Permits tracked
206,291
All statuses across 25 US cities
Total declared value
$34.5B
Where declared value is published
Average project value
$258K
Across the 134,029 permits with declared value
Tracking window
29 weeks
Jan 1 to Jul 19, 2026
Executive summary
Across the 25 US cities in PropertyLabs’ tracked set, 206,291 permits were recorded between January 1 and July 19, 2026 — nearly five times the volume of the Canadian tracked set over the same window.
Where municipalities publish declared value, those permits carry $34.5B in construction value, an average of $258K per valued permit. Value coverage is better than in Canada — 134,029 of 206,291 permits carry a declared value — but far from complete: Philadelphia and Bellevue publish no usable value field at all.
The window built steadily: the second half recorded 110,514 permits against the first half’s 95,777, with declared value rising faster still ($19.4B versus $15.1B). June was the busiest month at 34,941 permits.
Key findings
Los Angeles owned the weekly lead
Los Angeles led the tracked set in 22 of 29 weeks, with Austin taking the other 7 — including four of the final five weeks of the window.
Both volume and value climbed
Second-half volume ran 15% above the first half (110,514 versus 95,777) while second-half declared value rose 29% ($19.4B versus $15.1B) — the US wave is broadening and getting more expensive.
Value concentrates away from the volume leader
Chicago ($7.0B) and Boston ($6.9B) top the declared-value table despite ranking fifth and fourth on volume; Los Angeles files the most permits but totals $4.3B.
Early June was the peak
The two highest-volume weeks landed back-to-back in late May and early June at 8,321 and 8,322 permits, split between Los Angeles and Austin leadership.
Source data needed correction
Austin repeats one master-project valuation across every sub-permit of a campus — a single $830M project appeared on 77+ permits, inflating raw totals by roughly $63B before PropertyLabs’ project-level dedup.
Weekly permit count
Sampled weeks across the window. Final bar is a partial week ending July 19.
Weeks led by city
How often each city led the tracked set by weekly permit count.
PropertyLabs tracked markets
Tap any market to explore live permit data and construction activity.
Geographic analysis
Los Angeles filed more permits than any other tracked US city — 33,886 over the window, leading 22 of 29 weeks at a steady 1,100 to 1,500 permits per week. Austin ran a close second on volume at 30,984 and took over the weekly lead late in the window, topping the set in four of the final five weeks.
Value tells a different story. Chicago ($7.0B) and Boston ($6.9B) lead the declared-value table on far fewer permits, pointing to larger average projects, while high-volume Sun Belt markets like Orlando ($1.8B on 16,123 permits) skew toward smaller residential work. Philadelphia is the notable blind spot: 24,558 permits — third in the country — with no published value field at all.
Highest-volume weeks of the period
Five highest-volume weeks in the tracked set.
| Week | Permits | Declared Value | Top City |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 4 – Jun 10 | 8,322 | $1.93B | Austin (1,438) |
| May 28 – Jun 3 | 8,321 | $1.69B | Los Angeles (1,333) |
| May 7 – May 13 | 8,201 | $1.78B | Los Angeles (1,355) |
| Jun 25 – Jul 1 | 8,192 | $754M | Los Angeles (1,229) |
| Jun 11 – Jun 17 | 8,027 | $975M | Austin (1,244) |
Top tracked cities by permit volume
Six highest-volume US cities in the window, with deduplicated declared value.
| City | Permits | Declared Value |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | 33,886 | $4.3B |
| Austin | 30,984 | $3.5B |
| Philadelphia | 24,558 | Not published |
| Boston | 19,568 | $6.9B |
| Chicago | 16,434 | $7.0B |
| Orlando | 16,123 | $1.8B |
Los Angeles led 22 of 29 weeks on volume, but Chicago and Boston carried the biggest checks. In US permits, where the filings happen and where the money lands are two different maps.
Methodology
This report is built from PropertyLabs’ permit records for its 25 tracked US cities, covering every permit recorded between January 1 and July 19, 2026, across all statuses — applications, reviews, issuances, and completions.
Top-city references identify whichever tracked city recorded the most permits in a given week, not a rank ordering of every permit market in the United States.
Declared value is applicant-reported at filing and is not published by every municipality. Where a municipality repeats a single master-project valuation across many sub-permits of one site — as Austin does — that valuation is counted once. This dedup removed roughly $89B of double-counted value from the raw export.
Sources and limitations
Source: PropertyLabs permit tracking export across 25 US cities, extracted July 2026.
- Date field:
- Issue Date
- Rows in:
- 206,291 permits (all 25 cities, all statuses)
- After exclusions:
- 134,029 with a published declared value, after project-level dedup
- Date field:
- Issued Date
- Rows in:
- 30,984 Austin permits
- After exclusions:
- Deduped to remove one $830M master-project value repeated across 77+ sub-permits
- Date field:
- Issue Date
- This is not a national census. It reflects only the 25 US cities in PropertyLabs’ tracked set at the time of extraction.
- The final week is partial, ending July 19, and should not be read as a full-week total.
- Philadelphia and Bellevue publish no usable declared-value field, and roughly a third of tracked permits carry no value, so value totals are a floor, not a complete accounting.
- Unit counts are sparsely reported in US exports (4,913 of 206,291 permits) and are excluded from headline figures.
Citation & provenance
- Publisher
- PropertyLabs Research
- Last updated
- July 2026
- Methodology
- Read the methodology
Suggested citation: PropertyLabs Research. "The American Permit Wave: A 25-City Read on 2026." Updated July 2026. https://propertylabs.org/resources/us-permit-wave-2026
Related city pages
Related reports
The National Permit Surge: A Cross-City Read on 2026
A cross-city read on where permit volume, value, and weekly leadership rotated across 15 Canadian cities through the first 29 weeks of 2026.
Calgary Multifamily Permit Activity: January–May 2026
Where Calgary’s next multifamily supply is being permitted, by community, applicant concentration, and project scale.
Get city-level permit data access
Every number in this report is designed to trace back to municipal-source permit data and PropertyLabs normalization logic inside the product.
Share insights from this research
Follow PropertyLabs Research