3,218 Austin new-home permits in 12 months, down 4.9%

City of Austin issued 3,218 residential new-construction building permits in the 12 months to Sept. 30, 2026, down 4.9% from 3,384 a year earlier. Commercial new-build permits moved the other way.

Why it matters

Monthly permit counts are noisy, so the trailing 12 months is the cleaner read. The slope is the signal: the decline is fading. For builders and trade contractors planning 2027 starts, the permit flow has stopped falling, even though it has not recovered.

This covers the City of Austin permit dataset only, not Round Rock, Hutto, Kyle, San Marcos or unincorporated Travis County. For the multifamily cut, see Austin Q3 apartment permits.

The numbers

We counted building permits (type BP, work class New) by issue month, Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2026, and split them by the city’s residential and commercial class.

• Residential, 12 months to Sept. 2026: 3,218 permits vs 3,384 in the prior 12 months, down 4.9%.
• Residential, October to March: 1,489 vs 1,639 a year earlier, down 9.2%.
• Residential, April to September: 1,729 vs 1,745, down 0.9%.
• Residential, September alone: 247 vs 198 in Sept. 2025, up 24.7%.
• Commercial, 12 months: 1,038 permits vs 718, up 44.6%. September: 98 vs 76, up 28.9%.

Commercial counts are permits, not projects. One multi-building project can carry several permits, so the commercial gain overstates project growth.

We did not rank on declared value. Declared job value is the applicant’s figure, not a price or cost. Across the 3,218 residential permits it sums to $5,109,125, about $1,588 each, because most carry a placeholder near $1. We also excluded 45 rows where declared job value exceeded $1,000,000 but new square footage was under 500, a pattern that signals data-entry errors. A sample record, permit 2026-030865 BP, shows a real multifamily entry at $10,067,000 on 79,650 sq ft.

What’s next

October data will show whether September’s 247 was a bounce or a turn. Permit counts measure paperwork, not starts, so cross-check against inspections before sizing demand. Our Austin hub tracks each monthly update from the City of Austin Open Data Portal.