Opening + Renewal Signal · B2B vendors in Cook County
Every business that just opened in Chicago, and every one whose licence is about to expire. One vendor per category gets the list.
We read the City of Chicago’s own licence register every morning, throw out the event permits and the peddler licences, and hand you what’s left with the business officer’s name already on it. Twelve vendor categories across Cook County. One subscriber each. When yours is taken, it’s taken.
Sellable openings · 30 days
325
City of Chicago r5kz-chrr · 2026-07-29
Sellable renewals · ≤ 60 days
4,162
City of Chicago r5kz-chrr · 2026-07-29
Register lag
1 day
max(date_issued) on r5kz-chrr · 2026-07-29
Owner-record join
544 / 544
City of Chicago ezma-pppn · 2026-07-29
These are the numbers. Go check them.
Chicago publishes all of this. No login, no scraping, no vendor in the middle. Every figure below was measured on 29 July 2026 and the dataset ID is printed next to it so you can run the same query.
| Figure | What it is | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 603 | New business licences issued in the 30 days to 29 July 2026 | r5kz-chrr · application_type = 'ISSUE' |
| 5,056 | Active licences expiring within 60 days — 2,405 of them within 30 | r5kz-chrr · license_status = 'AAI' |
| 1 day | Gap between the newest licence in the register and the day we read it. Newest issue date 28 July, read 29 July | max(date_issued) on r5kz-chrr |
| 544 of 544 | Opening accounts that matched at least one owner record in the city's business-owner register. The owner's name arrives with the record | ezma-pppn · 329,696 records · joined on account_number |
| 30 | Distinct licence types issued in a single month, from Retail Food Establishment to Commercial Garage | r5kz-chrr · license_description |
259 of those 603 go in the bin. Special-event food, peddler licences, pop-up retail, pharmaceutical representatives, raffles — 43% of the raw opening count is a temporary permit or a personal credential, not a business standing up a vendor stack. They are not your customer and you will not be billed for them.
What you actually get: 325 openings a month and 4,162 renewals inside the 60-day window.
That is after the transient permits are removed and after every account without a named corporate officer is held back. Those two numbers are the ones we sell against.
Four steps, and you can audit every one.
1
You pick a category, we check the map.
Twelve categories across Cook County, one subscriber each. If yours is already sold we say so on the call and you don't hear from us again. There is no waiting list that quietly becomes a second sale.
2
We read the city register every morning.
Two public datasets, no authentication, on a daily schedule. If the city stops publishing, our own freshness check catches it and you get told — we would rather send you an empty day with a reason than a stale list that looks full.
3
Every record is filtered before you see it.
Temporary and individual-credential licences are dropped. Accounts are joined to the city's owner register, and only records carrying a corporate officer title — president, managing member, partner, and the like — are released. Sole proprietors and unclassified titles are quarantined and never leave our system. That is a deliberate line: business-role records only, no consumer data.
4
You get openings daily and the renewal horizon weekly.
Each record carries the legal name, the trading name, the premises address and ward, the licence type, the issue or expiry date, the named officer, and a link straight back to the city's record for that licence. Check any row against the source in about ten seconds.
$750 a month. One category. Nobody else in Cook County.
Opening + Renewal Signal — One vendor category
$750/ month / category
- One vendor category, exclusive across Cook County.
- Daily openings and the rolling 60-day renewal horizon.
- Named business officer on every released record.
- Source link on every row.
An exclusive slot is confirmed open before any money is taken — availability is answered by email, first.
The twelve categories
- 01Business insurance
- 02Payments and POS
- 03Payroll and PEO
- 04Bookkeeping and accounting
- 05Waste and grease
- 06Linen and uniform
- 07Commercial cleaning
- 08Pest control
- 09Signage and build-out
- 10Security and alarm
- 11IT and telecom
- 12Equipment finance
There are twelve slots and one county. When the twelve are sold the product is sold out. We are not going to invent a thirteenth category to make a sale, and we are not going to widen your category to fit someone else in.
What $750 does not buy
- No phone numbers and no email addresses. The city does not publish them and we do not buy them.
- No consumer records of any kind.
- No introductions, no warm transfer, no guarantee anyone picks up.
- No exclusivity outside Cook County, because we do not cover outside Cook County.
Add-on — building violations. The violation feed exists on the same adapter, but it routes one violation to one trade, so it is sold only as an enrichment on an existing subscription and never as a reason to subscribe. It is not priced yet.
Three things you’re already thinking.
“This is public data. I can pull it myself.”
You can, and we will show you exactly how — the dataset IDs are printed further up this page. Two things you cannot pull yourself: the guarantee that no other POS reseller in Cook County is working the same 325 records this month, and the compliance filtering that decides which owner names are lawful to hand you. The first is the product. The second is the work. The raw file is free and always will be; that was never what we were selling.
“How many of these are actually worth calling?”
Fewer than the headline number, and we publish the gap. Of 603 licences issued last month, 259 were event permits or individual credentials and we throw them out. Those 603 licences sit under 544 business accounts, and 118 of those accounts carry no corporate officer we are willing to release — 115 are sole proprietors or individuals we quarantine on legal grounds, 3 carry only titles we cannot confirm are business roles. What reaches you is 325 openings and 4,162 renewals in the 60-day window, each with a named officer and a source link. Whether one of those becomes a customer depends on your offer and your follow-up, and anyone who quotes you a close rate for a list they have never sold is making it up.
“What stops you selling this to my competitor next month?”
The exclusivity is a database constraint, not a promise in a sales call. One subscriber per category per territory is enforced as a uniqueness rule in the system that generates the delivery, so a second sale into your category cannot be entered — it fails rather than quietly duplicating your feed. It is also in the contract. And the availability map on this site goes dark for your category the day you sign, which means your competitors can see it is gone.
FAQ
How do I verify any of this before I pay?
Ask for a live week. We send you real records from the current week — the same records a subscriber gets — with the source links attached, at no charge and with nothing to sign. Check them against the city portal yourself. If the data does not hold up, you have lost ten minutes.
How do I know whether my category is still open?
Ask, by email, and you get a straight answer. Twelve categories across Cook County, one subscriber each — if yours is already sold we say so and you don’t hear from us again. There is no waiting list that quietly becomes a second sale, and the availability map goes dark for a category the day it is signed.
Which records get filtered out before I see them?
Temporary and individual-credential licences — special-event food, peddler licences, pop-up retail, pharmaceutical representatives, raffles — are dropped. Accounts are joined to the city’s owner register, and only records carrying a corporate officer title are released. Sole proprietors and unclassified titles are quarantined and never leave our system: business-role records only, no consumer data.
Do you contact the businesses yourselves?
No. We do not call, email or write to any business in the feed, and we do not sell them anything. If we did, we would be competing with the people we sell to.
Why only Cook County? Can I get my other markets?
No, and here is the honest reason. We checked. New York City’s equivalent dataset was 103 days out of date when we measured it. Kansas City publishes no dates at all. Seattle, Austin and San Francisco publish no business-licence dataset on their open-data portals. Chicago publishes at a one-day lag, which is why this product exists here and nowhere else. When another city starts publishing usably we will say so; we are not going to sell you a market we cannot actually see.
What happens if I cancel?
Your category goes back on the map and someone else can buy it. There is no period where we hold it open and also sell it.
A live week, free
Real records from the current week — the same records a subscriber gets — with the source links attached, at no charge and with nothing to sign. If the data does not hold up, you have lost ten minutes.