Methodology

What is a closure rate?

When a contractor pulls a building permit in Los Angeles, an inspector needs to verify the work was completed correctly before the permit can be closed. A closure rate measures the percentage of an applicant's permits that have been properly closed:

The 365-day eligibility rule

A contractor who pulled a permit last month hasn't had time to complete the work yet. To avoid penalizing recent activity, we only count permits issued more than 365 days ago when calculating closure rates.

Permits issued within the last year still appear in the data but are dimmed in the table and not factored into the rate.

Included permits

Los Angeles’s Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) data covers building permits issued from 2020 to present. We include the following building permit types that represent physical construction:

Electrical, Plumbing, and HVAC permits are not included because the available LADBS datasets for those trades do not include current permit status information.

Excluded permits

The following permit types are excluded from closure rate calculations because they represent non-construction activities or have systemic reporting issues:

No applicant data

Los Angeles’s open data for building permits does not include a contractor or applicant name field. Because we cannot attribute permits to the businesses that performed the work, the Los Angeles leaderboard ranks addresses rather than applicants.

The minimum threshold for the address leaderboard is 3 rated permits (instead of 20 for applicant leaderboards).

Status mapping

LADBS permits use a detailed status system. We map these statuses to either “Open” or “Closed”:

Counted as Closed

Permit Finaled, CofO Issued, CofC Issued, Permit Closed, CofO Corrected

Counted as Open

Issued, Permit Expired, CofO in Progress, Re-Activate Permit, OK for CofC, OK to Issue CofC, No Progress

Permits with statuses indicating the work was cancelled or refunded (Refund Completed, Permit Withdrawn, Permit Revoked, Intent to Revoke, etc.) are excluded from calculations entirely.

Deduplication

Each row in the Los Angeles dataset has a unique permit number — no deduplication is needed.

Leaderboard criteria

The leaderboard applies two additional filters:

• Minimum 20 rated permits — avoids surfacing statistically insignificant data.
• Active in the last 3 years — prevents the list from being populated by defunct companies.

The leaderboard can be filtered by permit type (e.g., Building, Demolition). When filtered, both thresholds apply only to permits of the selected type.

Median comparison

On applicant detail pages, each closure rate is compared to the median closure rate across all leaderboard-eligible applicants in the same category. This gives context — a 50% closure rate means something different in a category where the median is 40% versus one where it's 80%.

Medians are calculated from the same pool of applicants who meet the 20-permit minimum threshold.

Data source

Data comes from the Building Permits Issued from 2020 to Present dataset on LA Open Data. The dataset is refreshed weekly.

Limitations

This site shows permit closure data. It does not evaluate the quality of anyone's work. There are legitimate reasons a permit may remain open:

• Client non-cooperation — the property owner may fail to schedule the final inspection or grant access.
• Administrative backlog — work may be inspected and approved but not yet updated in the system.
• Project delays — financing, design changes, supply chain issues, or other factors outside the applicant's control.
• Multi-phase projects — large commercial projects may legitimately take years to complete.
• Permit holder vs. contractor — the applicant may be a GC, architect, or owner — not necessarily the person scheduling the inspection.

If you believe there are inaccuracies in the underlying permit data, contact the LA Department of Building and Safety at [email protected].