H1 2026The highest value per permit in North America.
Vancouver issued 2,036 permits in the half — the smallest count in this series — carrying $3.11B of screened value. That is an average stated permit of $1.56M, more than four times New York's and higher than any other market Builtie tracks. 16.8% of its permits are demolitions, also the highest here. Vancouver is not adding buildings so much as replacing them, one expensive project at a time.
Small counts, enormous swings.
Around 300 to 430 permits a month, and a value line that moves by a factor of seven between months — $190M in April against $1.35B in March. With this few permits, a single tower is the whole month.
Permits issued by month
3 signals inside the market
Ten permits carry 39% of the half's value
10 permits out of 2,036 account for $1.21B of $3.11B in screened declared value. The thousands of smaller permits are volume, not dollars.
$190.0M on one filing
Certified professional program - new building - to construct a 31-storey mixed-use building with 256 resident… — 2090 W Broadway. Issued March 20, 2026.
23% new construction, 60% existing buildings
473 new-building permits carry 82% of declared value. New builds are a minority of the filings and a majority of the money.
Where Vancouver is building.
Issued-permit density at roughly one-kilometre resolution. Vancouver is one of only two markets in this series whose coordinates survive our bounding-box check; the badge on the map states exactly how many permits are plotted.
Excavation and demolition lead the table.
Bhullar Excavating, Apollo Excavating, Akal Demolition. In a market where one permit in six is a teardown, the firms filing most often are the ones who go first — which makes this list an early-warning feed for every trade that follows them onto the site.
Top 10 applicants of record
| # | Applicant of record | Permits | Screened value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bhullar Excavating and Demolition | 37 | $2M |
| 2 | Apollo Excavating & Civil Works Ltd. | 22 | $1M |
| 3 | Reotech Construction Ltd | 18 | $10M |
| 4 | David Steer DBA: LMDG Building Code Consultants Ltd. | 17 | $7M |
| 5 | Janay Koldingnes DBA: Edit Studios Inc. | 16 | $9M |
| 6 | AKAL DEMOLITION & EXCAVATING LTD | 14 | $1M |
| 7 | CANADIAN EXCAVATING LTD. | 13 | $1M |
| 8 | Hans Demolition and Excavating Ltd. | 11 | n/a |
| 9 | Kingsman Excavating Ltd. | 11 | n/a |
| 10 | Marino General Contracting Ltd | 11 | n/a |
| 11 | Central West Project Management Inc. | 10 | $1M |
| 12 | East West Excavating 2022 Ltd | 10 | n/a |
| 13 | Van-City Excavating Ltd | 10 | n/a |
| 14 | Fusion Project Management Ltd | 9 | $10M |
| 15 | GNA Contracting Ltd | 9 | n/a |
| 16 | JVT EXCAVATING & DEMOLITION LTD | 9 | n/a |
| 17 | Simon Boisvert DBA: BC Home Drafting & Consulting Ltd. | 9 | n/a |
| 18 | Vema Deconstruction Ltd | 9 | $1M |
| 19 | Aqua Homes Development Ltd | 8 | $6M |
| 20 | Banks Architecture & Permitting | 8 | $1M |
One permit in six is a demolition.
60% of classified permits touch a building that already stands; new construction is 23%. New builds carry 82% of the declared value.
Work category
- New construction473 23%$2.55B
- Renovation / alteration1,220 60%$536M
- Demolition343 17%$25M
Permit type as the city files it
Permit type table
| Type | Permits | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Addition / Alteration | 1,220 | $536M |
| New Building | 473 | $2.55B |
| Demolition / Deconstruction | 343 | $25M |
The ten largest jobs of the half.
Ranked by the construction cost stated on the permit, after the value screen described in the methodology. These are single permits, not whole developments — a tower can appear as several.
