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Datasets:
nimbusdata
/
builddata-canadian-construction-sample

Modalities:
Text
Formats:
json
Languages:
English
French
Size:
1K - 10K
Tags:
canada
construction
real-estate
permits
building-permits
municipal
Libraries:
Datasets
pandas
Polars
License:
Dataset card Data Studio Files
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metadata 
license: cc-by-4.0
language:
  - en
  - fr
size_categories:
  - 1K<n<10K
tags:
  - canada
  - construction
  - real-estate
  - permits
  - building-permits
  - municipal
  - rag
  - llm-training
pretty_name: BuildData — Canadian Construction Records (Sample)
configs:
  - config_name: default
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: builddata_sample.jsonl

BuildData — Canadian Construction Records (Sample)

Sample of 5,000 Canadian municipal construction records across 54 cities. Mix of building permits, business licences, development permits, planning applications, and inspections. Last 3 months of data from the full BuildData API.

Want the full dataset? 8.6M+ records across 60 cities, normalized + geocoded, daily refresh, query by city / address / value / type / date. Get an API key →

What's in here

Field Type Description
source_id string Originating system (city's open-data portal)
entity_type string permit, licence, development_permit, planning_application, inspection
record_id string Stable per-record identifier from the source
municipality string City name
event_date string (ISO date) Issue date for permits/licences, application date for planning
category string Permit type / licence type / planning stage
data object Full raw record from the source (JSON) — addresses, values, descriptions, GIS data

Composition (sample)

entity_type rows
permit 2,500
licence 700
development_permit 700
planning_application 700
inspection 400

54 unique municipalities represented. The full dataset spans 60 cities including Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Québec City, Halifax, Saint John, plus 50 more.

Use cases

  • RAG / agents — ground LLM responses in real Canadian construction activity
  • Domain fine-tuning — train models on construction vocabulary, NOC codes, GIS schemas
  • Real-estate intelligence — track building permits as a leading indicator of property changes
  • Construction lead generation — discover contractors, developers, suppliers active in a market
  • Insurance underwriting — property age, renovation history, code compliance signals
  • Schema exploration before committing to API integration

Limitations of this sample

  • Snapshot only — frozen 2026-02-25 to 2026-05-25. New permits issued daily; this sample will not reflect them.
  • 5K rows — full dataset is 8.6M+. Sample is enough to test schema, prompts, prototypes; not enough for production analytics.
  • No querying — can't filter by city, value range, address, or date. Use the API for that.
  • No geocoded coordinates surfaced — the full API returns latitude/longitude; sample omits them to keep payload small (still inside data for some sources).

Production access

  • Docs: https://builddata.ca/docs
  • Pricing: https://builddata.ca/pricing — free tier 25 req/day, Pro $49/mo 1K req/day
  • Quickstart:
    curl "https://api.builddata.ca/permit?municipality=Toronto&limit=10" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY"
  • Export: https://api.builddata.ca/permit/export?format=csv&limit=1000 (no key, JSON/CSV/XLSX)

License & attribution

Data sourced from Canadian municipal open-data portals (Toronto CKAN, Vancouver Opendatasoft, Calgary Socrata, Edmonton Socrata, etc.). All source data is under open government / municipal licences. Sample redistribution is permitted under CC-BY-4.0.

Contact

Mirror locations

The same sample is published in three places — pick whichever you prefer: