Every new construction project and any significant improvement to an existing structure requires a building permit issued by the local government--the county or an incorporated municipality. All seven jurisdictions in the region—Baltimore City, and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard and Queen Anne's Counties—issue permits in the Baltimore region. In addition, permits are issued by the City of Annapolis and the towns of Aberdeen, Bel Air and Havre de Grace in Harford County.
The Baltimore Metropolitan Council has been compiling the region’s building permit information and organizing it into a standardized database for many years. The resulting information, collected from all permits with an estimated construction value of $10,000 or more, provides a continual record of plans for new and renovated residential and non-residential projects. The BMC staff itself makes use of this information as a leading indicator of new regional development patterns.
Building Permit Dashboards
Our building permit dashboards include data on both residential and non-residential building permit activity in the Baltimore region since 2007. The residential permits dashboard summarizes the number of units permitted for both multi-family and single family dwellings. The non-residential dashboard summarizes the value of alterations and new construction permits.
BMC Building Permit products:
Building Permit Data System Online
Already a subscriber?
BPDS Online allows users to generate custom reports by selecting specific types of construction projects, time-periods, geographic areas, and estimated costs of permitted projects. A User’s Guide describes the service in detail.
New permits are added to the database on a weekly cycle, as soon as the latest permits issued by local jurisdictions have been processed by the BMC staff. Specialty contractors, real estate analysts, economic development professionals and others subscribe to this searchable online database.
BPDS Online Pricing:
| Number of Users | Annual BPDS Online Subscription Rates |
|---|---|
| Single User | $300 |
| 2-5 Users | $595 |
| 6-10 Users | $795 |
| 10 or More Users | $795 plus $65 per additional user over 10 |
To subscribe to BPDS Online, contact Crystal McDermott at 410-732-0500 x1024 or cmcdermott@baltometro.org. Staff will be happy to give you a demonstration of how the service works and/or give you a short-term password so you can test it out.
When you are ready to subscribe, please complete a license agreement. You may arrange for payment over the phone or by faxing or mailing back the completed Subscription Form.
Building Permit Data System Quick Viewer
This mapped data set displays the spatial location of building permits across the Baltimore metropolitan region utilizing ArcGIS Online. The data goes back to 2008 and is updated approximately once every two months.