Montana building permits issued
Monthly permits for new privately-owned residential construction in the Montana jurisdictions PermitBase covers — housing units authorized, buildings, and construction valuation. This is Census survey data on new-home construction, not total permit volume (commercial permits and remodels are not counted).
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey (BPS) · data through 2026-08
State summary
State building-activity summary
- Latest month (2026-08)
- 190 units
- Year to date
- 2,142 units
- Coverage
- 43 jurisdictions
$56.3M valuation latest month · $595.3M valuation year to date · 12 of 43 jurisdictions reported the latest month. Sum of covered PermitBase jurisdictions only (not a full-state total). County-level jurisdictions overlapping covered cities are excluded to avoid double counting. Non-reporting jurisdictions are omitted from sums, never zero-filled.
Monthly trend
Units authorized per month across the jurisdictions PermitBase covers. Months reported by only some offices are marked, because a partially-reported month is not a quieter month.
Permits by jurisdiction
Housing units authorized for new residential construction. Ranked by trailing-12-month units; jurisdictions that did not report to the Census Bureau show “no data reported” — never assumed to be zero.
| # | Jurisdiction | Latest month units | Trailing 12 mo units | YTD units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unincorporated Yellowstone Countycounty-wide totals | 56 | 999 | 585 |
| 2 | Missoula County (Unincorporated)county-wide totals | 230 | 831 | 623 |
| 3 | Kalispell | 37 | 625 | 460 |
| 4 | Billings | 54 | 560 | 357 |
| 5 | Helena | 12 | 495 | 446 |
| 6 | Missoula | 14 | 357(11 mo) | 305 |
| 7 | Great Falls | 8 | 148 | 50 |
| 8 | Whitefish | 9 | 141(10 mo) | 157 |
| 9 | Butte-Silver Bowcounty-wide totals | 11 | 116 | 74 |
| 10 | Columbia Falls | 40 | 65(10 mo) | 53 |
| 11 | Belgrade | no data reported | 60(7 mo) | 113 |
| 12 | Ronan | 2 | 33 | 31 |
| 13 | Red Lodge | 0 | 30 | 19 |
| 14 | Manhattan | 0 | 12 | 10 |
| 15 | Hamilton | no data reported | 8(7 mo) | 23 |
| 16 | Polson | 3 | 5(2 mo) | 44 |
| 17 | Pondera County (Unincorporated)county-wide totals | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 18 | Richland County (Unincorporated Areas and Towns, excluding Sidney)county-wide totals | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 19 | Toole County (Unincorporated)county-wide totals | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| — | Anaconda-Deer Lodge | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Bozeman | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Choteau | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Colstrip | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Conrad | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Cut Bank | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Darby | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | City of Deer Lodge | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | East Helena | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Forsyth | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Glasgow | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Hardin | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Havre | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Laurel | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Lewistown | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Libby | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Livingston | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Miles City | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Shelby | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Sidney | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Stevensville | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Townsend | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | Troy | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
| — | West Yellowstone | no data reported | no data reported | no data reported |
County-wide rows join the Census county file and include every permit office in that county (incorporated cities included); their published estimates may include Census imputation for non-reporting offices. Every figure on this page traces to a specific Census BPS source file — see the PermitBase activity dataset manifest.
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