In Sacramento County the first question is not how to search but where. The City of Sacramento and the county run separate permit offices with separate online portals. An address inside city limits is in the city's system; an address in the unincorporated county is in the county's. Check which one applies before you start, because the two portals also work differently.
Inside the City of Sacramento
The city's Public Permit Portal can be searched without an account. Open the Building tab and search by any of:
- permit number;
- site address, entered as street number and street name in separate boxes;
- parcel number;
- contractor license number.
Fill in both the street number and the street name. A short street name on its own, such as a lettered downtown street, can bring back more than a hundred records for other addresses. The parcel number, from the county assessor, is the most precise way in.
Each result shows the date, permit number, record type, a description of the work, the address and its status. Read the description: it usually says exactly what was done, such as a heat pump change-out, a solar installation or a garage converted to an accessory dwelling unit. Then check the status. An application or plan review submittal is not a permit, and an issued permit is not finished work until its inspections are complete. The portal runs on Accela, and our guide to Accela Citizen Access explains how to read record statuses and inspection history.
In unincorporated Sacramento County
The county's portal, also on Accela, is at actonline.saccounty.gov. Unlike the city's, its Building search asks you to register for an account and log in before it will return records. If you would rather not register, ask the seller for the permit numbers and final inspection records for any work they mention, or ask the county's building office directly.
If the address is in another city in the county, neither portal may hold its permits. Confirm the city first, then go to that city's building department.
If the house is in Natomas
The Natomas Basin, in north Sacramento, sits behind levees, and its flood zone has changed twice. After the levees were re-evaluated, FEMA remapped the basin into an AE high-risk flood zone in December 2008, which effectively stopped new building there. Since June 16, 2015 it has carried an A99 designation. The City of Sacramento describes A99 as an interim flood zone that is still considered high risk, and says property owners with a federally backed mortgage still need flood insurance because the levee improvements are not complete. That is the federal purchase requirement in 42 U.S.C. § 4012a, which applies across the high-risk zones.
So a Natomas house bought with a federally backed mortgage will need flood insurance, whatever its permits show. Price it during your inspection period; our guide to looking up a flood zone by address explains why the premium depends on the house, not just the zone. For City of Sacramento addresses, the city's Floodplain Information Line is 916-808-5061.
A free Before Regret report for the address adds what to inspect for a home of its age and county, the questions to ask the seller, and links to the records worth pulling yourself.
What Sacramento County Is Permitting Right Now
Sacramento County still builds mostly houses: 77% of the 3,653 units permitted so far this year are single-family. That side is down 10.2%, from 3,117 to 2,798 homes, while multifamily permits are up 19.9% to 855 units, leaving the county total down 4.6%. In a county where most new homes are houses, a slowdown in house permits is the number that matters for anyone comparing an older home against new construction.
Source: US Census Bureau Building Permits Survey, county file, year to date through July 2026 against the same months of 2025. 99.6% of these units were reported directly by permit offices; the rest are Census estimates for offices that did not report.