Divide the search at the 2005 system boundary
SDCI’s official Research a Project, Permit, or Property page explains the available record layers. It routes current research to the Seattle Services Portal and describes permit and inspection information from 2005 to the present. It also explains historical resources, including SDCI permit and property records and microfilm material.
Put the likely project year beside that boundary. A 2018 alteration belongs in the current portal branch. A 1980 addition belongs in the historical branch even if later scans appear online. If the date is uncertain, search both and preserve the evidence that links records across systems.
Search the current portal by project identity
Use the city’s Seattle Services Portal for records within its documented era. Begin with the verified address or known project or permit number. Save the record number from every plausible result, then open the detail rather than relying on a summary card.
For each record, capture the applicant when public, project description, record type, permit status, inspection status, related permits, and document list. Separate the application or project record from the issued permit and from trade records. A single development project can have construction, electrical, mechanical, land-use, demolition, or other related files with different statuses.
The building application records guide helps keep review-stage evidence separate from authorization and completion.
Read status, inspections, and documents as separate tracks
Create three tracks for a selected record. The status track follows application, review, issuance, expiration, or closure labels. The inspection track records inspection type, result, and date. The document track lists plans, corrections, approvals, and revisions that the public portal makes available.
Do not use one track to fill a blank in another. An issued permit does not prove the final inspection passed. A document upload does not prove the underlying work occurred. A final result on the parent construction permit does not automatically close every trade permit. Use the final inspection status check when an open item affects a purchase, renovation, or financing decision.
What 10,558 recent Seattle permits show about timing and expired permits
We downloaded every Seattle building permit applied for in 2023 and 2024 from the city’s open data set (Seattle Open Data, Building Permits, pulled October 23, 2026) and measured how long each one took and how it ended. That is 10,558 applications, 9,608 of them issued. The numbers below are our own calculation from the city’s records, not figures published by SDCI.
| Project type (city category) | Applications | Days from application to issue (median) | Slowest 10% took at least | Issued permits that later expired |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single-family addition or alteration | 4,595 | 10 | 169 days | 16% |
| Commercial addition or alteration | 1,589 | 53 | 223 days | 17% |
| Middle housing (new small multi-unit) | 1,882 | 150 | 343 days | 9% |
| Pre-approved DADU plans | 137 | 62 | 143 days | 9% |
| All building permits | 10,558 | 54 | 277 days | 14% |
Three things stand out for anyone checking a Seattle house before buying.
- About one in six issued home-remodel permits ended as Expired. For single-family additions and alterations, 16% of issued permits now show “Expired” rather than “Completed.” An expired permit usually means the final inspection never happened, which is exactly the record a buyer should ask about.
- Smaller jobs expire more often. Home remodels with an estimated cost of $10,000 to $50,000 had the highest expired share (20%, of 1,497 issued). Projects above $150,000 expired least (11%). Decks, kitchens, and basement work fall in the range that most often never reached final.
- Review cycles explain most of the wait. Single-family permits with no correction cycles were typically issued in about a day. Two cycles took a median of 51 days, three took 98, and four or more took 197. The Number of review cycles on a permit tells you more about its history than the project description does.
Limits of this count: many 2024 permits are still open (15% of them still show “Issued”), so their final outcome is not known yet. Project cost is the applicant’s estimate. Status labels are the city’s current status field, read on the pull date above.
Pick a city, a type of work, and a year. See how long similar permits took to issue and how many never recorded a final inspection.
To compare Seattle’s wait with other cities, see our data on how long building permits take in six places.
Complaints about construction without a permit sit in the same portal as separate records. Our count of Seattle’s 2024 unpermitted construction complaints shows how often a Notice of Violation and a later permit followed.
For new houses, ADUs and apartments, our Seattle certificate of occupancy guide shows when SDCI issues a C of O and how often 2021–2023 new-housing permits reached Completed.
Follow related records without merging them
Open each related record and retain its own number, type, address, scope, status, and dates. Confirm whether it belongs to the same development site and work episode. Similar descriptions or contractors can support a research hypothesis, but the record link or shared project identifier is stronger evidence.
If a trade permit does not appear as related, search the property and date band by record type. If a portal result points to a parent site rather than the unit, keep both identities visible. This prevents an unresolved child permit from disappearing inside a one-line project summary.
Move older projects into SDCI’s historical resources
The Research a Project page describes SDCI’s Permit and Property Records library, including older permit material, scanned plans, microfilm, and microfiche eras. It advises users to contact the Microfilm Library when something cannot be found in the Services Portal or the permit and property records. Follow that agency route for pre-2005 work, missing plans, or records outside public portal coverage.
Prepare the historical search with the development-site identity, current and former address, parcel, approximate construction years, owner or applicant if known, and any record-number fragment. Ask for the precise family needed, such as a permit application, approved plan, inspection card, certificate, or related trade record.
Distinguish document date from upload date
SDCI warns on its research page that an upload date may not be the date of the document’s contents. Preserve both. A plan drawn in 1965 and scanned decades later remains a 1965 project document, not evidence of recent work. Likewise, a microfilm index can point to a file without displaying every page.
For each historical item, record the document title, original date, scan or upload date, record number, address or development site, page range, and legibility. Note missing sheets and unexplained gaps. This simple dating discipline prevents a modern digitization event from distorting the building chronology.
Use public disclosure for a targeted unresolved record
When the published research routes do not provide a needed departmental record, SDCI’s Public Disclosure page explains that the department has a Public Disclosure Officer and provides the process for an SDCI public records request. Use it after documenting the portal and historical searches.
Name the property, development site or parcel, record numbers, date band, and document families. Explain which official systems were checked and what was missing. A narrow request for a known permit’s inspection card or an older plan is more actionable than asking for everything ever associated with the address.
Seattle’s open permit data rarely names the contractor, so ask for the Washington L&I registration number and check it with our contractor license lookup guide.
Keep a Seattle evidence ledger
Create one line per source event and keep the fields separate:
- checked date, system, and exact property input;
- selected development site, parcel, and record number;
- record type, scope, status, and inspection result;
- document title, original document date, and upload date;
- unresolved question and the next official route.
Attach saved reports or screenshots where permitted.
An old oil-heat house has a second trail at the Seattle Fire Department, not SDCI. Our guide to Seattle heating-oil tank decommission records explains the permit 6103 data and what an incomplete entry means.
Construction at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport goes through the Port’s Airport Building Department, not the City of Seattle; see how SEA Airport tenant closeout records are requested from the Port.
Finish with a qualified statement. The retrieved SDCI records may support an issued permit, named scope, and recorded final inspection for a specific project, while older plans or a related trade record remain unresolved. That conclusion is repeatable and useful. It does not claim that the online systems contain every historical record or certify the building’s present condition.
For permits issued in 2022, 36% of Seattle addition and alteration permits for windows or doors now read “Expired”; see which home projects end with expired building permits.
Before hiring for work on a Seattle property, check the contractor’s state registration; our Washington contractor license lookup shows how to read L&I’s bond and insurance records.
More from our permit data: what public permit records show across seven places.