How every number and record on this site is made

Sources and schedule

Lag is the number of days from the filed or issued date to the day (Eastern time) we first collected a record. Our first collection read each source back over several days at once, so records from that first run are left out of the median.

The filters, in the order they run

1. Official open data only

   Each source is an agency's own open-data copy, read through its published API with an honest, named client, two seconds between requests. A source is used only after its terms are read and saved, and only when they allow reuse.

2. Records about individuals removed before storage

   A contractor or debtor whose name has no company marker (LLC, Inc, Corp and the like) is treated as a person and dropped, so it is never stored. A property owner who is a person is never stored by name or street address.

3. Owner-builder permits dropped

   A permit whose contractor is "OWNER" is a person pulling their own permit: it is removed.

4. Terminations skipped, continuations applied

   Terminated and released filings are not delivered as new. Continuations move the lapse date, and lapse alerts are re-checked against the state's data for continuations and terminations.

5. Filings that are not new financing set aside

   The U.S. Small Business Administration re-files its old COVID-era disaster loans as new UCC-1s, in batches of hundreds: they are marked as government disaster-loan filings and never counted or delivered as new filings. Notices filed by private persons against banks, insurers or employers are not financing and are dropped. See "Traps in these records" below.

6. Permit values counted once per job

   Miami-Dade sub-permits (electrical, plumbing and the like, issued under a main permit) repeat the main permit's value, and a few values are impossible (phone numbers typed into the value field, $1 placeholders, over $10,000 a square foot). Every value total counts each job once: sub-permits and same-day repeats on one property are left out, and unusable values are never added. Each sub-permit is still delivered as a trade lead, its value marked as the whole job's.

7. Same-day repeat filings merged

   UCC filings with the same company, lender and day become one row, in the email, the CSV and the public sample files alike, and filings_merged says how many it stands for. Each permit reaches a subscriber once, on the first morning we collect it.

8. Filing agents labelled

   When the secured party is a filing service acting for a lender, the row says "filed through an agent" rather than guessing the lender.

9. Categories by fixed rules

   Trades and equipment categories come from fixed keyword rules on the permit type and description, or the collateral text; no AI model is used. When only the lender's name gives a category, the row says "(based on the lender)". A trade sub-permit (Miami-Dade ELEC, PLUM, MECH) takes its own trade, so an electrician on a pool job is filed as electrical. Blanket liens, accounts, inventory and receivables lines, merchant cash advances and landlords' liens get their own categories and are never counted or sold as equipment, even when their long lists of property also say "equipment" or "farm products".

10. Miami-Dade places from the folio number

    The county dataset's City field is a mailing city ("MIAMI" on nearly every row). The place comes from the first two digits of the folio number, the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser's municipality code: "Unincorporated Miami-Dade" or the city's name. The folio number itself is not kept.

11. Names partly hidden on public pages

    Example rows on this website and in the instant sample files show company names partly hidden. Lists of the most active contractors and lenders show full company names, which are public business records.

From the latest collection runs:

• Colorado (statewide): the run of Tue, Nov 3, 2026, 8:45 p.m. ET kept 9 filing records, removed 1 individual debtors, skipped 12 terminations.
• Connecticut (statewide; no collateral text): the run of Tue, Nov 3, 2026, 8:46 p.m. ET kept 146 filing records, removed 20 individual debtors.
• Miami-Dade (county-issued permits): the run of Tue, Nov 3, 2026, 8:45 p.m. ET read 36 permits, kept 28 and removed 8 owner-builder permits or contractors with no company marker, and 0 with no contractor or no usable date. Of the permits kept, 6 were sub-permits (6 repeating their main permit's value), 0 had a value that is not usable and 0 repeated another permit's value on the same property and day.
• Tallahassee–Leon (new construction only): the run of Tue, Nov 3, 2026, 8:45 p.m. ET read 2 permits, kept 2 and removed 0 owner-builder permits or contractors with no company marker, and 0 with no contractor or no usable date.
• City of Miami (city-issued permits): the run of Tue, Nov 3, 2026, 8:45 p.m. ET read 125 permits, kept 102 and removed 11 owner-builder permits or contractors with no company marker, and 12 with no contractor or no usable date. Of the permits kept, 0 were sub-permits (0 repeating their main permit's value), 1 had a value that is not usable and 1 repeated another permit's value on the same property and day.
• Cape Coral (city-issued permits): the run of Tue, Nov 3, 2026, 8:45 p.m. ET read 157 permits, kept 78 and removed 7 owner-builder permits or contractors with no company marker, and 72 with no contractor or no usable date.
• Leesburg (city-issued permits): the run of Tue, Nov 3, 2026, 8:45 p.m. ET read 18 permits, kept 15 and removed 3 owner-builder permits or contractors with no company marker, and 0 with no contractor or no usable date.

