The number nobody publishes

The average Calgary building permit was worth $476,000 last year. In Edmonton, $348,000. Three hours up Highway 2.

That figure is not published anywhere. It comes from dividing two numbers that are: total permit value, and permit count. Calgary recorded $7.4 billion across 15,559 permits in 2025. Edmonton recorded $4.9 billion across 14,075.

So Calgary issued about 10% more files — and 51% more value. A gap of $128,000 on the average permit, a factor of 1.37.

Everyone in the Alberta construction market quotes the headline totals. Almost nobody divides them.

Two cities moving in opposite directions

The direction of travel is the part worth reading twice.

Calgary’s permit count fell 29.9% while its value rose 3.5%. Fewer files, bigger projects. The growth came from the commercial segment: up 40.6%, to $1.5 billion.

Edmonton moved the other way. Permit count down 9.9%, value up 20.0%. The growth came from institutional work: up 142.2%, to $584.1 million.

The most recent monthly data keeps them apart. In June 2026, seasonally adjusted, the Calgary census metropolitan area recorded $863.2 million in permits — up 38.5% on the month and 29.0% year over year. Edmonton recorded $599.3 million: up 22.1% on the month, but down 9.7% on the year.

These are not one market with two postal codes

Both cities sit in the same province, under the same trade agreements, drawing on the same labour pool. They are not the same commercial opportunity.

Calgary rewards firms built to run a small number of large private commercial jobs. Relationship-led, fewer shots, higher stakes per shot. Business development here looks like a short list of owners and developers, cultivated over years, where losing one pursuit materially changes the year.

Edmonton rewards firms built to survive public procurement cycles. Institutional work more than doubled in a single year, and institutional work arrives through tenders, thresholds and prequalification — not through relationships alone. Business development here looks like coverage: being registered, being compliant, being visible on the right platforms before the posting appears.

Those are two different cost structures, two different sales teams, and two different definitions of a good pipeline.

If you are carrying one pitch into both cities, one of those meetings is not going the way you think it is.

What to check before you use these numbers

Three caveats worth stating plainly.

The $476,000 and $348,000 figures are arithmetic, not published statistics. They are the ratio of two official numbers, and anyone can reproduce them in ten seconds — but they should be presented as a derived ratio, not attributed to Statistics Canada as a published series.

The −29.9% drop in Calgary’s permit count is the most fragile figure here. A fall of nearly a third in one year, with value rising, may reflect a change in how applications are aggregated rather than a change in the market. No source confirms or denies it.

And permit value is not construction spend. It is the declared value at application. It tells you about intent and scale, not about what was actually built or when.

Sources

• Alberta Regional Dashboard — Value of building permits, Calgary and Edmonton (Statistics Canada Building Permits Survey, updated 30 June 2026)
• Alberta Regional Dashboard — Number of building permits, Calgary and Edmonton
• Statistics Canada — Building permits, June 2026, Table 34-10-0292-01, released 12 August 2026

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