The ten largest permits of the half
| # | Work | Applicant | Stated cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Certified professional program - new building - to construct a 31-storey mixed-use building with 256 residential units…2090 W BROADWAY, Vancouver, BC V6J 1Z4 | John Bolduc DBA: Jensen Hughes | $190.0M |
| 2 | Certified professional program - new building - this permit is for the site work and construction of a basement storage…188 E 5TH AVENUE, Vancouver, BC | Axiom Builders Inc | $177.5M |
| 3 | Certified professional program - new building - to develop a 27-storey mixed-use building containing two retail crus on…1436 W 8TH AVENUE, Vancouver, BC V6H 1E1 | David Ho | $150.0M |
| 4 | Certified professional program - new building - to construct a new 34-storey mixed-use building containing 679 below ma…3380 VANNESS AVENUE, Vancouver, BC V5R 6B8 | Axiom Builders Inc | $144.8M |
| 5 | Certified professional program - new building - to construct a mixed-use building with 2 residential towers (282 secure…1738 W 11TH AVENUE, Vancouver, BC V6J 2C3 | ITC BC BUILDERS INC. | $105.0M |
| 6 | Certified professional program - new building - to construct a 7-storey (z/d 6-storey) private care facility non-combus…3329 W 41ST AVENUE, Vancouver, BC V6N 3E5 | MARCON PROJECT (661) LTD. | $101.2M |
| 7 | Certified professional program - new building - to develop a 32-storey apartment containing a total of 300 dwelling uni…1088 BURNABY STREET, Vancouver, BC V6E 1N7 | APG Construction Ltd | $95.1M |
| 8 | Certified professional program - new building - this permit is for the site work and construction of a basement storage…590 W 29TH AVENUE, Vancouver, BC V5Z 2H7 | Alabaster Construction GP Ltd | $90.0M |
| 9 | Certified professional program - new building - to construct a new 6-storey seniors community care (class b) facility c…2010 HARRISON DRIVE, Vancouver, BC V5P 2P6 | Lark Projects Ltd | $83.0M |
| 10 | Certified professional program - new building - parcel c of phase 1 of the pearson dogwood redevelopment. to construct…688 W 57TH AVENUE, Vancouver, BC V5X 1S9 | Onni Contracting Ltd | $72.8M |
The same half, in every market Builtie tracks.
Permit counts are directly comparable. Dollar figures are not fully comparable across borders and jurisdictions — each city defines "construction value" its own way, and the coverage column shows how many of its permits state one at all. A market is marked withheld where that share is too low to stand behind.
Permits issued, H1 2026
| Market | Permits | YoY | Screened value | Avg per costed permit | Cost coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 53,624 | n/a | $17.14B | $376K | 85% |
| Miami | 20,481 | +0% | $9.88B | $495K | 97.4% |
| Toronto | 15,118 | +67% | $5.94B | $1.1M | 34.6% |
| Austin | 14,915 | -2% | withheld | n/a | 7% |
| Calgary | 9,603 | -14% | $2.93B | $333K | 91.6% |
| Nashville | 4,287 | -1% | $1.69B | $394K | 100% |
| Chicago | 3,667 | -1% | $4.88B | $1.3M | 100% |
| Seattle | 3,011 | -1% | $1.80B | $604K | 99.1% |
| Hamilton | 2,337 | -7% | $897M | $405K | 94.7% |
| Vancouverthis report | 2,036 | -9% | $3.11B | $1.6M | 98.2% |
What is behind every number above.
A report is only worth the disclosure attached to it. This is the whole of it.
How the figures are built
- Source
- Vancouver's own published building-permit record, ingested into the Builtie platform and read live from it. No third-party estimate is mixed in.
- Period
- Permits issued between January 2, 2026 and June 30, 2026. Applications and cancellations are excluded.
- Declared value
- The construction cost stated by the applicant on the permit. It is not a contract value, and it excludes land and soft costs. 1,999 of 2,036 permits (98.2%) state one; the rest contribute to the count and not to the value.
- The value screen
- Two classes of bad value are removed before any total: any single permit at or above
$1,000,000,000, and any value at or above$10,000,000that repeats on five or more permits in the same city — a parent project total stamped onto its sub-permits, which would otherwise be counted once per sub-permit. No permit in this market tripped either rule. A percentile trim was tested and rejected: it cannot tell a corrupt value from a genuine large tower. - Rounding
- Values are rounded to the nearest million before display; shares are rounded to the nearest whole per cent, so columns may not sum to exactly 100.
What this page does not tell you
- No approval timeline
- This feed sets the application date equal to the issue date on every row, so we cannot say how long Vancouver takes to approve a permit. The field is 100% populated, which is exactly why it is easy to mistake for real: it is a placeholder, and a "same-day approval" chart drawn from it would be a fabrication. The GTA report carries this section because Toronto publishes a genuine application date.