How to read these records

The business and its licenses

The District gives each business a customer number and one license per activity. A record here is one customer number, with each active license, its end date and the date it was first issued.

Earlier records

Licenses that are no longer active are counted by the status the file gives them — closed, cancelled, expired, and the District's own “expired – enforcement” and penalty stages. The file does not say what followed.

Places

Premises in the District are listed by ward. Businesses located outside DC that hold a DC license are listed under their own city. Business improvement districts and Main Street programs are those the file gives.

What is not here

Sole proprietors, individual licenses, owners' and agents' names (the District file has them; this site never downloads them), one- and two-family rentals, short-term rentals.