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Permit Benchmarks

Building Permit Activity
& Wait Times by City

How active each city's permit office is, and, where the data publishes it, how long permits actually take, drawn from a dataset of over 3.1 million Canadian permits. Volume and timing, not approval rates. Updated June 2026.

6 of these 30 cities publish processing-time data (cross-city median: 28 days) and appear first, fastest wait first; the rest are sorted by permit volume. Only cities with at least 50 permits in the last 12 months are shown.

Thunder Bay

ON
10
median days
29.2
avg days
899
permits (12 mo)
View Thunder Bay

Kelowna

BC
13
median days
39.8
avg days
1,467
permits (12 mo)
View Kelowna

Montreal

QC
19
median days
50.9
avg days
18,249
permits (12 mo)
View Montreal

Toronto

ON
28
median days
71.7
avg days
42,261
permits (12 mo)
View Toronto

St. Catharines

ON
62
median days
114.7
avg days
1,468
permits (12 mo)
View St. Catharines

Vancouver

BC
74
median days
113.2
avg days
4,262
permits (12 mo)
View Vancouver

Vaughan

ON
31,599
permits (12 mo)
$511K
avg project value
View Vaughan

Calgary

AB
23,364
permits (12 mo)
$480K
avg project value
View Calgary

Winnipeg

MB
17,656
permits (12 mo)
n/a
avg project value
View Winnipeg

Edmonton

AB
14,089
permits (12 mo)
$421K
avg project value
View Edmonton

Victoria

BC
11,831
permits (12 mo)
$191K
avg project value
View Victoria

Quebec City

QC
9,536
permits (12 mo)
n/a
avg project value
View Quebec City

Brampton

ON
8,833
permits (12 mo)
$1K
avg project value
View Brampton

Surrey

BC
5,116
permits (12 mo)
$2.0M
avg project value
View Surrey

Mississauga

ON
4,822
permits (12 mo)
$555K
avg project value
View Mississauga

Laval

QC
3,117
permits (12 mo)
$3K
avg project value
View Laval

Maple Ridge

BC
3,065
permits (12 mo)
$749K
avg project value
View Maple Ridge

Halifax

NS
2,325
permits (12 mo)
$764K
avg project value
View Halifax

Kitchener

ON
2,260
permits (12 mo)
$578K
avg project value
View Kitchener

Ottawa

ON
2,154
permits (12 mo)
$591K
avg project value
View Ottawa

Greater Sudbury

ON
1,465
permits (12 mo)
$501K
avg project value
View Greater Sudbury

Lethbridge

AB
1,299
permits (12 mo)
$241K
avg project value
View Lethbridge

Red Deer

AB
989
permits (12 mo)
$1.1M
avg project value
View Red Deer

Barrie

ON
946
permits (12 mo)
n/a
avg project value
View Barrie

Regina

SK
864
permits (12 mo)
$324K
avg project value
View Regina

Prince George

BC
731
permits (12 mo)
$590K
avg project value
View Prince George

New Westminster

BC
541
permits (12 mo)
$741K
avg project value
View New Westminster

Kamloops

BC
227
permits (12 mo)
n/a
avg project value
View Kamloops

Burnaby

BC
151
permits (12 mo)
$2.3M
avg project value
View Burnaby

Richmond

BC
97
permits (12 mo)
$879K
avg project value
View Richmond

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