Floor plan guide
You cannot look up a floor plan by address in one place: there is no single database of house floor plans. A plan only exists where someone once drew one, for a sale listing, a planning or permit application, the builder or the tax assessor. In the UK, 2,334 of 3,000 recently sold homes we checked (78%) still showed the listing floor plan online. In the US, 6 of 25 large counties show a free outline sketch of the house, and none showed the rooms inside.
This page is part of our floor plan guide. For what a floor plan shows and the four kinds, start with what is a floor plan
No. Floor plans of private homes are not collected in one place, in the UK or the US. What you can find depends on whether the house was sold with a plan, extended with permission, or recorded by an assessor who draws sketches.
A listing plan is the agent's marketing drawing: rooms, room sizes, sometimes the total area. An assessor sketch is a tax record: the outline of the house and the length of each wall, with no rooms. Blueprints, or permit plans, are the drawings filed to get the house built or extended: the most detailed of the three, and usually released only to the owner.
On 24 September 2026, the first Google result for "floor plan lookup by address", "how to find floor plans of a house" and "how to get floor plan of my house" was the same map, titled Floor Plan Lookup. It belongs to Montana State University's campus planning office and shows floor plans of the university's own buildings. It does not cover homes.
Satellite view and Street View give you the outline of the building and the front of the house. They show nothing inside. At most, the roof outline tells you the rough footprint.
Rightmove, Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com only have a floor plan if the agent drew or commissioned one for the sale. In the UK most agents do, which is why the UK numbers below are high.
Tax assessors hold the size of the house and, in some counties, an outline sketch. Planning departments and building departments hold the drawings people submitted when they applied to build or extend. A house that was never extended may have nothing on file.
Try these in order: the first two are free and take minutes; the ones further down take days or weeks and usually need you to own the house.
| Where to look | What you usually get | Cost | How long | Works in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old sale listings (Rightmove, Zoopla, Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com) | The agent's marketing plan: rooms, room sizes, often total area. A picture, not a drawing file | Free | Minutes | UK (found for 78% of recent sales we checked); US (not measured) |
| The same house type on your street | A neighbour's listing plan, usually the same layout or a mirror image | Free | Minutes | UK terraced and semi-detached streets; US subdivisions from one builder |
| County tax assessor (US) | Size, bedrooms and bathrooms; in some counties an outline sketch with wall lengths | Free | Minutes | US (outline sketch in 6 of 25 counties we checked) |
| Council planning portal (UK) | Drawings from any planning application: often the proposed plan, sometimes the existing one too | Free online; older paper files may cost | Minutes online; days to weeks for paper files | UK, for homes that have had an application |
| Building or permit department (US) | Plans filed with a permit, if they were kept | Copy fees, for example $8 for the first page in New York City | 2 business days to about 6 weeks, where stated | US, usually only for the owner or with the owner's written consent |
| The builder or developer | The brochure plan for your house type | Free | Days, if they reply | Newer estates and subdivisions |
| Your own papers | Survey or inspection reports, sale brochures, lease plans, the previous owner's folder | Free | An afternoon | Anywhere |
Whichever you find, it shows the house as it was when it was drawn. Walls moved since then will not be on it.
For 78% of the homes we checked, it did. We took 3,000 homes that sold between February 2023 and July 2026 across 12 postcode districts, from Plymouth to Edinburgh, and read whether each one's Rightmove sold-price page still carried the floor plan from its listing.
78%
2,334 of 3,000 recently sold UK homes still showed their listing floor plan on Rightmove
| Property type | Floor plan shown | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Flats | 682 / 976 | 70% |
| Terraced houses | 957 / 1,174 | 82% |
| Semi-detached houses | 508 / 614 | 83% |
| Detached houses | 178 / 218 | 82% |
Older sales were less likely to have one: 83% of the 2026 sales in our sample had a plan against 63% of the 2023 sales. The older sales in our sample come mostly from the quieter districts, so read that as a hint, not a rule.
