Building permits fell in September as multi-family construction plans retreated nationally
The total value of building permits issued across Canada fell 4.1% to $12.9 billion in September, Statistics Canada reported Thursday. A sharp pullback in multi-family residential intentions signalled continued strain on new housing supply.
On a constant dollar basis (2023=100), permit values declined 4.5% from August but remained 1.9% above the same month a year earlier.
Building permits, surveyed across approximately 2,400 municipalities representing 95% of the country’s population, are a leading indicator of construction activity, though issuance does not guarantee that construction will proceed.
Multi-family weakness dominates the residential slide
Residential building permit values fell 5.8% to $7.8 billion in September. The multi-family component drove the decline, sliding $529.3 million to $5.1 billion.
British Columbia (-$292.1 million) and Alberta (-$186.8 million) recorded the steepest retreats, with eight provinces and one territory contributing to the drop.
Year-to-date, residential permit values have fallen 5.2% in 2026, according to Statistics Canada.
Single-family permits moved in the opposite direction, rising $53.6 million to $2.7 billion, largely on strength from Ontario (+$103.3 million).
Non-residential intentions edged down $77.1 million to $5.1 billion, as a decline in institutional construction (-$171.5 million) was partially offset by industrial permit growth (+$90.9 million), driven by Ontario and Nova Scotia.
What September’s data signals for the construction pipeline
The September result caps a weak third quarter. Total building permit values fell $1.5 billion to $38.8 billion in Q3, a 3.6% quarterly drop, with non-residential permits recording their sharpest quarterly decline since Q2 2020.
Nationally, 71,300 homes were authorized for construction in Q3, down from 78,500 in the same period of 2025. That's a year-over-year decline of roughly 9.2%.
For mortgage brokers navigating this constrained supply environment, managing client expectations around future inventory has become central to daily practice.
Major banks and homebuilders are pressing Ottawa to act, having urged the federal government to ease mortgage qualification rules for first-time buyers of newly built homes in a 29-point reform plan released this week.
“Building permits provide an early signal of future residential construction activity, while housing starts capture construction that has begun and offer the best indication of future housing supply,” Mathieu Laberge, chief economist and senior vice-president of Housing Insights at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), previously said.
“Together, these measures show how development intentions translate into real construction activity, providing a more complete picture of the residential construction market’s trajectory.”
Kevin Hughes, CMHC’s deputy chief economist, reinforced that view: “Building permit data provides additional context for this pattern, pointing to a construction pipeline that remains subdued, in line with CMHC’s Housing Market Outlook.”
Mike Kazarian, a mortgage broker with Lenders’ Choice Mortgages in Toronto, Ontario, explained how the condo segment faces a prolonged recovery.
“I think the outlook for condos is still bad. It’s going to be two or three years because the population growth has basically plummeted. If that continues, there’s a lot of inventory right now and a lot of the preconstruction builders are doing fire sales,” he recently told CMP.
Separately, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation data for September showed housing starts at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of 248,896 units. That's roughly 3% above August’s figure, with the CMHC six-month moving average edging up 0.6% to 250,411 units.
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