The 15 U.S. Metros Building the Most: 703,000 Building Permits in 90 Days (Q2 2026)

In the 90 days ending June 28, 2026, PermitGrab tracked more than 703,000 building permits filed across 1,890 U.S. municipalities. New York City leads the country by volume, but the more telling story is below it: Texas and Florida metros are out-building the coasts. Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio each filed more building permits than Los Angeles or Chicago, and Cape Coral — a city of under 250,000 — is permitting at a pace that rivals metros several times its size.

Building permits are the earliest public signal of where construction money is actually moving — months ahead of housing-starts or completion data. PermitGrab collects these filings daily from official municipal and county open-data sources across nearly 1,900 jurisdictions, which gives an unusually current, ground-level view of where America is building right now.

The 15 most active permit metros (last 90 days)

Rank	Metro	Permits filed (90 days)
1	New York, NY	55,894
2	Fort Worth, TX	15,765
3	Austin, TX	13,689
4	San Antonio, TX	12,175
5	Wichita, KS	11,526
6	Los Angeles, CA	11,071
7	Miami-Dade County, FL	10,497
8	Washington, DC	10,114
9	Cape Coral, FL	9,959
10	Miami, FL	9,748
11	Orlando, FL	9,045
12	Virginia Beach, VA	8,584
13	Chicago, IL	8,467
14	Portland, OR	7,846
15	Philadelphia, PA	7,451

Why is Texas leading U.S. building-permit activity?

Texas is the clear engine. Fort Worth (#2), Austin (#3), and San Antonio (#4) all rank ahead of Los Angeles and Chicago in raw permit volume, and fast-growing Collin County adds another 7,465. Combined, the four Texas markets filed roughly 49,000 permits in 90 days. Austin's mix is notably trade-heavy — electrical, plumbing, and mechanical permits lead — a signal of sustained renovation and systems work even where new-build has cooled.

What makes Cape Coral, Florida stand out?

Cape Coral is the single most striking entry: nearly 10,000 permits from a city of under 250,000 people. Its permit mix is unlike anywhere else in the country — air-conditioning change-outs, pools, and waterfront seawall and marine-improvement permits lead the list, the signature of Southwest Florida's sustained coastal building boom. Across the state, Miami-Dade, Cape Coral, Miami, and Orlando together filed nearly 39,000 permits.

Beyond the headlines

Mid-size and often-overlooked markets are surprisingly busy: Wichita, Virginia Beach, Portland, and Indianapolis each cleared 7,000+ permits in the quarter. For contractors, suppliers, and investors, that activity is the leading edge of local demand — every permit names a project, an address, and often the contractor pulling it. See how the data is built in our guide to contractor leads from building permits, or browse any market on the live permits feed.

Methodology

Figures reflect building-permit records collected by PermitGrab from official municipal and county open-data sources, for permits dated within the 90 days ending June 28, 2026. Counts reflect each jurisdiction's own permit-filing conventions — some municipalities log sub-permits (electrical, plumbing, mechanical) as separate records, which can raise totals relative to jurisdictions that file a single combined permit. This report describes activity within PermitGrab's tracked dataset and is not a comprehensive census of all U.S. permits. We update this ranking quarterly. Journalists and analysts are welcome to cite these figures with a link to permitgrab.com; custom cuts by state, metro, or trade are available on request.

PermitGrab provides daily building-permit and contractor-lead data to home-service businesses, suppliers, and investors across 1,800+ U.S. municipalities, at a flat $149/month, never resold. See pricing.