Highlights from ‘Building Permits, June 2024’

The following statistics were released from the Economics and Statistics Division on August 12, 2024. For full details from this dataset, please click here.

Monthly (seasonally adjusted, June 2024 vs May 2024)

  • Nova Scotia’s total building permits (residential and non-residential) fell by 12.3% to $270.3 million
  • Halifax permits declined by 19.9% to $163.5 million while permits outside the city rose 2.7% to $106.8 million
  • National permits declined 13.9% to $9.9 billion

  • Nova Scotia’s non-residential building permits rose 35.6% to $100.2 million
  • Halifax permits rose 51.9% to $75.3 million
  • Outside the city, non-residential permit values rose 2.5% to $25.0 million
  • National non-residential building permit values decreased 18.1% to $3.47 billion
Year-to-date (January-June 2024 vs January-June 2023)

  • In the first six months of 2024, Nova Scotia’s residential building permits increased 46.9% compared to the same period in 2023
    • This was the fastest increase among provinces
  • Halifax permits increased 42.5% and outside the city permit values increased 14.6%
  • National permits were up 1.3%
    • Building permit values were up in seven out of ten provinces, led by New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

  • Nova Scotia’s non-residential building permits rose 0.9% in the first six months of 2024 (compared with the same period in 2023)
  • Halifax permits decreased 1.0% while non-residential permits outside the city rose 4.0%
  • National non-residential building permit values fell 4.2%
Trends
  • Overall building permit values have generally been on a rising trend since the middle of 2021, though there have been periods of declining values over this period
    • Rising permit values are mostly driven by higher residential permits within Halifax as well as outside the city
  • Nova Scotia’s non-residential building permit values started to rise in early 2023 before reaching a plateau through the end of the year
    • Non-residential permit values continue to increase in Halifax while declining in the rest of Nova Scotia, resulting in a continuation of the current plateau