Coverage
Toronto today. The rest of the GTA as the data opens up.
Status
What's live, what's being built.
- live
- 1
- building
- 2
- planned
- 15
Datasets, not municipalities. From the FileSignal source registry.
Sources
Every dataset, checked live.
- live
- Cadence
- daily
- Last pull
- Nov 1, 2026, 06:15 a.m.
- Businesses · 30d
- 12,493 · 3,755
Research notes
Discovered at runtime via CKAN package_show; paged through the datastore API.
- building
- Cadence
- Not stated; observed roughly monthly (layer lastEditDate 2026-10-01T10:05Z)
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research 2026-09-29 verdict: partial. 35,042 records with ISSUE_DATE from 2018-01-02 to 2026-09-29. FILE_TYPE counts: COMMERCIAL 8,538, INDUSTRIAL 5,629, PUBLIC 1,927, RESIDENTIAL 18,943. There is no business name field, but DESCRIPTION often carries the tenant name on sign and alteration permits (e.g. 'THREE (3) FASCIA SIGNS - POULET ROUGE GRILLED CHICKEN', 'INTERIOR ALTERATIONS ... - TVH CANADA LTD.'). In 2026, 809 of 1,064 commercial/industrial permits had ' - ' in DESCRIPTION. Includes lat/lon and postal code. Max 2000 records per request. This is the best Mississauga signal for new commercial occupancies.
- building
- Cadence
- Stated 'Updated using a live service'; observed INDATE max 2026-10-31
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research 2026-10-30 (ISSUEDATE; some rows are future-dated to 2026-11-04) verdict: partial. This is a MapServer layer on Brampton's own server, not AGOL. It has 223,765 records from 1999 onward, including applied and cancelled permits, so filter on STATUSDESC='Issued'. maxRecordCount is 1000. Sorting on ISSUEDATE puts nulls first, so add 'ISSUEDATE IS NOT NULL'. SUBDESC carries OBC occupancy classes useful for commercial detection ('D: Business/Services', 'E: Retail', 'E: Restaurants', 'A2: Restaurants', 'F2: Industrial'; about 390 such permits in 2026). BUILDER and CONTRACTOR are builder or contractor names, not occupant names, and are usually null. Some ISSUEDATE values are in the future (max 2026-11-04 on 2026-10-31), so treat dates cautiously. The descriptions have no business name.
- planned
- Cadence
- unknown
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research verdict: none found. Not in the open data catalogue. Markham posts monthly building-statistics PDFs (StatCan summary format) on its website. Those are reports, not open data. The catalogue page says dataset requests go to CGIS@markham.ca.
- planned
- Cadence
- unknown
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research verdict: none found. Enumerated all 437 items in the Markham ArcGIS Hub catalogue on 2026-10-31 (it also mirrors York Region items). Nothing for business licences. The closest is York Region's 'Business Directory 2024' (see york-region-business-directory).
- planned
- Cadence
- unknown
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
- Licence
- No licence stated
Research notes
Research verdict: none found. Same investigation as richmond-hill-business-licences. The Hub portal is private (401), and the public AGOL org cu2HFDk7AqvG7e31 has only Development Applications and CRH_AllConstruction (capital construction projects), no issued building permits.
- planned
- Cadence
- unknown
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
- Licence
- No licence stated
Research notes
Research verdict: none found. The Hub search API for data-richmondhill.opendata.arcgis.com returns 401 'private org id ... is not accessible', so the portal is not publicly queryable. The City's public ArcGIS Online org (orgid cu2HFDk7AqvG7e31, about 247 public items) has no licence or permit layers. It does have Business Parks, Major Employer - Business Parks, Development Applications and CRH_AllConstruction (capital projects). richmondhill.ca Open-Data URLs redirect to 404. Covers building permits as well.
- planned
Vaughan · York
No business licence dataset found
City of Vaughan
- Cadence
- unknown
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
- Licence
- No licence stated
Research notes
Research verdict: none found. None of the 117 services in the public ArcGIS REST directory (services2.arcgis.com/9LnN9037wYhPG904) or the org's 256 public items relate to licences. The portal itself could not be checked (proxy refused opendata.vaughan.ca). Re-check once that host is allowed.
- planned
- Cadence
- Not stated; observed live (layer lastEditDate 2026-10-31T01:04Z)
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
- Licence
- No licence stated
Research notes
Research 2026-10-30 verdict: partial. Public feature service with 17,314 records. Approval_Date runs from 2020-01-02 to 2026-10-30. It backs Vaughan's public 'Building Permit Status' dashboard. The item has no licence and no description, and I could not confirm it is in the Vaughan open data catalogue: opendata.vaughan.ca was refused by the session network proxy and vaughan.ca returned 403. Licence status must be confirmed before use. There is no business name field. Names often appear in Permit_Description, especially 'Sign - Fixed' permits (e.g. 'CLUB PHAROS', 'McDonalds', 'Petro Canada'). In 2026 there were 550 permits of type 'BP - Ind./Com./Inst/High-Rise Res.' and 106 of type 'Sign - Fixed'. Max 2000 records per request.
- planned
- Cadence
- Annual edition (layer dataLastEditDate 2026-03-02)
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research verdict: partial. 14,637 opt-in records. There is no date field, so you would have to diff yearly editions. Useful for enrichment (phone, NAICS), not for detection.
- planned
- Cadence
- None (static CSV, item modified 2018-03-29)
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research 2018-03-29 (file date; no per-record dates) verdict: partial. Licensed trade contractors with name, type and phone. There is no address and no date, and the file is stale.
