NYC permit filings look flat. New projects aren't.
w9ak-ipjd), counted as distinct job filing numbers. "Initial" means the filing that opens a job (the -I1 record); subsequent filings on the same job are excluded from the index but counted in the total. Figures are from the August 2026 edition of the NYC Preconstruction Activity Index (extracted 2026-08-24); the row-level extracts were re-pulled 2026-09-17. Everything on this page reproduces from the city's own file.The total is flat. The mix is not.
A monthly filing total is the number that gets reported, and this summer it barely moved. But a DOB filing can be one of two very different things: the record that opens a brand-new job, or a later record that adds scope, a subsequent filing, to a job that already exists. Only the first one is a new project entering the pipeline.
May through July 2026 against the same months in 2025:
| Filings, May to July | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| All distinct filings | 40,749 | 41,409 | +1.6% |
| Initial filings (open a new job) | 20,107 | 18,009 | -10.4% |
| Index reading (100 = flat) | 89.6 |
In July alone, only 44.6% of filings opened a new job. Follow-on filings on jobs already open went the other way, 2,989 to 3,315 year over year in July. So the pipeline of new projects is shrinking while the city's total looks unchanged. For anyone selling into preconstruction, the first number is the one that matters.
Every borough was down on new jobs
| Borough, initial filings May to July | 2025 | 2026 | Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manhattan | 7,874 | 7,278 | 92.4 |
| Brooklyn | 4,965 | 4,336 | 87.3 |
| Queens | 4,079 | 3,544 | 86.9 |
| Bronx | 2,028 | 1,783 | 87.9 |
| Staten Island | 1,161 | 1,068 | 92.0 |
A few neighborhoods rose against that: Long Island City and Hunters Point went 81 to 115, Financial District and Battery Park City 278 to 345, East Williamsburg 135 to 163. Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO and Boerum Hill went the other way, 175 to 146. The Index page lists every neighborhood, including the small ones below the volume screen, and says which changes pass the mover rule (at least 60 prior-year filings, a change of at least 15, and the same direction over the preceding six months).
Ground-up: Staten Island filed 92 new-building applications. Manhattan filed six.
Initial New Building filings, the ground-up subset, May to July against the same months a year earlier:
| Borough, initial New Building filings | 2025 | 2026 | Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| Queens | 159 | 152 | 95.6 |
| Brooklyn | 113 | 117 | 103.5 |
| Bronx | 83 | 78 | 94.0 |
| Staten Island | 58 | 92 | 158.6 |
| Manhattan | 15 | 6 | 40.0 |
Staten Island is the one worth reporting. Manhattan's counts are small enough that a handful of filings swings the percentage; print six versus fifteen as context, not as a trend.
Approvals got slower on the same 120-day clock
Take every initial filing from April 2025 and every one from April 2026, restrict to standard plan examination (self-certified filings are out of the cut), and ask the same question of both: how many were approved within 120 days?
| Work type (standard plan exam) | April 2025 | April 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alteration CO (changes the certificate of occupancy) | 41.3% (104 of 252) | 25.1% (52 of 207) | -16.1 pts |
| New Building | 25.8% (39 of 151) | 13.9% (15 of 108) | -11.9 pts |
| No Work | 87.7% (179 of 204) | 82.5% (165 of 200) | -5.2 pts |
| Alteration | 87.6% (2,005 of 2,288) | 86.0% (1,545 of 1,797) | -1.7 pts |
| Full Demolition | 83.3% (120 of 144) | 83.9% (130 of 155) | +0.5 pts |
The dataset carries only each filing's current status, so it cannot say why the rest were still waiting on day 120. What it can say is that the two work types that change what a building is, a new building or a change of occupancy, are the two that slowed the most. The Alt-1 vs Alt-2 guide explains why those are the filings a general contractor should be watching.
Check the rows yourself
Every table above has its rows published. The extracts were re-pulled on September 17 with the same filters the edition used; 57 of 74 headline figures match to the row and the largest gap is nine filings out of 18,009, which is DOB back-dating, measured rather than hidden. Same CC BY 4.0 licence as the tables: use them, cite the Index.
- Initial filings, May to July, both years (38,102 rows: filing number, date, borough, neighborhood, job type, review type, status)
- New Building initials by borough (873 rows)
- April cohorts with the 120-day approval flag (12,486 rows)
- Reconciliation: published figure, fresh pull, delta and the manifest with the exact query per file
Questions people ask
Why count initial filings instead of all filings?
Because a subsequent filing adds scope to a job that already exists. Counting it as new activity double-counts the project. The Index counts the record that opens a job, the -I1 filing, and publishes the total alongside it so the split is visible.
Is a 10% drop in new jobs a lot?
It is part of a slide, not a blip. Compared with the same three months a year earlier, initial filings have been below flat every month since September 2025, from about 96 then to about 90 now, and every borough is down this summer. It is not seasonally adjusted, so read it as a direction, not a forecast.
Where do the numbers come from?
NYC Department of Buildings DOB NOW job application filings, the city's public dataset, counted as distinct job filing numbers. The method is on the Index methodology page and every row is downloadable.
Can I republish these tables?
Yes. The Index CSVs and the extracts are CC BY 4.0. Attribute to the PermitPipeline Preconstruction Activity Index with the edition date and the source URL.
Sources and downloads
NYC DOB NOW Job Application Filings, w9ak-ipjd. Tables: NYC Preconstruction Activity Index, August 2026 edition, methodology. CSVs: boroughs, neighborhoods, approval by work type, monthly filings.