| Postcode district | Share | Floor plan shown | Sales covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oxford OX4 | 88% | 219 / 250 | 2024-08 – 2026-07 |
| Manchester M20 | 87% | 217 / 250 | 2025-02 – 2026-07 |
| Bristol BS7 | 86% | 216 / 250 | 2024-10 – 2026-07 |
| Norwich NR2 | 86% | 215 / 250 | 2024-04 – 2026-07 |
| Cardiff CF14 | 84% | 209 / 250 | 2025-07 – 2026-07 |
| Leeds LS6 | 79% | 197 / 250 | 2023-09 – 2026-07 |
| Plymouth PL4 | 78% | 196 / 250 | 2024-04 – 2026-07 |
| Edinburgh EH10 | 78% | 195 / 250 | 2025-03 – 2026-07 |
| London SW11 | 76% | 189 / 250 | 2025-07 – 2026-07 |
| Nottingham NG7 | 66% | 165 / 250 | 2023-06 – 2026-07 |
| Birmingham B17 | 64% | 161 / 250 | 2023-02 – 2026-07 |
| Newcastle NE6 | 62% | 155 / 250 | 2024-08 – 2026-07 |
Open Rightmove's sold house prices
Search your postcode or street on Rightmove's House Prices page. Sales recorded by HM Land Registry, and by Registers of Scotland for Scottish homes, are listed, most recent first.
Find your address
Open the entry for your house. If it was sold through an agent that listed on Rightmove, the page keeps the photos and the floor plan from that listing.
Open the floor plan
The floor plan sits with the listing photos. You can view it without an account; save a copy for your own reference.
Check the other portals
If Rightmove has nothing, search the address on Zoopla and OnTheMarket, and search the address in quotes with the words floor plan: agents' own websites often keep old brochures.
The plan belongs to whoever drew it. The one we opened to check our reading said so at the bottom: the drawing firm "retains the copyright on this plan and allows agents to use it with agreed permission". Using it to plan your own renovation is one thing; putting it on your own sale listing is another. For that, have it redrawn or draw your own.
What this does not tell you: homes last sold before 2023 are not in our sample, and a home that was never sold through an agent has no listing to find. We checked the flag on every home against the page itself for 8 of them at random, and all 8 matched.
Of the 666 homes in our sample without a floor plan, 398 (60%) had a house of the same type on the same street whose listing did show one. Terraces and estates were built to a handful of patterns, so the house next door is often your layout, or its mirror image.
Look for sales on your street of the same property type and number of bedrooms. On a terrace, houses on the same side of the street are usually the same depth.
Pairs of semis and alternate terraced houses are often built as mirror images, with the stairs and the kitchen on the other side.
Extensions, loft conversions and knocked-through rooms are what make one house different from the next. Walk your own rooms with the neighbour's plan in hand and mark the changes.
If the house has ever had a planning application, usually yes, and for free. Council planning portals publish the drawings that came with each application. A house that has never been extended or altered with permission may have nothing on file.
It varies by council. Manchester's register has text records back to 1974, but the drawings themselves are online only for applications made from 1 October 2005. For older applications it shows a register entry, not the plans.
“For applications made since 1st October 2005, the associated documents, such as the application form, plans and decision notice are available to view.”
Manchester City Council: see or comment on planning applications
Many applications include both the existing floor plans and the proposed ones. Some include only the proposed plan of the part being changed. If the work was built, the proposed plan is closer to the house today.
Planning drawings are published so people can comment on the application. They stay the architect's copyright. Manchester's page notes they may be downloaded or printed only for consultation. Treat them as a reference for your own planning, like a listing plan.
The title plan you get from HM Land Registry shows the boundary of the land on a map. A lease plan for a flat shows the flat's outline. Neither shows the rooms.
We could not count the UK planning channel home by home: the Oxford and Manchester portals refused connections from outside the UK when we ran our checks. Search your own council's portal by address; it takes a minute.
In all 19 of the 25 large counties we could open, the assessor's record was free and needed no account. It gives the size of the house and often the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Only 6 showed a sketch: the outline of the house with the length of each wall. None showed the walls between rooms.