Count definitions

• Equipment UCC-1s: new UCC-1 filings against companies in an equipment category. Blanket liens ("all assets"), inventory and receivables lines, merchant cash advances and filings no rule could place are left out, because an equipment subscriber does not receive them.
• Building permits: permits from company contractors with a trade assigned. Owner-builder permits were removed when collected.
• Dated windows: each count covers the complete days ending yesterday (Eastern time), shown as an explicit date range. While a source has been collected for less than the window, the label says so ("since Oct 27") instead of claiming a full week; no 30-day figure is shown before 30 days have been collected.
• Never counted: lifetime totals, records read before filtering, or the day still being collected.

What was read before the filters, for the same days:

• Colorado (statewide): 441 new UCC-1s against companies read, Oct 27–Nov 2; 331 of them were blanket liens, inventory or receivables lines, merchant cash advances or uncategorized, so 110 are counted as equipment filings.
• Connecticut (statewide; no collateral text): 377 new UCC-1s against companies read, Oct 27–Nov 2; 326 of them were blanket liens, inventory or receivables lines, merchant cash advances or uncategorized, so 51 are counted as equipment filings.
• Miami-Dade (county-issued permits): 875 permits from company contractors, Oct 27–Nov 2; 861 have a trade assigned and are counted.
• Tallahassee–Leon (new construction only): 7 permits from company contractors, Oct 27–Nov 2; 7 have a trade assigned and are counted.
• City of Miami (city-issued permits): 532 permits from company contractors, Oct 27–Nov 2; 514 have a trade assigned and are counted.
• Cape Coral (city-issued permits): 430 permits from company contractors, Oct 27–Nov 2; 368 have a trade assigned and are counted.
• Leesburg (city-issued permits): 53 permits from company contractors, Oct 27–Nov 2; 52 have a trade assigned and are counted.

Data dictionary

Every subscriber CSV has the same 26 columns in this order. "Filled" is the share of each source's delivered records (data window to Nov 3, 2026) where the column has a value.

Equipment-finance signals: the 26 CSV columns

Florida construction signals: the 26 CSV columns

Download the data dictionary (CSV)

Traps in these records

Things in each agency's own data that would mislead a count if taken at face value, and what we do about each one.

Colorado (statewide)

• The U.S. Small Business Administration re-files its old COVID-era disaster loans as new UCC-1s. From 3 July to 2 November 2026, 1,465 Colorado UCC-1s named the SBA as secured party, 1,436 of them in two batches (917 on 11 August, 519 on 23 September). They are typed "Initial Filing" and lapse in 2031, but 924 use the SBA's standard disaster-loan collateral wording, 519 begin "Collateral paragraph should read as:", and 7 of 8 sampled debtors already had an SBA filing from June 2020 to July 2021 that had lapsed: no new money moved. We mark them "government disaster-loan filing" and leave them out of every new-filing count, page and digest. SBA 504 project filings (5 in that period) are new financing and are kept.
• Private persons file "notices" against banks, insurers, debt buyers and employers, with only a person or a person's trust as secured party: "PLEASE SEE: ATTACHMENT A, CREDIT CARD ACCOUNT(S)", "... CORRECTION OF EARNINGS", "notice of non claim", or a person's name and number typed in as the debtor. 12 of the 453 new UCC-1s against companies filed 27 to 31 October 2026 were such notices. They are not financing and often name the person, so they are dropped before storage.
• The SBA's name ("U.S. Small Business Administration") has no company marker. Until 3 November 2026 our companies-only name test withheld it as if it were a person, so earlier SBA filings show no secured party; the collateral wording still identifies them.
• Many collateral lines only point to an attachment ("see Exhibit A"), so the equipment is not always named in the open data.

