City of New York · NY
New York City Department of Buildings records are published through more than one official system. DOB NOW records, approved permits, legacy BIS filings, and separate electrical, elevator, and limited-alteration datasets do not expose the same fields or the same workflow depth. SignedOff identifies the applicable public record family and monitors the status information it actually publishes, so you can spend less time moving between DOB portals.
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Permit office: 311 (within NYC) or (212) NEW-YORK
New York City Department of Buildings
280 BroadwayThe permit categories SignedOff tracks automatically across NYC DOB NOW / BIS.
A modern DOB NOW filing can contain job, location, applicant, work and status information. The public filing record is not a promise that every downstream permit or inspection detail is available.
Timeline: Varies by scope and required agency review; DOB does not publish one universal timeline.
The DOB Open Data approved-permits source provides permit-oriented information for eligible DOB NOW records, including raw published status and dates when supplied.
Timeline: Varies; verify the record's issued and expiration dates rather than relying on a citywide estimate.
Older BIS-era records remain a separate public record family. A legacy numeric identifier is not automatically equivalent to a DOB NOW identifier.
Timeline: Historical record availability varies.
Electrical applications are represented in a distinct DOB dataset and can have a separate identifier and issuance information.
Timeline: Not published as a universal service-level timeline.
Elevator work is represented through a separate application dataset, with only the fields released for that record.
Timeline: Varies by project and required review.
LAA records are published separately and should be checked against their own official record rather than inferred from a building-job snapshot.
Timeline: Varies; confirm in the official record.
Example New York City permit number:
M00855935-I1
Automatic status checks — SignedOff monitors NYC DOB NOW / BIS for New York City permits so you don't have to log in every week.
Email alerts when tracked public fields change, with the available detail determined by what NYC DOB NOW / BIS publishes for that record.
Downloadable PDF reports with QR codes for easy New York City job-site verification.
New York City does not publish one universal permit turnaround. Timing varies by filing type, borough, review track, objections, required approvals, and whether the record is in DOB NOW or the legacy BIS system.
New York City is a multi-source permit environment: a job filing, an approved permit, an electrical application, an elevator application, and a limited-alteration application can live in different official data releases. A blank field in one release does not establish that the fact is absent from every DOB system.
Use the identifier printed on the permit or DOB communication. A modern borough-letter identifier such as M00855935-I1 is a different format from a legacy numeric BIS record, and an electrical or elevator record may add its own suffix or application number.
Open Data snapshots are useful for public status checking, but they are not an official substitute for plans, payment records, objections, appointments, or all inspection and workflow events. SignedOff does not manufacture event history from a snapshot.
The NYC DOB NOW / BIS is the authoritative source for single-permit lookups and the official status of record in City of New York, reachable at https://a810-dobnow.nyc.gov/publish/app/user/newLogIn.html. Third-party permit monitoring services such as SignedOff check the published source on a recurring schedule to detect status changes and other available record updates. The exact fields vary by jurisdiction and record type, so the official source remains the place to confirm issuance, inspections, conditions, and close-out.
Building permit data for New York City is also available programmatically through the New York City Permit API, with structured status and data-freshness fields, plus additional fields where the jurisdiction publishes them.
For a single permit lookup or anything requiring official confirmation — issuance, occupancy sign-off, final inspection — the NYC DOB NOW / BIS is the source of record. Go directly to the City of New York portal for those.
For ongoing monitoring across multiple New York City permits, a third-party service such as SignedOff reduces manual lookups and surfaces published status changes by email. The typical use case is a contractor, architect, or project manager with several active New York City jobs across different systems or stages where checking each official source daily is impractical.
Both tools draw from the same underlying permit record — the NYC DOB NOW / BIS is always the system of record; SignedOff is a monitoring layer on top of it.
There is no reliable single timeline for all DOB work. Scope, completeness, objections, profession, borough, and other agency review can change timing. Check the actual record and DOB guidance for your project.
Start with the permit or job identifier and use the applicable official DOB public source. SignedOff uses exact identifier lookups across the public DOB NOW, approved-permit, legacy, electrical, elevator, and LAA record families it supports, then preserves the raw status returned by that source.
Formats vary. A representative modern identifier is M00855935-I1. Legacy BIS records can be numeric, while electrical, elevator, and LAA records may use trade-specific numbers or suffixes. Do not remove suffixes when checking a record.
No. The public datasets have different schemas and are snapshots of the fields each release publishes. SignedOff shows inspection or workflow detail only when a supported official source returns it; it does not label missing snapshot data as an approved, failed, or completed step.
No. A filing and a permit are distinct record types. Check the record's raw status and the published issue or approval date, and retain the official permit document for compliance purposes.
It may belong to another DOB record family, be a legacy BIS item, be a separate trade application, or simply not expose the searched field in that release. That is why an exact identifier matters.
SignedOff can monitor the public status fields available for supported exact identifiers. Coverage is source-specific, so the result clearly reflects the fields released by the matched official record.
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