- planned
- Cadence
- Stated 'Last Update August 2019' (frozen)
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research 2019-08 (layer dataLastEditDate 2019-08-27) verdict: partial. A real business-licence extract with business name, address, type, and issue and expiry dates (stored as 'YYYY/MM/DD' strings). It meets the implementable criteria on paper but has been frozen since August 2019, so it is useless for detecting new businesses. 2,225 records.
- planned
- Cadence
- Not stated; layer dataLastEditDate 2026-10-31T03:51Z (actively edited)
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research DATE_EST_IN_CITY year only (10 records with 2025/2026) verdict: partial. Employer census with 5,132 live records (the description says over 9,700). It has name, address and phone, but only a year-established field and no editor-tracking dates. You could diff it on a schedule (OBJECTID/GLOBALID), but it is not a licence feed. Good for enrichment.
- planned
- Cadence
- unknown
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
- Licence
- No licence stated
Research notes
Research verdict: none found. Enumerated all 505 GeoHub items. There are no licence datasets, only the Business Directory, Black Owned Businesses and BIA layers.
- planned
- Cadence
- Monthly (20th of each month)
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research 2026-09-30 verdict: partial. This is an XLSX file (BuildingPermits2026.xlsx), not CSV, with one report-style sheet per month (January to September 2026). Each sheet has about 6 header lines before the column row and a totals footer. Permit types include 'Change of Use (No Construction)', which signals new occupancies. BUILDING TYPE has Retail, Office, Industrial and similar values. No business name field, though DESCRIPTION sometimes names the tenant (e.g. 'Metro grocery store'). Older years are separate items (2024-2025: 05046d836248455d92cbc0543ce4c022, which has a 'CONTRACTOR' column only in the Jan-Aug 2024 flat sheet). Expect a new item id each year.
- planned
- Cadence
- unknown
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research verdict: none found. Enumerated 700 catalogue items. The only licence-like datasets are 'Street Food Vendors 2025' (a small niche feature service), 'Licensed Child Care Providers' and pet licences. There is no business licence register.
- planned
British Columbia · BC
OrgBook BC API (BC Corporate Registry registrations)
Province of British Columbia (BC Registries / Digital Trust)
- Cadence
- Real-time (newest credential effective 2026-10-31T08:31 PDT when tested)
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research 2026-10-31 verdict: partial. Base URL https://orgbook.gov.bc.ca/api/v4, with the OpenAPI spec at https://orgbook.gov.bc.ca/api/?format=openapi. To find new registrations, page through /search/credential?credential_type_id=1&ordering=-effective_date and keep rows where credential_set.first_effective_date equals effective_date (or attributes.registration_date is recent). Annual reports and changes also produce credentials. There is no server-side date-range filter, so page newest-first until you pass your watermark. Passing q=* returns 0 results, so omit q. On /search/topic, ordering=-effective_date did not sort by date in testing. Records have no addresses (addresses: []) and no phone; sole proprietorships (FM...) often show only a business number instead of a name. The licence is 'Access Only' (reproduction needs written permission), not OGL-BC, so republishing data or using it commercially needs permission or legal
- planned
York Region · York
Business Directory 2024 (York Region Employment Survey)
The Regional Municipality of York (Long Range Planning)
- Cadence
- Stated 'Update Frequency: Not Planned'; editions published annually (2013-2019, 2022, 2024)
- Last pull
- —
- Businesses · 30d
- — · —
Research notes
Research 2021-04-28 (max LAST_UPDATED string) verdict: partial. 33,626 records covering all York municipalities (Vaughan 11,881, Markham 10,759, Richmond Hill 4,714, ...). Layer id is 1, not 0, and layer 0 returns 'Invalid URL'. It has name, address, phone, email and NAICS. Despite the '2024' title, the newest LAST_UPDATED is 2021-04-28 and only 1 record has YR_CURRENTLOC >= 2024. It is a static survey snapshot, so use it for Markham, Vaughan and Richmond Hill enrichment, not for detecting new businesses. York Region does not issue business licences or building permits; its lower-tier municipalities do.
“Businesses” = distinct licensed businesses tracked from the source. “30-day signals” = all signal types detected in the last 30 days.
Roadmap
Where each place stands.
- Torontolive
Municipal Licensing & Standards business licences and permits, read daily through the City's CKAN open-data API.
- Mississaugabuilding
Issued building permits under the City's open Terms of Use. No business-name field, but tenant names often appear in permit descriptions — strongest permit feed outside Toronto.
- Bramptonbuilding
Building permits (CC BY, live service). Occupancy classes such as “E: Retail” and “A2: Restaurants” flag commercial fit-outs; there are no occupant names, so records need matching.
- Markhamplanned
No business-licence or building-permit dataset in the City's open-data catalogue today. We've asked; we'll add it when one is published.
- Richmond Hillplanned
The open-data portal is not publicly queryable and no licence or permit layers are published. Waiting on the City.
- Vaughanplanned
A live building-permit service exists, but no licence is stated on it. We won't use it until reuse terms are confirmed.
- Ottawaplanned
Monthly permit spreadsheets under the Open Government Licence – City of Ottawa, including “change of use” permits that mark new occupancies.
- British Columbia (OrgBook BC)planned
Real-time BC corporate registrations via the OrgBook BC API. Its licence is “Access Only”, so it stays planned until we have written permission.
Licences and attribution
Each publisher's licence and the attribution text you must carry when you reuse the data are listed on our data sources page.