929 New Contractors Entered Chicago’s Permit Records

Newcomers

929 contractors active in Chicago’s last 12 months of records were newcomers, representing 13.8% of 6,756 active named contractors.

Every permit in the period carried a contractor name. That gives the newcomer count a complete named-contractor base, rather than an estimate drawn from a subset of filings.

The number suggests a market with continuing contractor turnover even as total volume changed little. New names were present across a permit base of 30,263 filings.

Volume Held Nearly Flat

30,263 permits were recorded in the last 12 months, up 0.2% from 30,199 in the preceding 12 months. The increase was 64 permits.

That is a narrow change for a market with 664,804 distinct permit numbers in City of Chicago Department of Buildings records since 2009. The median declared value in the latest 12-month period was $39,448.

The 2026 annual count of 24,457 runs only through October 16, 2026, and is not comparable with full-year totals. The calendar has not yet finished its paperwork.

Electrical Work Appears on 62.4% of Filings

Electrical work appears on 62.4% of all permits in the last 12 months, or 18,874 filings. That places it close to building work, which shows up on 64.8% of permits, or 19,614 filings.

Plumbing work is included on 22.3% of permits, with 6,747 filings. Mechanical work appears on 13.1%, or 3,971 permits, while elevator work is listed on 3.7%, or 1,119.

The overlap matters. A single filing can include more than one trade, so these trade shares do not divide the market into separate pieces.

October Concentrated the Most Filings

October represented 9.6% of permits across the past 36 months, the highest share of any month. December was the quietest month at 6.3%.

The busiest-to-quietest monthly ratio was 1.5. That indicates a measurable seasonal range, though not a one-month market.

Electrical Contractors Led the Filing List

Sunrun Installation Services Inc led named contractors by permit count, with 1,635 electrical permits in the last 12 months. Current Electric, LLC followed with 420 electrical permits, and Texa Engineering recorded 303, also in electrical work.

Blue Line Electrical Contractors had 296 electrical permits and Chavez Electric had 283. Frackiel Builders, Incorporated was the highest-ranked building contractor in the list, at 282 permits.

The top 10 named contractors represented 13.6% of named permits. That is lower than Columbus, OH, where the top 10 share was 24.6%; the difference is 11.0 points. Chicago’s leading-filer list also included building contractor Peerless Enterprises LLC and plumbing contractor VJJ Plumbing, alongside further electrical firms.

These records cover distinct permit numbers from the City of Chicago Department of Buildings beginning in 2009, with the current data running through October 16, 2026. They do not link filings into projects with measured accuracy, so the data does not settle which filings belong to the same job or how work moved between trades.