| County | Outline sketch | Old permit plans online | What we saw |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles, CA | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: Some, per the city | Bedrooms, bathrooms and floor area. LADBS lets you view records online "except for any blueprints". |
| Cook, IL | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | Floor area, bathrooms, garage and basement. Chicago supplies records by FOIA request; the free first 50 pages exclude plans. |
| Harris, TX | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | Living area only. The site states that "Texas law prohibits us from displaying residential photographs, sketches, floor plans". |
| Maricopa, AZ | Outline sketch:Yes, free | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | An outline sketch with wall lengths and the area of each part, for example first floor and carport. |
| San Diego, CA | Outline sketch:Could not open | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | Property details sit behind a third-party site's user agreement. The city says viewing plans needs an appointment and "typically takes up to six weeks". |
| Orange, CA | Outline sketch:Could not open | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | Property details sit behind the same third-party user agreement. |
| Miami-Dade, FL | Outline sketch:Could not open | Old permit plans online: Some, per the city | The appraiser's site did not load for us. Plans already digitised can be downloaded from the county's E-Microfilm service. |
| Dallas, TX | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | Bedrooms, bathrooms and living area. The city's records office "does not provide copies of plans"; you file an open records request. |
| Kings (Brooklyn), NY | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | The building's front width and depth, floor area and storeys. Plans are requested through DOB NOW, processed within 2 business days, then collected in person. |
| Riverside, CA | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | Floor area by level. The page has a place for a sketch, but the image did not load. Copies of plans need the owner's and designer's consent, and the city says to allow 30 to 60 days. |
| Clark, NV | Outline sketch:Yes, free | Old permit plans online: Some, per the city | An outline sketch for each floor with every wall length, marked "Assessor's copy". Plans under copyright are not put online. |
| King, WA | Outline sketch:Yes, free | Old permit plans online: Some, per the city | A hand-drawn outline sketch with wall lengths and letters for rooms (shown above). Seattle kept no plans of single-family homes from before 1974. |
| Queens, NY | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | Front width and depth, floor area and storeys. "Only the stakeholders associated with a specific job filing can view the plans"; copies start at $8. |
| San Bernardino, CA | Outline sketch:Could not open | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | The search asks you to accept a disclaimer first. The city says plans are supplied through a records request. |
| Tarrant, TX | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: Some, per the city | Floor area in parts. Fort Worth's permit system lists attachments publicly; the two home permits we opened had only a letter attached. |
| Bexar, TX | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | Floor area by level, garage and porch. Plans are supplied through an open records request. |
| Broward, FL | Outline sketch:Yes, free | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | An outline sketch with wall lengths for the house, garage and porch, plus bedrooms and bathrooms. |
| Santa Clara, CA | Outline sketch:Could not open | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | The search page raised a certificate error. In San Jose, approved plans are viewed on the self-help computers at the permit centre. |
| Wayne, MI | Outline sketch:Could not open | Old permit plans online: Not found | The search asked us to prove we were human, so we stopped there. |
| Alameda, CA | Outline sketch:Owner only | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | The assessor says building characteristics "are made available to the property owner". Oakland needs three signed consents before copying plans. |
| Philadelphia, PA | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: Some, per the city | Year built, storeys, floor area and room counts. Building plans go only to the owner, their agent or someone with written permission, at $50 a set. |
| Sacramento, CA | Outline sketch:Owner only | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | "The actual drawing (footprint) is a confidential document made available only to an owner or the owner's agent." |
| Palm Beach, FL | Outline sketch:Yes, free | Old permit plans online: No, request needed | An outline sketch with wall lengths and the area of each part (shown above), plus bedrooms and bathrooms. |
| Travis, TX | Outline sketch:No, numbers only | Old permit plans online: Some, per the city | Floor area by level and counts of bedrooms and bathrooms. Austin says approved plan sets can be downloaded from its permit portal. |
| Fulton, GA | Outline sketch:Yes, free | Old permit plans online: Some, per the city | An outline sketch with wall lengths and an area table, plus bedrooms and bathrooms. |
Across the 25: 6 free outline sketches, 11 records with numbers only, 2 counties that keep sketches for owners, 6 we could not open, and 0 with the rooms drawn in. Texas and California are the hard states: Texas assessors may not show residential sketches online, and California counties release them only to owners.
Find the assessor's search
Search the name of your county with "assessor property search", or "appraisal district" in Texas.
Search by address
If the address does not match, use the parcel number (APN or PIN) printed on your property tax bill.
Open the sketch
A sketch, if the county publishes one, sits under a button or tab called Sketch, Building sketch or Property record card.
We opened one single-family home's record in each county on 24 September 2026. Where a site asked us to accept terms or prove we were human, we stopped; you can go further on your own record.
Sometimes, but rarely online. In the 25 counties we checked, we found no city where you can open an older house's permit drawings without an account or a request. Plans are kept on paper or microfilm, released to the owner, and often need the designer's consent as well.
Most cities release plans to the owner or someone with the owner's written permission. Philadelphia states it outright and charges $50 a set.
“You must be the owner or authorized agent or have written permission to get building plans.”
California cities copy plans only with the consent of the owner and of the architect or engineer who drew them. San Diego says viewing plans needs an appointment and typically takes up to six weeks; Riverside tells you to allow 30 to 60 days.