Colorado (statewide), Oct 27–Nov 2: 0 government disaster-loan filings and 0 notices filed by private persons were set aside, not counted as new UCC-1s.

Connecticut (statewide; no collateral text)

• The U.S. Small Business Administration's batch re-filings of old COVID-era disaster loans are here too: 1,038 Connecticut UCC-1s named the SBA as secured party from 1 August to 2 November 2026, mostly on 11-12 August and 23-25 September (the same days as Colorado's), and the table still holds 2021 SBA filings for some of the same debtors. Connecticut publishes no collateral text, so a filing whose only company secured party is the SBA is marked "government disaster-loan filing" and left out of every new-filing count, page and digest.
• No collateral text is published, so the equipment type comes only from the lender's name.
• Until 3 November 2026 our companies-only name test withheld "U.S. Small Business Administration" as if it were a person, so earlier SBA filings show no secured party.

Connecticut (statewide; no collateral text), Oct 27–Nov 2: 0 government disaster-loan filings and 0 notices filed by private persons were set aside, not counted as new UCC-1s.

Miami-Dade (county-issued permits)

• Sub-permits repeat their main permit's value. An electrical, plumbing, mechanical or building permit issued under a main ("master") permit names it in MasterPermitNumber ("0000000000" when there is none) and copies its estimated value: 321 of the 325 sub-permits issued 27 October to 2 November 2026 whose main permit could be read carried exactly the main permit's value. Adding up every permit counts those jobs again and again: in the 90 days 27 June to 24 September 2026, 5,242 sub-permits carried $12.2 billion of a $50.2 billion raw total. We keep each sub-permit as a trade lead, show its value as the whole job's, and count the job once, under its main permit.
• A few values are impossible. Ten-digit phone numbers were typed into the value field ($7.9 billion to $9.5 billion on alterations of 1,144 to 1,433 sq ft; four of them made up $33.1 billion of that 90-day total), and some values are placeholders ($1, $10) or come to more than $10,000 per published square foot ($230 million for a 6,500 sq ft house). They are marked "value not usable", left blank and never added up (the limits, and the evidence for each, are kept in our value rules file).
• Two permits for one property can carry the same whole-project value on the same day (two $154.3 million permits on one parcel on 28 October 2026). The value is counted once, on the first permit; the folio number is compared in memory only and never stored.
• The City field is a mailing city ("MIAMI" on nearly every row), not where the work is: the place comes from the first two digits of the folio number instead.
• Counted the way described here, the 17,608 permits of those 90 days that add up to $50.2 billion raw come to $4.38 billion over 11,050 jobs: the 5,242 sub-permits ($12.2 billion), 32 unusable values ($33.6 billion: 22 placeholders under $100, 4 phone numbers, 5 over $10,000 a square foot and one $137.7 million fire-system alteration) and 318 same-day repeats on one property ($31 million) are left out (checked 2026-11-03).

Miami-Dade (county-issued permits), Oct 27–Nov 2: the usable published values of 875 permits add up to $317,471,709; counted once per job, the declared value is $83,778,361 (535 jobs). Left out: 290 sub-permits repeating their main permit's value, 6 other sub-permits, 2 same-day repeats on one property and 2 values not usable.

