How long does a building permit take in Calgary?
The City of Calgary issued its median building permit 24 days after application in 2026, up from 16 days in 2021, while its queue of waiting applications grew from 2,348 at the end of 2021 to 7,370 in July 2026.
The figure is the median number of days between application and issue for building permits issued in each calendar year.1 Calgary issues a lot of permits, so the medians are well supported: 13,664 permits in the first eight months of 2026, and 19,000 to 24,000 in each full year before it.
| Year | Median days, application to issue |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 16 |
| 2022 | 20 |
| 2023 | 15 |
| 2024 | 23 |
| 2025 | 16 |
| 2026 | 24 |
The number to watch is the backlog, not the median
A median only counts files that finished. If a city takes in more applications than it clears, the wait for new applicants gets longer before the median shows it. Calgary's open application backlog was 2,348 at the end of 2021 and 7,370 in July 2026.1 The city is still fast in absolute terms, and on current figures it will stay faster than Vancouver for years. But the direction is the wrong one, and anyone choosing a market on the strength of a 15-day permit should be looking at the queue rather than the median.
Compared with Vancouver
Vancouver's median has fallen from 118 days in 2022 to 62 in 2026, so the gap between the two cities narrowed from 6.7 times in 2023 to 2.6 times in 2026.4 Banded by declared construction value, so that like is compared with like, a Calgary permit still issues three to four times faster than a Vancouver permit for the same size of job.
How this squares with the City's own timeline
The City's own page says a new-house building permit is reviewed in approximately 21 days, not guaranteed, and dependent on volumes, application completeness and how quickly the applicant answers requests for information.3 That sits close to the measured 24-day median for all permits, which is the reassuring part. The difference is what each number counts: the City describes its review of a complete application, and the median measures every permit actually issued, including the ones that waited on the applicant. The backlog is the number the City's page does not carry.
What is excluded
Calgary's development permit feed was checked and left out, because it does not carry a usable pair of dates.2 Permits recorded as issued on the day they were applied for, and permits with a gap of 2,000 days or more, are dropped as data errors. Neither filter changes the medians above by more than a day.
One question per page. The first sentence is the answer. When a figure changes, the page changes and the verified date moves. All answers.