Permit-application momentum in New York City and San Francisco, measured monthly from the cities' own records.
Edition: August 2026 · covering May–July 2026 · data extracted August 24, 2026
New York City
89.6
18,009 initial job filings vs 20,107 a year earlier
San Francisco
81.6
5,099 applications vs 6,250 a year earlier
The PermitPipeline Preconstruction Activity Index is a year-over-year momentum measure centered on 100: the latest three complete months' permit applications against the same three months one year earlier. 100 means unchanged; 90 means activity is down 10%. Each city is compared only with itself. A permit application is an early public indication of intended work, not proof that construction will proceed; PermitPipeline treats it as an early signal.
New York City, monthly initial job filings
New York City monthly initial DOB job filings, July 2024 to July 2026. Highlighted bars are the current index window.
San Francisco, monthly building-permit applications
San Francisco monthly building-permit applications, July 2024 to July 2026. Highlighted bars are the current index window.
This edition
Initial NYC job filings fell 10.4% year over year; San Francisco applications fell 18.4%.
In New York the decline is obscured by filings attached to existing DOB jobs: initial filings were
44.6% of July's
13,871 distinct filings, while total filing volume declined just
2.1%.
Editions are immutable. Each new edition re-extracts the full history; a prior reading that moves
materially is corrected with a dated revision note rather than edited silently.