INSTAT reported that in the second quarter, 460 construction permits for new buildings were approved, marking an increase of 30.7%, compared to the same period in 2025, when 352 permits were approved.
The total projected area for new construction in this quarter is 307,127 m², marking an increase of 10.3%, compared to the second quarter of 2025 (278,389 m²).
Referring to the data from the previous quarter, for the first 6 months, the area granted for construction permits for the period January-June is 684 thousand square meters, with an increase of almost 12% compared to the first 6 months of 2025.
But, compared to the first 6 months of 2024, the area of permits appears to have decreased by 43%.
In fact, this is not a real decline, but is simply related to the fact that since 2025, INSTAT only reports permits granted by Municipalities, and these are permits granted by the National Council of the Water Territory, which makes decisions on resorts and towers. The story is completely different from what the figures show.
The given area is almost 4 times higher than the official declaration.
INSTAT explains that since the beginning of 2025, the publication of statistics on construction permits is currently based only on data provided by municipalities, which are the main authorities for issuing and reporting these permits.
However, DCM No. 408, dated 13.5.2015 “On the approval of the territorial development regulation”, as amended*, stipulates that the process of approving construction permits also includes other responsible institutions, in addition to municipalities.
Since there is still no standardized and complete reporting from all these entities to INSTAT, the published data is based only on municipal sources and does not report data from the National Council for Territory and Water (KKTU), which issues permits for constructions above 7 floors.
(According to VKM no. 418, dated 23.7.2025, which amended Article 19 of the Territorial Development Regulation, KKTU is responsible for construction permits for facilities within the coastal belt and for "any facility above 6 floors, when located outside this area").
In recent months, the National Council for Territory and Water has reviewed hundreds of requests for construction and development permits, including tourism, residential, public infrastructure, energy and transport projects. These permits are not reported in official statistics, creating a lack of transparency.
In the absence of updated data from INSTAT on the area of construction permits, which since the beginning of 2025 reports only local government and not permits from the National Council for Territory and Water (KKTU), revenues from the infrastructure impact tax are the most accurate indicator of the expected scale of construction in the country.
Although the construction area results in a modest increase compared to the first 6 months of 2025 and a 43% decrease from the first 6 months of 2024, other data from infrastructure construction tax revenues show a different story.
In total, for the first 6 months of 2026, 18.3 billion lek were collected from the 'infrastructure impact tax from new construction' across the country, or three times more than the same period a year ago (+200%).
Even compared to 2024, which until now held the record of the last decade for revenues from this tax for the highest area of permits issued, revenues have more than doubled (+120%).
For comparison, for the first 6 months of 2024, which is the last year when INSTAT reported complete data, permits were granted for a construction area of 1.2 million square meters.
For the same period, revenues from the infrastructure construction tax were 8.7 billion lek. The data shows that in 2024, they collected about 7,200 lek for each square meter given for construction.
With the same assumption (collection of 7.2 thousand lek per square meter given for construction for an income of 18.3 billion lek), in the first 6 months of 2026 it is estimated that 2.5 million square meters have been given for construction, or almost 4 times (3.7) times more than reported by INSTAT for the same period of 684 thousand square meters.
According to data from the Minister of Finance, 68% of the revenues in the first 6 months of 2026 came from the Municipality of Tirana, or 12.5 billion lekë, which is almost the same amount collected for the entire year 2025 and 362% more than the same period in 2025, or almost 5 times more (in the first 6 months of 2025, 2.7 billion lekë were collected). This means that a large part of the permits were issued for the capital.
The last change in the reference prices for apartments in the Municipality of Tirana was made in July 2023, with Council of Ministers No. 457, dated 26.07.2023. The new prices entered into force at the end of July 2023 and apply to the 32 cadastral zones of Tirana, which means that the increase in income is entirely due to the increase in the area granted for construction permits.
We emphasize that this is an assessment, made in the absence of transparency of information from official institutions.
Monitor has officially contacted the KKUT regarding the area of construction permits issued, but they only sent us a link where the decisions are published (which are not all), and to "Discover" the areas requires a colossal amount of work of downloading the decision and manually entering the area data./ Monitor
Source: INSTAT
Source: INSTAT
