Where our data comes from

Last updated: October 23, 2026

TradeGuild is built from public records. This page lists where each piece comes from, how fresh it is, what we leave out, and how to ask us to fix something.

What we use

• Building permits that cities, towns and counties publish. Some come from open-data portals. Others come from the PDF reports and spreadsheets that small towns post.
• Texas license lists: the contractor license files from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) and the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners (TSBPE). We use only the files that list businesses. We never use the lists of individual technicians, journeymen or apprentices.
• Business contact details that businesses publish so customers can reach them: a contractor's phone, website and city from its own website, or from official lists of contractors (Austin Energy's participating contractors; Cook County's registered contractors).

We don't buy contractor data. We don't copy from directories or review sites (such as Yelp, BBB, Angi or Google listings), from social media, or from anything behind a login.

How we collect

• We use a place's open-data feed wherever it has one.
• We read each source at low volume: every morning for the places that post their permits every day, once a week for the rest.
• We never log in, solve a captcha, or get around a block. We don't use a source whose publisher's terms forbid commercial use.
• If a source asks us to stop, we stop.

How fresh it is

We read the places that post their permits every day each morning at 8 a.m. Central time, after they post. We read the rest, and the Texas license lists, every Monday. The app and tradeguild.io update after each read, so a place that posts daily shows yesterday's permits each morning. How fresh a place is depends on how often it posts its permits. Each place below says how often.

Places and sources

Austin area

• Austin: City of Austin, Development Services Department (data.austintexas.gov). Posted daily; we read it every morning.
• Buda: City of Buda, Texas (the City's map of issued permits). Updated about weekly. It holds only the last six months.
• Hutto: City of Hutto, Texas (the City's building-permit map). Updated about weekly. It gives the type of job and the address, but no builder.
• Lago Vista: City of Lago Vista, Texas (the monthly Development Services report). Posted a few days after each month ends.
• Round Rock: City of Round Rock, Texas (the monthly permit report). Posted around the 1st of each month. It lists permits by the date someone applied.
• San Marcos: City of San Marcos, Texas (the City's building-permit map). Posted daily; we read it every morning. No builder names.
• Texas license lists: TDLR (air-conditioning, electrical, electrical-sign and appliance-installation contractors) and TSBPE (the companies of responsible master plumbers). Read once a week, on Mondays.

Chicago area

• Chicago: City of Chicago, Department of Buildings (data.cityofchicago.org). Posted daily; we read it every morning.
• Suburban Cook County: Cook County Department of Environment & Sustainability (datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov). Posted daily; we read it every morning. Demolition and asbestos-removal notices only.

Champaign–Urbana area

• Urbana: City of Urbana, Community Development Services, through the Illinois Open Data Portal (data.illinois.gov). The City updates it on no fixed schedule.
• Savoy: Village of Savoy, monthly permit report. The report lists the job but not the builder.
• Mahomet: Village of Mahomet, list of new permits. Updated about monthly, and it starts over each January.
• Rantoul: Village of Rantoul, monthly permits report. It's scanned, so we read it with text recognition. Records start in July 2026.
• St. Joseph: Village of St. Joseph, its public permit spreadsheet.
• Champaign is not included. The City's website terms ask for permission before commercial use, and we don't have it yet.

What we never publish

• Homeowners and other private individuals. We list businesses only. When a record names a person as an owner, applicant or contact, we drop the name as we read the record, and we never store it. Our lists say "Individual (name withheld)" instead.
• Personal phone numbers. We show a phone only for a contractor that is clearly a business. We never show one that sits beside a person's name, or that a website labels as cell, mobile or direct.
• House numbers on our public site or in emails. tradeguild.io and the Monday email show only the street and town. In the app, subscribers see the street. The full address is used only for the map pin and the directions link.
• Owners' mailing addresses, email addresses, or license holders' personal details. We also scrub names, phone numbers and email addresses out of permit descriptions.
• Business names that contain a person's name, such as "Jane Doe Builders", on our public site. Subscribers see such a business in the app, but never with a phone number.

Before any page, list or email goes out, an automated check looks for every person's name and every non-business phone number in our records. If it finds one, nothing goes out.

Notices our sources require

Every source provides its data as is, without any promise that it is accurate or complete. So do we.

City of Chicago

The City of Chicago requires this notice wherever its data is used:

This site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. The data provided at this site is subject to change at any time. It is understood that the data provided at this site is being used at one's own risk.

City of Austin

The City of Austin asks for credit to the City and to the department that publishes the data. Source: City of Austin, Development Services Department, data.austintexas.gov.

Other credits

• Cook County Department of Environment & Sustainability (public domain).
• City of Urbana, through the Illinois Open Data Portal.
• The Cities of Buda, Hutto, Lago Vista, Round Rock and San Marcos, Texas, and the Villages of Mahomet, Rantoul, Savoy and St. Joseph, Illinois.
• The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation and the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners.

Corrections and removals

Write to info@tradeguild.io. Here's what we do:

• If your company is listed and shouldn't be, or something about it is wrong, send us the company name and what to remove or correct. We'll remove or fix the name, phone or website everywhere we show it: in the app, in the Monday email and on tradeguild.io. A removal stays in place when we collect again. We'll reply within 5 business days.
• If you're a homeowner or other individual and think we've named you, we shouldn't have. Tell us where you saw it and we'll remove it.
• If your home address shows up as a job site and you want it taken off, write to us and we'll remove it.
• If a permit itself is wrong (the date, value, address or type of work), the city's record is the source. If we read it wrong, we'll fix it. If the city's record is wrong, it has to be corrected with the city, and we'll pick up the fix the next time we collect.