Calgary downtown skyline and the Peace Bridge over the Bow River, with a construction crane

Calgary construction

Calgary building permits, filtered to the work you can win

Hundreds of permits post every week. We pull the commercial and high-value jobs that fit your trade and hand you the contractor to call, before the trades get picked.

Calgary's building permit feed is one of the most useful sources of construction intelligence in Alberta, and one of the most awkward to use. The city publishes permit applications within days of filing, covering everything from a basement suite to a $40M tower. The problem is finding the jobs that matter in a stream of 200 to 400 permits a week.

The short version

The raw data is free from the City of Calgary. Balloon Sight sits on top of it, filters out the small residential work, and sends you the commercial and high-value jobs that fit your trade, with the contractor to call. Browse the live list first, then decide.

What a Calgary permit actually tells you

Civic address

The exact site, so you know the neighbourhood and whether it's your kind of job.

Use category

Residential, commercial, industrial, or institutional. This is how you cut the small stuff.

Contractor of record

The GC or developer who pulled the permit. Often the first and only lead on who to call.

Declared value

Applicant-entered. It reads low on residential and closer to real on commercial work.

From the city's raw feed to your inbox

1

We watch the Calgary permit feed

Along with Edmonton, Red Deer, and the BC sources. New permits get pulled in within days of posting.

2

We filter out the noise

Most of the weekly list is small residential work. We keep the commercial, industrial, and high-value jobs that actually carry trade packages.

3

You get one digest a week

Matched to your trade, with the contractor name and value attached. No portal to log into every morning.

A permit issued this week is a job that hasn't staffed its trades

The window between a permit posting and the trades getting locked in is short, and that's where the advantage is. Reach the contractor now and you're talking before the call list is set. Wait for the bid board and you're quoting cold against several other firms.

Calgary building permits FAQ

Where does Calgary publish building permits?
The City of Calgary posts building permit and development permit data through its open data portal. It's free and it's the source of record. The hard part is volume: 200 to 400 permits a week with no way to sort out the jobs that fit a specific trade. That filtering is what Balloon Sight does on top of the city data.
How current is the data?
We pull new Calgary permits within days of the city posting them. The point is to reach the contractor while the job is fresh, before the trades get picked, so timing is the whole reason the feed exists.
Do I have to subscribe to see anything?
No. You can browse the live Alberta and BC project table without an account. The $149 a month subscription is for the weekly digest filtered to your trade and the contact details.
What trades is this useful for?
Subcontractors, suppliers, and GCs working in Calgary. Concrete, framing, mechanical, electrical, roofing, and steel all show up regularly in the commercial and multi-family permits we surface.
Trade worker cutting lumber with a circular saw, sawdust in the air

See this week's Calgary jobs.

Browse the live Alberta and BC list free, or subscribe for one trade-filtered digest a week. $149/mo, cancel anytime, no sales call.

Browse the live list →

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