{"slug":"us-business-license","domain":"commerce","title":"US business licences: who just got permission to open","summary":"Liquor licences and retail food permits by place and date — a venue with a lease signed and no suppliers yet.","help":"us-business-license: venues newly licensed to open, as JSON.\n\nRETURNS\n  One JSON object on stdout.\n\nWHAT A LICENCE MEANS\n  A liquor licence or a retail food permit is the last thing a venue obtains\n  before it can trade, and the first public record that it exists. A newly\n  licensed premises has a lease signed, a fit-out paid for and no supplier\n  relationships yet.\n\nFOUR REGISTERS, AND NAMING ANOTHER IS REFUSED\n  `chicago`, `ny`, `co`, `mo`. Anywhere else is refused by name, and the\n  refusal lists what is covered — answering emptily would read as \"nothing\n  opened there\". You name the place and the answer about that place is\n  complete, which is why partial coverage is honest here.\n\n  Chicago is the richest: 1.2 million business licences including 187,000\n  retail food and 19,800 taverns, and the only register that distinguishes a\n  new licence from a renewal.\n\nA RENEWAL IS NOT AN OPENING\n  Renewals outnumber openings roughly three to one where they can be told\n  apart, so they are excluded by default. Where the register cannot say,\n  `new_only_honoured` comes back false — read it, because a renewal read as an\n  opening is a nine-year-old bar reported as news.\n\nStudies:\n  list \u003cjurisdiction\u003e\n      businesses newly licensed to open in one jurisdiction\n\nJSON to stdout, so it composes: pipe to `jq` to pick a field, or `\u003e /tmp/…` to keep it.\nRun a study with no arguments — `us-business-license list` — to see what it takes.\n","example_command":"us-business-license list chicago","example_output":"","cost_class":"upstream-fetch","tier":"metered","billing_items":["signals_licenses"],"price_per_1k_calls":6,"price_is_from":false,"status":"available","commands":["us-business-license"],"studies":[{"call":"list","about":"businesses newly licensed to open in one jurisdiction","args":[{"name":"jurisdiction","positional":true,"list":false,"hint":"chicago | ny | co | mo — required; there is no national register"},{"name":"since","positional":false,"list":false,"hint":"YYYY-MM-DD, default the last 30 days"},{"name":"kind","positional":false,"list":false,"hint":"food | tavern | liquor — matched against the licence type"},{"name":"company","positional":false,"list":false,"hint":"match a business name instead of browsing the window"},{"name":"new_only","positional":false,"list":false,"hint":"true | false — exclude renewals; only Chicago can tell"},{"name":"limit","positional":false,"list":false,"hint":"how many licences"}]}],"default_enabled":false,"first_seen":"2026-09-28T05:09:33.097255Z","enabled":false}