Before you search, settle one question: who holds the record for this address. In Hillsborough County it is usually one of two offices with two separate systems, and searching the wrong one returns nothing, which is easy to misread as "no permits were ever pulled".
Who holds the record
- Unincorporated Hillsborough County: the county issues permits, through its online system, HillsGovHub.
- Inside Tampa city limits: the City of Tampa's Construction Services Division issues them, through the city's Accela Citizen Access portal.
- Temple Terrace or Plant City: these are separate cities. For an address there, check with that city before searching either system above.
A Tampa mailing address does not by itself put a property inside Tampa city limits, so if one system finds nothing, try the other before drawing any conclusion.
Unincorporated county: HillsGovHub, and the older PGM Store
Start in HillsGovHub. Its Check Permit Status search needs no account and no login, and it takes a street number and street name or a parcel number, so you do not need a permit number to begin. It also offers a Permits by Address report you can download as a spreadsheet or a PDF.
That is not the whole history, though. Older plans, applications and permit files sit in a separate system the county calls the PGM Store, and the county says plainly that records created in HillsGovHub will not appear in PGM search results. For a house with any age to it, search both. The PGM Store uses a shared public login: user ID `public`, password `public`, with the server left as `optix`. The county publishes a tutorial on the same page.
Inside Tampa: Accela Citizen Access
Inside the city, the Construction Services Division handles every building permit and inspection, and its records are searchable in Accela Citizen Access by street number and street name or by parcel number. The city also offers a Comprehensive Permit Summary by Address, the quickest way to see a property's history in one place. The county's and the city's portals run on the same software, which makes them look alike, but they are separate sites with separate records.
Two things on that same city page are worth knowing as a buyer. If you are buying a condo, the division also covers milestone inspections for condo and co-op recertification, which is a good thing to ask the association about. And if the house was repaired after a hurricane, the city publishes a post-hurricane permitting guide. If a record you need is not online, the city takes public records requests through its records request portal.
When the search comes back empty
An empty result in Hillsborough County is not proof that work was never permitted. Under Florida Statutes § 119.071, home addresses of certain public employees, including current and former law enforcement officers, firefighters, judges and public defenders, are exempt from public disclosure, and the county has removed building records that would expose them. Some building types, such as hospitals, sports arenas and hotels, are exempt for a different reason.
The county's own advice is to look the address or folio number up on the Property Appraiser's property search first. If the property does not come up there, the record may be exempt because of who is connected to it. If it does come up, the county notes a record can still be exempt because of the type of building. Either way, the next step is the same: ask the seller for the permits and final inspections they hold, in writing, before your inspection period ends.
The record worth looking for first
Look for the roof. A re-roofing permit is the strongest evidence of a roof's age, and that matters as soon as you shop for insurance: how to prove a roof's age for insurance covers what to do if there isn't one. If the history shows no roof permit at all, budget for the possibility of a replacement. The range Before Regret's property report uses for a full replacement is $8,000 – $25,000+.
For everything else in a permit history, from reading statuses to spotting work that was never filed, the method is the same in every county: how to look up building permits by address.
What Hillsborough County Is Permitting Right Now
Hillsborough County is permitting houses and apartments in almost exactly equal numbers this year: 2,417 single-family units against 2,421 multifamily. Compared with the same months last year, houses are down 7.6% from 2,617 and apartments down 10.3% from 2,700, for a county total down 9%, 5,317 to 4,838 units. Neither side of the market is moving the county figure on its own, so a countywide number here says about as much about one as the other.
Source: US Census Bureau Building Permits Survey, county file, year to date through July 2026 against the same months of 2025. 100% of these units were reported directly by permit offices; the rest are Census estimates for offices that did not report.
Looking Up Permits Elsewhere
The portals differ by jurisdiction, but the questions are the same. If the history turns up work that was never permitted, buying a house with unpermitted work explains what you would be taking on.