# Austin's rooftop-solar permits have halved since 2022

Published 2026-11-07 · By Pushbuild · Data: [Building Permits API – City Permits, Valuations and Contractors](https://pushbuild.com/apis/building-permits.html)

**Austin issued 2,479 permits mentioning solar in 2022 and 1,202 in 2025.** Chicago peaked at 2,363 in 2024 and fell to 1,929; Philadelphia went from 1,787 to 1,485. All Austin permits fell 23% over the same years.

AustinChicagoPhiladelphia

| Year | Austin | Chicago | Philadelphia |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2018 | 1,534 | 261 | 587 |
| 2019 | 2,099 | 1,033 | 665 |
| 2020 | 2,128 | 1,344 | 541 |
| 2021 | 2,468 | 1,252 | 634 |
| 2022 | 2,479 | 1,728 | 1,287 |
| 2023 | 2,151 | 1,608 | 1,471 |
| 2024 | 1,604 | 2,363 | 1,787 |
| 2025 | 1,202 | 1,929 | 1,485 |

## Caveats

Permits whose description mentions solar, photovoltaic or PV. Cities word descriptions differently, so compare each city with itself.

## Sources

- [Chicago Data Portal, building permits](https://data.cityofchicago.org/Buildings/Building-Permits/ydr8-5enu), read through the Pushbuild [Building Permits API](https://pushbuild.com/apis/building-permits.html) on 2026-11-07

Data as of 2026-11-07. Every figure in this post is in the table above and the CSV below.

Download the data behind this post: [b1-solar-permits-by-year.csv](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/data/b1-solar-permits-by-year.csv)

## Get this data

Every number in this post comes from the [Building Permits API – City Permits, Valuations and Contractors](https://pushbuild.com/apis/building-permits.html). $0.0008 per row returned; every key gets $1 of free usage each month.

```
curl -X POST https://api.pushbuild.com/building-permits/run \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jurisdictions": ["seattle"], "description": "solar", "maxItems": 20}'
```

[API docs and key](https://pushbuild.com/apis/building-permits.html)[More analysis from this data](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/api/building-permits/)Embed this chart

Free to reuse with the credit link. Paste this HTML into your page, or use the [SVG file](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/solar-permits-austin-chicago-philadelphia/chart.svg).

Want a table like this in Google Sheets, refreshed on demand? Free script: [copy a web table into Google Sheets](https://pushbuild.com/free/scripts/website-table-to-sheets/).

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As of 2026-11-07. Source: https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/solar-permits-austin-chicago-philadelphia/