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Washington, D.C. · guides

For anyone tracking what the District files

What Washington files, and under what name

The permit type column does not say what the permit is for. The subtype does, and knowing that is the difference between finding a demolition and finding nothing.

THE TRAP, FIRST. The permit feed has a type column and a subtype column, and the type column does not say what the permit is for. Its values are CONSTRUCTION, SUPPLEMENTAL, SHOP DRAWING, POST CARD and HOME OCCUPATION. What the work actually is lives in the subtype: NEW BUILDING, RAZE, EXCAVATION ONLY, ADDITION ALTERATION REPAIR, SHEETING AND SHORING. Search the type column for a demolition and you will find nothing and conclude there were none.

One file per year

The District publishes permits, offences and 311 requests as a separate file for each year rather than as one file with a date column. A ten-year window spans eleven of those files, so it is eleven queries rather than one. This product does that fan-out for you, and names any year it could not read rather than quietly leaving it out of the total.

The zoning rides on the permit

Unusually, each permit row carries the zoning district of the lot it was issued against. Most cities make you join to a separate zoning layer. It means a permit history doubles as a record of how the lot was zoned at the time.

What the categories add

Beyond the subtype there is a category column, and it carries the things that tell you about scale: TOWER CRANE, SCAFFOLDING, UNDERGROUND STORAGE TANK, HISTORIC PROPERTY. A tower crane or a scaffolding permit is a fact about the site rather than an estimate of the job, which is the only kind of signal this product carries.

Counts run 15 September 2026.

More Washington, D.C. guides

How to read a Washington reportWho keeps which record in the District, why an address here needs a quadrant, and the pair of numbers this city publishes that most cities do not.Why the District asks which quadrant1st Street exists four times over. The quadrant is not decoration on a Washington address, it is part of it, and a report cannot be run without one.This year's assessment, and last year's beside itThe District publishes the current assessment and the prior one on the same row. That pair answers a question a single number cannot.