How do I look up a building permit in Arizona?

To look up a building permit in Arizona, use the online permit portal run by the city or county where the property sits, since there is no single statewide permit database. Scottsdale uses its SPUR portal. Phoenix uses its PDD Online permit search. Unincorporated areas like Rio Verde Foothills use the Maricopa County Permit Center. In each portal you search by the property address, the permit number, or the owner or contractor name, and you can see whether a permit was issued, its status, and its inspection history. The first step is always the same: figure out which jurisdiction the property is in, then go to that government's portal.

Find the right jurisdiction first

The most important step in a permit lookup is identifying which government issued the permit, because each city and county keeps its own records. A permit pulled in Scottsdale will not show up in Phoenix's system, and a rural Rio Verde build is recorded by Maricopa County, not by any city.

Start with the property address. If the home is inside a city limit, like Scottsdale, Phoenix, Cave Creek, Fountain Hills, Carefree, Casa Grande, or Apache Junction, that city's building department holds the permit. If the property is in an unincorporated area, the county does. In the Phoenix metro, unincorporated land such as the Rio Verde Foothills falls under Maricopa County. Areas around Casa Grande and Apache Junction may fall under Pinal County. If you are not sure whether an address is inside a city, the county assessor or the city's own address-lookup tool can confirm it.

Once you know the jurisdiction, go straight to that government's permitting portal. Searching the wrong city's system is the most common reason people think "there is no permit" when one exists. Town lines in the Valley are not always obvious from a street view, so a home with a Scottsdale mailing address can sit on county land, and the records would then live with the county.

How to search the major Arizona portals

Each portal lets you search by address, permit number, or name, though the labels differ. Here is how the main ones work in the areas Jematell Homes serves.

• Scottsdale SPUR. Scottsdale launched SPUR (Smart Planning, Use and Regulations) in January 2026 as its "customer portal for managing all projects that require city approval or a permit." Its search tool lets you "search for project records by address, permit number, or keyword." You can also pull permit documents from the city's public records database, where "a property address search will deliver the best results."
• Phoenix PDD Online. Phoenix's Planning and Development Department runs a public permit search. You can search by address (street number, direction, street name, and type), by permit type and number (wildcards like "16*" are allowed), by contractor or professional name, or by state license number. Results show permit type, issued date, status, and address.
• Maricopa County Permit Center. The county runs its services "completely online" through Permit Center. The county states that "once you have a Permit Center account, you can apply for and search for your permits and schedule inspections." For records on a property you do not own, you can also call the county Call Center.

If a portal asks you to register an account, you usually still get a public search without one. Account login is mainly for managing your own active permits.

A few tips make these searches work better. An address search is almost always the most reliable, since you rarely know the permit number for someone else's project. Enter only part of the address if the full one returns nothing, because portals are picky about street type and direction. If you do have the permit number, that is the fastest path to a single record. When a property has had several permits over the years, sort the results by issued date to find the one you want. And remember that pools, solar, and water heaters often have their own permits separate from the main house permit, so one address can show many records.

What a permit record tells you

A permit record shows far more than a yes-or-no. It tells you what was approved, when, by whom, and whether the work passed inspection. Reading it well answers most of the questions buyers and owners actually have.

A typical Arizona permit record includes:

• Permit status. Whether the permit was issued, is active, expired, finaled, or never closed out. An open permit with no final inspection is a red flag on a home you are about to buy.
• Scope of work. What the permit covered, such as new single-family residence, addition, pool, or water heater. This tells you whether past work was done with a permit at all.
• Inspection history. The list of inspections and whether each passed. A finaled permit means the work cleared its final inspection.
• Contractor and dates. Who pulled the permit and when, which helps you match work to a licensed contractor.

For a homebuyer, this record is how you confirm that an addition, a casita, or a remodel was permitted and inspected. Unpermitted work can create insurance, resale, and safety problems, so a quick portal search before you buy is worth the few minutes it takes.

Pay special attention to open or expired permits. A permit that was issued but never finaled means the work was started and the city never confirmed it was finished to code. That can leave you, the new owner, on the hook to close it out, sometimes by exposing finished work for a late inspection. An expired permit may need to be renewed and re-inspected before the city will sign off. If you spot an open permit on a home you want, ask the seller to close it out before closing, or price the cost of doing so into your offer.

When you cannot find a permit online

If a permit does not appear in the portal, it does not always mean none exists, so a missing record is a reason to dig deeper rather than assume the worst. Older permits, recently migrated systems, and unincorporated records are the usual reasons a search comes up empty.

Three things commonly hide a permit. First, older permits may predate the online system and live only in paper or microfilm archives. Scottsdale, for example, moved off legacy software that was 30 years old when SPUR launched, and some pre-2026 projects are still managed in the old eServices portal. Second, you may be searching the wrong jurisdiction, which is why confirming city-versus-county first matters so much. Third, the work may have been done without a permit, which is itself important information.

When the portal comes up short, request the records directly. Every Arizona city and county has a public records process for building permits, and staff at the permit counter can pull a property's history. The Maricopa County Call Center and the Scottsdale Planning and Development office both field these requests by phone. If you are buying a home and the permit history looks incomplete, ask the seller for permit documents in writing, and have your builder or inspector flag any work that appears to lack a closed-out permit before you close.

Where Jematell Homes comes in

Permitting and code compliance are part of our full-service project management. Reach out and we will talk through how this applies to your specific lot and plan.

Sources

• City of Scottsdale: Scottsdale SPUR (planning & permitting portal)
• City of Phoenix: PDD Online Permit Search
• Maricopa County: Construction Permit Information (Permit Center)
• City of Scottsdale: Permit Services