Building permits: the turnaround that is not one

The short version

In 2025, 47,636 dwellings were permitted in Austria, the lowest annual value in the Statistics Austria series; in the record year 2021 it was 81,289, a decline of 41 percent.
The fourth quarter of 2025 did bring a plus of 12.5 percent. But the first quarter of 2026 turned negative again with 11,804 permitted dwellings: 7.7 percent below the previous year.
Circulating summaries turn this minus 7.7 percent into a plus. Checking the primary source refutes that; whoever calls the turnaround is calling it too early.
A permit issued today becomes a finished flat in 2028/29 at the earliest. Vienna still faces about 8,100 additional households per year against falling completions: around 8,060 in 2026 and 7,530 in 2027.
The supply gap thus remains the best-documented price driver in the Wohni model, where it carries the highest weight at 60 percent.

View over Viennese rooftops with residential buildings and a terraced high-rise — Above Vienna's rooftops: what is missing here was not permitted three years ago. Photo: Wohni Journal

From record to floor: what the series shows

The Statistics Austria numbers tell a simple story with a complicated ending. In 2021, the last year of cheap money, 81,289 dwellings were permitted in Austria, more than ever in the series kept since 2010. Then came the rate turn, the construction-cost surge and the lending rules: 2022 fell to 67,073, 2023 to 48,859, and there the number has been stuck since. 2024 brought 49,443, and 2025, at 47,636, the lowest annual value of the series. Among new residential buildings, 2023 to 2025 marked the three lowest values since records began, at 12,234, 10,470 and 10,955 permits.

Permitted dwellings including extensions and conversions, Austria total. Source: Statistics Austria, 2023 to 2025 preliminary; retrieved 2 September 2026. Intermediate years 2011 to 2020 omitted for space.

The turnaround, checked

Hope stirred at the end of 2025: the fourth quarter brought 12,774 permitted dwellings, up 12.5 percent on the year, and the construction industry spoke of a bottom forming. Several market reports extended that into a turnaround in the summer of 2026, putting the first quarter of 2026 at plus 7.7 percent. The primary source shows something else: according to Statistics Austria, exactly 11,804 dwellings were permitted in the first quarter of 2026, which is 7.7 percent fewer than in the same quarter a year earlier. The same figure, the opposite sign. One positive quarter does not make a trend, and the following quarter has for now taken it back.

What this means for Vienna

For the Viennese market, what counts is less the permit year than the completion year, and two to three years of planning and construction lie in between. The permit floors of 2023 to 2025 will therefore only become missing key handovers in 2026 to 2028. The market reports by EHL and Exploreal expect around 8,060 completed dwellings for Vienna in 2026 and around 7,530 in 2027, while according to the Statistics Austria household forecast about 7,500 to 8,100 additional households need a home each year. The gap is thus not a forecast but already permitted, or more precisely: not permitted.

In the Wohni forecast model, the supply gap therefore carries the highest weight of all price drivers at 60 percent, ahead of migration, interest rates and climate factors. The current permit numbers confirm that weighting: even if every quarter from tomorrow grew by double digits, the first relief would arrive years later. To run the effect on individual districts, see the scenarios in the future calculator; the districts with the highest new-build pressure are shown in the investment ranking.

What this could mean for prices

How much price effect hides in missing permits? Research offers a rule of thumb, the so-called stock-flow effect: if available supply shrinks by one percent relative to demand, prices rise by about one percent, in inelastic markets like Vienna rather more. On this basis, the Wohni model currently attributes to the supply channel an effect of roughly half a percentage point of additional price growth per year. If the gap runs on as permitted until 2028, this channel alone adds up to roughly two percentage points over the coming four years, on top of the base dynamic from incomes, interest rates and migration.

Translated into euros: a 70 m² flat at the Vienna land-register price of 2026 (an estimated 5,672 euros per square metre) costs around 397,000 euros today. If its value grows on the model's base path at 3.0 percent a year, it stands at around 447,000 euros in 2030. Add the supply channel of 0.5 percentage points and it is around 456,000 euros. The supply gap alone therefore accounts for about 8,700 euros or just under 2 percent over four years, roughly 2,000 euros more each year.

Model calculation, values rounded. Starting value: 70 m² at 5,672 euros per m² (RE/MAX Vienna land-register price 2025 plus OeNB annual rate). The base path of 3.0 percent p.a. matches the Wohni base assumption for Vienna, the 0.5 percentage point premium the supply channel from the stock-flow effect.

Conclusion

The permit series stands at the lowest level in its history, a single positive quarter has been overtaken by the next minus, and the completions of the coming two years are long since fixed. For renters and buyers this means, soberly: waiting for relief from the supply side is not a strategy for the foreseeable future.

Sources

Context: Analysis based on public Statistics Austria data (2023 to 2025 preliminary) and published market reports. No investment, tax or legal advice.