Canada's Highest Building Permit Value Cities, Ranked
OpenStats permits rankings by total construction value under permit in each city's latest reporting month, from Statistics Canada's monthly building permits survey.
This ranking uses each city's latest reported month from Statistics Canada's monthly building permits survey (Table 34-10-0292), the same source behind every city page on the OpenStats permits topic site. Total value combines residential and non-residential permits authorized that month. Because cities report on different survey cycles, the reporting month shown for each row is not always the same across the table. Municipalities without a direct, non-proxy figure for the latest period are not included.
Highest total permit value, top 25 cities
| Rank | City | Province | Period | Total permit value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toronto | Ontario | 5/2026 | $1,986,012,000 |
| 2 | Vancouver | British Columbia | 5/2026 | $1,176,370,000 |
| 3 | Montreal | Quebec | 5/2026 | $1,084,932,000 |
| 4 | Calgary | Alberta | 5/2026 | $578,538,000 |
| 5 | Edmonton | Alberta | 5/2026 | $533,173,000 |
| 6 | Ottawa | Ontario | 5/2026 | $398,569,000 |
| 7 | Quebec City | Quebec | 5/2026 | $291,070,000 |
| 8 | Peterborough | Ontario | 5/2026 | $268,717,000 |
| 9 | London | Ontario | 5/2026 | $245,282,000 |
| 10 | Winnipeg | Manitoba | 5/2026 | $229,325,000 |
| 11 | Hamilton | Ontario | 5/2026 | $192,390,000 |
| 12 | Victoria | British Columbia | 5/2026 | $180,913,000 |
| 13 | St. Catharines | Ontario | 5/2026 | $170,089,000 |
| 14 | Halifax | Nova Scotia | 5/2026 | $157,691,000 |
| 15 | Kitchener | Ontario | 5/2026 | $144,359,000 |
| 16 | Saskatoon | Saskatchewan | 5/2026 | $144,184,000 |
| 17 | Oshawa | Ontario | 5/2026 | $142,039,000 |
| 18 | Kelowna | British Columbia | 5/2026 | $132,116,000 |
| 19 | Kingston | Ontario | 5/2026 | $127,588,000 |
| 20 | Saguenay | Quebec | 5/2026 | $121,140,000 |
| 21 | Barrie | Ontario | 5/2026 | $119,857,000 |
| 22 | Drummondville | Quebec | 5/2026 | $95,900,000 |
| 23 | St. John's | Newfoundland and Labrador | 5/2026 | $74,516,000 |
| 24 | Trois-Rivieres | Quebec | 5/2026 | $73,287,000 |
| 25 | Lethbridge | Alberta | 5/2026 | $72,052,000 |
One month of permit value can be driven by a small number of large projects. A hospital, distribution centre, or large apartment building clearing approvals can push a mid-sized city above a much larger one for that period alone. Treat a spot on this list as a snapshot of the latest reported month. For longer trends, check the multi-month history on each city page or the year-over-year growth ranking.
Total value also blends two categories that behave differently. Residential permits track population growth and mortgage rates in a comparatively steady way, while non-residential permits move in large, irregular steps tied to individual industrial, commercial, or institutional projects. Two cities with the same total value in a given month can have very different underlying pictures once the categories are split out.
The OpenStats guide to reading Canadian building permit data walks through the residential and non-residential split, why permits lead the housing cycle, and how to compare municipalities of different sizes. The permits topic site carries a dedicated page for every city in this ranking, with a multi-month history and the residential and non-residential breakdown behind the latest total.
Ranking by total dollar value favours larger cities and cities with one-off large projects over smaller cities with steady, broadly distributed construction. Normalizing by population, and checking whether a city's figure is a direct municipal reading or a regional proxy, gives a fairer basis for comparing two specific municipalities than the raw total alone.
Related: Methodology · Data sources · All guides