Accela API
Accela Construct V4 is a fully documented REST API with OAuth 2.0, granular permission scopes, and official SDKs. There is no self-serve path to data: each agency's administrator must approve and install an app before it can transact. No webhooks; extraction is record-by-record.
Frequently asked questions
Accela scores F on the API Report Card. Accela Construct V4 is a fully documented REST API with OAuth 2.0, granular permission scopes, and official SDKs. There is no self-serve path to data: each agency's administrator must approve and install an app before it can transact. No webhooks; extraction is record-by-record.
Without a usable official API, teams fall back on manual exports, file drops, or one-off vendor integrations. The other option is an unofficial API layer like Supergood that automates the authenticated web app directly.
Accela is a San Ramon, California-based government software company founded in 1999 that builds an end-to-end cloud civic platform for U.S. state and local government, focused on the regulatory and constituent-service functions of cities, counties, and states, building permitting, planning & zoning, business and occupational licensing, code enforcement, environmental health, fire prevention, cannabis regulation, short-term rental enforcement, and 311 service-request management.
Government / Public Sector, specifically the regulatory, permitting, licensing, code-enforcement, environmental health, and citizen-service departments inside U.S. cities, counties, states, and select federal agencies, plus international deployments in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Singapore, and the UAE. Permit techs, plan reviewers, building inspectors, planners, code enforcement officers, business license officers, fire inspectors, and environmental health specialists use the Accela Civic Platform daily to intake applications, route plan review across multiple departments, schedule and dispatch inspections (with mobile field apps), issue permits and licenses, calculate and collect fees, manage conditions of approval, track violations and code-enforcement cases, conduct inspections of restaurants and pools, regulate cannabis dispensaries, and process short-term rental registrations.
High within its segment. Accela serves 900+ government agencies, 50%+ of top U.S. cities and counties, and reaches 300M+ citizens worldwide, with 25+ years in GovTech and approximately 500-1,000 employees.
Accela holds the system-of-record operating data for the regulatory and constituent-service functions of 900+ U.S. government agencies, including 50%+ of top U.S. cities and counties: every building permit application, plan review cycle, plan-check comment, fee schedule line, inspection result, certificate of occupancy, and condition of approval (Building Permitting); every planning case, zoning variance, conditional-use permit, environmental review (CEQA/NEPA), public hearing notice, and entitlement decision (Planning & Zoning); every business license, professional license, cannabis license, ABC license, and short-term rental registration with renewal histories and compliance events (Business & Occupational Licensing); every code-enforcement case, violation, citation, abatement, and lien (Code Enforcement); every restaurant/pool/septic inspection and food-handler permit (Environmental Health); every fire prevention inspection, hazardous-materials disclosure, and life-safety violation (Fire Prevention); every right-of-way permit, encroachment, and street-cut record (Right of Way); every 311 service request, status update, and dispatch event (Service Request Management); and the contact, parcel, professional-license, and owner cross-references that link those records into the agency's land/business graph.
Mixed. Accela is a 26-year-old company (founded 1999) whose original product was an on-prem Java/Oracle stack that has been migrated to a SaaS deployment on AWS as Civic Platform.
API access is not self-serve, registering a developer app yields credentials but the app must be approved/installed by each individual agency's Civic Platform administrator before it can transact against that agency's data, blocking horizontal multi-tenant integrators. Authentication is split across four OAuth flows plus a CivicID identity layer with agency-scoped vs. citizen-scoped tokens and a granular permission-scope model, increasing implementation complexity for first-time integrators. Full sourced list under Sources below.
Common alternatives include Tyler Technologies (EnerGov / Enterprise Permitting & Licensing), OpenGov (ViewPoint Cloud), CentralSquare Technologies, Cloudpermit, SmartGov (Dude Solutions / Brightly), Cityworks (Trimble). Graded alternatives appear under "More from the report card" below.
Grades measure one thing: can a customer's engineering team get their own data out programmatically? We check six things (whether a real API exists, how access is gated, data coverage, auth quality, docs and developer experience, and stability) and roll them into a letter grade. Grades get re-verified, and they only move on evidence.
Yes. Supergood maintains an unofficial Accela API and MCP server so AI agents and internal tools can read and write Accela data. See the Accela integration docs at supergood.ai/docs/accela-api.