About the data

Each filing comes from a state, county or city record. Subscribers get a link back to it.

What a filing is

Pending application
Filed and waiting on the state. From the agency's own applications list.
Newly licensed
Issued by the state. Where a state posts only a roster, new means not in our last pull.
Hearing or notice
A posted hearing or comment notice, ahead of a decision.

Sources vary by state: an open-data portal, an agency file, a public search form, a dashboard or a posted notice. Each state page names its source.

Rules

Filings come from government records only. No resellers, no news reports.
Some filings add what the record doesn't print: a phone or website found online, or a new owner or new operator worked out from the licenses at the address. An empty page says so.
Subscribers get a link to each filing's source, or the state's own search where it has no page of its own.
Left out: one-day and temporary permits, wholesalers, servers and managers.

Phones, names and websites

Where the state's filing has no phone or owner, we add them from other public records: the state's business registry (the officers or registered agent on file), county and city health and business permits, and the business's own website. Phones and websites also come from Overture Maps place listings, matched by street address and business name.

New restaurants

Subscribers also get new restaurants, coffee shops and bars that may never file for a liquor license, from health inspections and food permits (New York City, Chicago, San Diego County, Wake County NC), state tax and food licenses (every Texas city, every Florida county) and the City of Los Angeles's business registrations. New wineries and distilleries in every state come from federal basic permits. These are changed from their source: matched, de-duplicated and trimmed to restaurants and bars. None of these agencies endorses this service.

Wake County data: Wake County GIS, under CC BY 4.0, modified. Texas data: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, via the Texas Open Data Portal. New wineries and distilleries: Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) basic permits. Chicago: This site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. The data provided at this site is subject to change at any time. It is understood that the data provided at this site is being used at one’s own risk.

Freshness

Local-board states (Massachusetts, Georgia and others) have no statewide list. Coverage grows a few authorities at a time.
Where a state posts only a roster, a new filing means one that was not in our last pull. A state's first pull loads as history, not as new filings.
Each state sets its own pace. Wisconsin relies on town clerks, so its newly licensed filings can lag by months.
A source can change without notice. Each state page shows its last successful update.

Each state page shows its last update and how often the state publishes. Coverage lists every state. Monthly reports count new applications by state.

What free visitors see

City, county, license type, status and date for every filing. A few filings in each window show in full, the newest among them; the rest hide the business name and street address. Pick one county on a state page and that county's recent filings show in full, free, with no card, so you can check names against the state's record. Subscribers see every filing in full. Every state page also offers a free sample: one full week of filings from a few weeks back in the subscriber layout (record links are for subscribers), to check against the state's record and to test an import.

Kansas

Not covered. Kansas law (K.S.A. 45-230) restricts selling name-and-address lists drawn from its public records. See the Kansas row on the coverage page.