“Requests to view or obtain building plans are not available through the self-service option”
Many departments did not keep plans for houses. Seattle, for one, kept none for single-family homes built before 1974.
“the City did not retain plans of single family and duplex structures prior to 1974”
Where plans have been scanned, you may be able to download them: Miami-Dade offers already digitised plans through E-Microfilm, and Austin says approved plan sets can be downloaded from its permit portal.
“Plans that have already been digitized may be downloaded from E-Microfilm.”
Give the address and the parcel number, say you are the owner, and ask for the permit history with any plan pages, and for the certificate of occupancy if the house has one. In Texas and in Chicago the request goes in as an open records or FOIA request; the county table above says which.
Are house plans public record? Permit records are, but in most places the drawings are kept back from the public: for copyright, for security, or because they were never kept. Start with a phone call or email to the records desk of your city's building department.
Often they keep the photos from the last listing, and if the agent included a floor plan it will be among them. Search the address on Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com and open the photo gallery. Some old photos are shown only after you sign in, depending on the local listing service's rules.
We did not measure this channel in the US the way we did in the UK: the listing sites do not show enough to a script to count reliably.
When the obvious places come up empty, a floor plan is often sitting in a document nobody thinks of as a floor plan.
Homes on an estate or in a subdivision were sold from a brochure of house types. The developer, a sales office or a local estate agent may still have the plan for yours.
Many US houses from 1908 to 1940 were ordered from catalogues such as Sears Modern Homes. If you know the model, the catalogue page with its floor plan is often scanned and free to view.
A building survey or a home inspection sometimes includes a sketch of the layout. Check the folder from when you bought the house.
Previous owners sometimes kept the plans from their own renovation. Neighbours who extended may have had an architect draw the whole house type.
For a flat or condo, the building's management company or homeowners' association usually has the plans for each unit type.
For old houses, local history libraries and record offices hold estate plans and fire insurance maps. They show the outline of the house on its plot, not the rooms.
We redrew a 1921 Sears catalogue plan, with every label checked against the original, in sketch to floor plan
We uploaded the two assessor sketches above to FloorDrafter and redrew each as a clean technical plan. The outline and the numbers came back as drawn. The walls inside the King County house did not exist in the sketch, so they were filled in, and they came out different each time.
| Run | What we uploaded and said | Numbers kept | Labels changed | Inside the outline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The King County sketch, no instructions | 7 / 7 | 0 | Rooms placed where the letters are; inside walls, doors and closets added that the sketch does not have |
| 2 | The same sketch, same settings | 7 / 7 | 0 | A different set of inside walls: a toilet, two closets, doors in other places |
| 3 | The same sketch, with one sentence saying what the letters mean and to draw the main floor only | 5 / 5 | 1 | The main floor only, as asked, and a third layout. A circled symbol was redrawn as a circled B |
| 4 | The Palm Beach sketch, no instructions | 26 / 26 | 1 | No rooms added: it stayed an outline. One area code, A4, came back as A1 |
So an assessor sketch is a good start for the outside of the house, and nothing more. The rooms have to come from you. Measure them, sketch them inside the outline, and upload that: the plan will then follow your rooms, not a guess.
Four runs on 24 September 2026, technical style at 2K, 38 to 95 seconds each. Numbers kept counts the figures written on the uploaded sketch that came back unchanged.
How to measure the rooms and write them down, one room at a time, is in how to measure a room for a floor plan
Then you make one, and it is less work than it sounds. What you found still helps: an outline, a neighbour's plan or an old brochure gives you the shape to start from.
Upload it as it is, photo or scan, and redraw it as a clean plan. Check the room names and sizes against the original afterwards.
Redraw an old planMeasure each room, draw a rough sketch with the sizes on it, and upload the sketch. If you have the assessor's outline, draw your rooms inside it.
Measure the roomsStart from the plan of the house as it is, then mark the change you want and see it drawn.
Plan a renovationPhone scanning apps measure the rooms as you walk through with your phone, and a measured survey sends someone to draw the house. What each costs is set out side by side in our cost guide.
Scans and surveys comparedA found plan or a redrawn one is a reference, not a measured survey. For an application, an architect or a measured survey is the usual route.
What each option costsWhat we checked, and where. All pages were read on 24 September 2026.
Short answers, with the numbers from our checks above.
Upload a photo of an old plan, a neighbour's listing plan for reference, or your own sketch with the rooms drawn in, and get a clean floor plan back in a minute or two. The first one needs no account.
