Seattle Permit Lookup — Direct Portal Deep-Link
The Seattle Services Portal — built on Accela — is the official SDCI system for construction permits, land use applications, Design Review submittals, complaints, rental registration, and tree permits. It pulls from the same database SDCI plan-checkers and inspectors use day-to-day. We deep-link you straight to the source.
Opens on cosaccela.seattle.gov — official City of Seattle Accela instance.
What you can look up
The portal accepts address, parcel number, project number, and permit number queries. Each parcel surfaces every permit ever pulled, every land use decision (with full Director’s Reports and SEPA determinations attached as PDFs), every Design Review Board packet, every code complaint and resolution, and the property’s rental registration status under the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance (RRIO). For older paper records, the SDCI Microfilm Library at the Seattle Municipal Tower fills the gaps. Seattle exposes more attached documents on permits than most West Coast cities — full plan sets, energy code compliance forms, and inspection report PDFs are routinely available for download.
How to read Seattle permit codes
Seattle permit numbers follow a year-prefix pattern. The prefix tells you the discipline: BLD (Building), ELE (Electrical), MEC (Mechanical), PLM (Plumbing), SCI (Side Sewer / Drainage), SDCI-CAM (Construction & Inspections — Construction Activity Management), LU (Land Use), MUP (Master Use Permit), DR (Design Review), SHO (Shoreline), STR (Street Use), TR (Tree). Subtypes get more specific: a BLD … ADD/ALT is an addition or alteration to an existing structure; BLD … NEW is new construction. The Master Use Permit is Seattle-specific — it bundles SEPA review, land use approval, and design review into one umbrella before any building permit can issue. Status reads as Application Accepted, In Review, Issued, Final, Expired, or Cancelled. Inspection statuses follow a Required / Approved / Disapproved / Partial grading.
Red flags to watch for
Seattle’s top red flag is tree-code violations— the city’s exceptional tree ordinance is aggressive, and removal of a regulated tree without an SDCI tree permit creates a mitigation order with planting and survival requirements that can drag for years. Look for tree complaints in the parcel record. Second: Design Review Boardpackets that show projects materially changed during DRB but where those changes don’t reflect in the issued building permit — meaning the contractor built the original, not the DRB-approved revised design. Third: SEPA determinations that lapsed before construction started — the SEPA clock is real and a stale Determination of Non-Significance can force re-review. Fourth: open RRIO violationson rental properties — Seattle’s Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance carries fines and tenant remedies that follow the property. Fifth: side sewer issues — Seattle homeowners are responsible for the side sewer all the way to the main, and unpermitted side sewer repairs (or worse, none at all on a failed line) generate enforcement and insurance issues. Sixth: shoreline permit gaps on waterfront — the Shoreline Management Act applies, and unpermitted dock / bulkhead work is a state-level violation, not just city.
Questions LA homeowners actually ask
Yes. SDCI is the rebranded Department of Planning and Development. Older permit records still reference DPD — the data carried over, but search results may surface DPD-era nomenclature on legacy records.
AskBaily does not scrape SDCI
We have no SDCI database mirror, no scraped permit cache. The deep-link above is the entire integration — the homeowner reads the City of Seattle record on the City of Seattle system. That is the only way to know what is actually on file.
Last reviewed 2026-04-24.