· Building permits
2026 permit-value leaders: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal
On the OpenStats calendar-year permit-value ranking, Toronto leads at about $11.7B, Vancouver about $9.5B, and Montreal about $5.3B among direct-tier municipalities.
By OpenStats data desk · Editorial standards
The OpenStats 2026 building permit value ranking sums direct Statistics Canada readings for the calendar year. In the current edition, Toronto leads at about $11.7B, Vancouver about $9.5B, and Montreal about $5.3B. Those three metros anchor the top of the national table by a wide margin over fourth-place Edmonton at about $2.86B.
| Rank | City | YTD permit value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toronto | $11.7B |
| 2 | Vancouver | $9.5B |
| 3 | Montreal | $5.3B |
| 4 | Edmonton | $2.86B |
| 5 | Calgary | $2.82B |
| 6 | Quebec City | $1.70B |
| 7 | Ottawa | $1.49B |
| 8 | Winnipeg | $1.40B |
Toronto’s $11.7B YTD total exceeds Vancouver’s $9.5B by about $2.2B. Vancouver exceeds Montreal by about $4.2B. Montreal’s $5.3B still doubles Edmonton’s $2.86B, which shows how concentrated permit value is in the largest metros. Calgary at $2.82B sits only about $40M behind Edmonton, so the Alberta order on the YTD table can flip with a single strong month. Quebec City ($1.70B), Ottawa ($1.49B), and Winnipeg ($1.40B) fill the next band down.
Monthly vs year-to-date
May’s monthly podium (Toronto about $1.99B, Vancouver about $1.18B, Montreal about $1.08B) matches the year-to-date order at the top. Edmonton still edges Calgary on the annual sum (about $2.86B vs $2.82B) even when Calgary wins individual months like May 2026 ($579M vs $533M). Use Pulse for the latest month and the ranking for the cumulative race.
May 2026 national direct-tier permit value was about $9.5B across all municipalities with live rows. Toronto alone contributed about $1.99B of that month, which is roughly one fifth of the national direct-tier May pool. Readers should remember that YTD sums include earlier months; a cool May does not erase a strong Q1 on the calendar-year table.
How the ranking is built
Only direct-tier StatCan rows enter the YTD sum. Seed and proxy rows visible on the wider atlas do not count. The same gate applies to Construction Pulse national totals and acceleration tables. When a city graduates from seed to direct mid-year, its YTD total backfills from the live feed start date defined in the pipeline, not from guessed historical values.
Permit count and average project size vary by city. Montreal filed 4,469 permits in May 2026 while Vancouver filed 866, yet both sit near the top of the value table because a few large projects dominate dollar rankings. Open the permits atlas city slug to see count and value side by side for any CMA in the table.
What to read next
Method: how OpenStats reads StatCan permits. Atlas: permits.openstats.ca. May 2026 detail: national Pulse story. Alberta monthly race: Calgary vs Edmonton May 2026. City Score incorporates permit standing for covered cities; Vancouver and Toronto both sit near 97% on the composite among multi-list cities. Quebec City at about $1.70B and Ottawa at about $1.49B show that the second tier after Montreal still trails the top three by billions, not millions. Winnipeg at about $1.40B rounds out the published top eight in the current edition table above.
Peterborough’s May 2026 acceleration (+1,653%, $269M vs about $15M) does not appear on the YTD value ranking as a separate line item; it contributes to Peterborough’s cumulative sum when that city carries a direct-tier row for the year. Readers chasing momentum should use Pulse acceleration and the permit momentum ranking alongside this calendar-year table. National May 2026 direct-tier value of about $9.5B helps scale any single city’s YTD contribution against the whole live-source pool. Calgary at about $2.82B YTD and Edmonton at about $2.86B YTD remain separated by roughly $40M on the cumulative table despite Calgary’s May monthly win at $579M vs $533M. Vancouver about $9.5B YTD remains closer to Toronto about $11.7B YTD than to Montreal about $5.3B YTD, which keeps the west coast metro firmly in second on the calendar-year race. Montreal about $5.3B YTD remains the third metro above $5B while Edmonton and Calgary cluster near $2.8B each, far from the Toronto-Vancouver tier on cumulative dollars. Ottawa about $1.49B and Quebec City about $1.70B YTD occupy the band between the Alberta capitals and Montreal on the published top-eight table. Toronto May 2026 permit value about $1.99B on 2,707 permits illustrates how the monthly Pulse and the YTD ranking tell complementary stories about the same direct-tier StatCan feed.