City of Miami (city-issued permits)

• A trade permit's ScopeofWork is the whole process's scope: an electrical permit for a new house reads 'NEW CONSTRUCTION'. Its trade comes from the code in its permit number (E, P, MA, BR ...) instead, and its description is its own work items, so it is never counted as a new building.
• Trade permits carry their own price, not the building permit's: of the 859 trade permits that shared a process with its building permit in the 90 days 5 August to 2 November 2026, 4 had the building permit's value. Each permit's value counts once.
• Records with the code IF are issued already final, do no work of their own and carry the whole project's value ($130 million to $157 million on new towers; 8 in the year to November 2026). Their value is marked "value not usable" and never added up.
• Placeholder values: 29 of those 7,846 permits declared less than $100. They are marked "value not usable" under our general value rules.
• Two permits for one property (folio) issued the same day with the same value, the same trade code and the same work items are one job: the value is counted once, on the first permit. The folio is compared in memory only and never stored.

City of Miami (city-issued permits), Oct 27–Nov 2: the usable published values of 532 permits add up to $55,752,197; counted once per job, the declared value is $55,716,466 (492 jobs). Left out: 13 same-day repeats on one property and 5 values not usable.

Cape Coral (city-issued permits)

• One value was impossible: $40.1 million for a 2,372 sq ft single-family home, in the 8,465 permits issued 5 August to 2 November 2026. The area is written only in the description, so we read it from there, and a value over $10,000 per square foot is marked "value not usable" and never added up. Values under $100 (5 in those 90 days) are placeholders and are left out the same way.
• Condominium and apartment complexes get one permit per building, often with the same value on the same day (a fire-alarm job on each of five buildings). Those are separate jobs and each one counts. Two permits for the same parcel, issued the same day with the same value and the same description, are one job: the value is counted once. The parcel number is compared in memory only and never stored.
• About a quarter of the permits name no contractor (RV and boat-storage permits, owner work): they are left out, because a Signal is always about a contractor company.

Cape Coral (city-issued permits), Oct 27–Nov 2: the usable published values of 430 permits add up to $18,201,767; counted once per job, the declared value is $18,201,767 (424 jobs).

Leesburg (city-issued permits)

• The City field is the site's postal city: more than a quarter of Leesburg's permits (205 of the 706 issued 5 August to 2 November 2026) read 'The Villages', 'Howey-in-the-Hills' or 'Okahumpka'. Every record is placed in Leesburg, the city that issued it, and the postal city is kept beside it.
• Two permits for the same parcel issued the same day with the same value and the same description are one job (5 such pairs in the 706 permits issued 5 August to 2 November 2026): the value is counted once. The parcel key is compared in memory only and never stored.

Leesburg (city-issued permits), Oct 27–Nov 2: the usable published values of 53 permits add up to $2,306,434; counted once per job, the declared value is $2,306,434 (53 jobs).

Known limits

• Colorado's collateral text does not always name the equipment: 29% of the Colorado filings we hold could not be placed in any category.
• Colorado's record link opens the filing's own row in the state's open data (filing number, dates and lapse date). The debtor, the secured party and the collateral text are in three linked datasets that share the filing's file ID (debtors 8upq-58vz, secured parties ap62-sav4, collateral 4am6-w6u4, at data.colorado.gov), or search the filing number on the Colorado Secretary of State's UCC search.
• Connecticut publishes no collateral text, so a Connecticut filing gets an equipment category only from the lender's name: 85% of the Connecticut filings we hold (377 filings) have none and are not counted as equipment filings.
• Miami-Dade's dataset holds only permits issued by the county's own building department. The City of Miami's own permits come from the city's dataset, a separate area here; permits issued by the other cities with their own building departments, such as Hialeah and Miami Beach, are not in either. In our data, 88% of 870 Miami-Dade permits are on unincorporated parcels.
• Every permit's record link asks the agency's layer for the permit's company-level fields only (permit, dates, contractor, value, work type), never the owner's name, the street address or free text that could name a homeowner.
• Tallahassee–Leon publishes active new-construction permits only: no re-roof, electrical or plumbing permits, and permits leave the source once completed (7 permits held so far).
• The latest days can be incomplete: agencies publish some records days after they are filed or issued, so recent counts can still rise.
• Not every lease or loan is filed: some lessors do not file UCC-1s, so no UCC source shows the whole market.

Weekly manual check

Each week, 20 records per feed are compared by hand with the official record. No weekly check has been logged yet; the first result will appear here with its date and the number of issues found.