Building permits are the earliest hard signal of construction demand: every permitted unit is future work for framers, electricians, plumbers, HVAC crews, and roofers, months before ground breaks. We track the Census Building Permits Survey at the county level for the states we cover — 1,358 counties across 20 states — and the 2025 numbers concentrate harder than most people expect.
Across those counties, 911,858 residential units were permitted in 2025. Two states account for 43% of them.
The 2025 ranking
Texas — 210,217 units (140,579 single-family, 69,638 multifamily). Florida — 178,297 (111,173 / 67,124). California — 103,856 (57,739 / 46,117). Arizona — 51,532 (33,371 / 18,161). New York — 38,667 (11,499 / 27,168). Washington — 34,913 (17,780 / 17,133). Colorado — 33,754 (17,406 / 16,348). Ohio — 33,640 (17,327 / 16,313). Virginia — 33,094 (20,458 / 12,636). Utah — 26,775 (16,774 / 10,001). Pennsylvania — 25,709 (15,812 / 9,897). Minnesota — 20,947 (12,886 / 8,061). Alabama — 19,061 (15,402 / 3,659). Illinois — 18,551 (10,821 / 7,730). Nevada — 18,540 (12,190 / 6,350).
Scope note: these are the counties in our tracking set, not national totals — the Census's own national figure runs higher because it includes the 30 states we don't yet aggregate at county level.
The single-family vs. multifamily story
The split matters as much as the total, because the two markets employ different contractors. New York permits 70% multifamily — apartment construction, which concentrates work in large commercial subs. Alabama permits 81% single-family — a market of residential GCs, roofers, and trade crews. Texas and Florida sit near two-thirds single-family: enormous volume on both sides.
For anyone selling into the trades, the ratio is a targeting signal: single-family-heavy states have contractor populations dominated by small residential firms — exactly the businesses that appear on state license rosters — while multifamily-heavy markets concentrate demand in fewer, larger operations.
Source: Census Bureau Building Permits Survey, 2025 county-level data (public domain), aggregated over the 1,358 counties in our coverage set.