US Building Permit Activity Report — Most Active Markets

Key takeaways

• →The 50 most active US markets we track recorded a combined 87,099 renovation, solar, pool, remodel, addition, and repair permits in their latest 30-day reporting periods.
• →New York City, NY led every market with 6,286 permits in its latest 30-day window.
• →Electrical was the single most common busiest trade, ranking first in 18 of the 50 markets — ahead of HVAC (13), Plumbing (10), Roofing (8).
• →TX placed 3 of the top 10 markets (San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth) — more than any other state.
• →Reporting windows differ by city: the periods shown here end between Apr 26, 2026 and Jun 19, 2026, because every municipal feed publishes on its own cadence. 13 of the 50 markets are flagged below as lagging — their most recent data is older than the freshest feeds.

The 50 most active markets

Ranked by total tracked permits in each city's latest 30-day reporting period. Click any city for its full insights page. A lagging tag marks feeds whose latest data is older than the freshest sources.

How we built this report

Permit Ledger tracks 294 US cities. For this report we took every city's most recent 30-day reporting period and ranked the top 50 by the raw count of tracked permits. The figures are copied directly from our stored permit data — the same numbers shown on each city's insights page — so nothing here is recomputed or estimated.

• Ranked by volume, not growth. Cities are ordered by how many permits they recorded, so this answers "where is the most permit activity happening" — not "where did activity change the most." We deliberately avoid percentage-change claims here.
• Per-city windows. Each period ends on that city's latest available permit date, so the reporting windows here close between April 26, 2026 and June 19, 2026. We show every period-ending date rather than pretend they line up.
• Lagging feeds are flagged, not hidden. 13 of the 50 markets carry a "lagging" tag because their feed is behind the freshest sources. They still rank by their real counts; we just flag the staleness.
• What counts. Totals include renovation, remodel, addition, repair, solar, and pool permits drawn from official municipal open-data feeds (and PermitStack where a city has no direct feed).

Want a different city or the full detail? Browse all 294 cities or see permit activity by trade.

Frequently asked questions