Inland Empire housing permits through September ran about 24% behind 2025, Census files show
Riverside County permitted 5,580 housing units in the first nine months of 2026 and San Bernardino County 4,074, according to Census Bureau permit files. Buildings with five or more units accounted for most of the gap.
Permits for new housing in Riverside and San Bernardino counties stayed below last year's pace through September, according to county files from the U.S. Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey.
The bureau's year-to-date file for September 2026 shows 5,580 housing units permitted in Riverside County. The matching file for September 2025 shows 7,304, so this year's count is 23.6% lower.
San Bernardino County's 2026 file shows 4,074 units, compared with 5,394 in the 2025 file, a decline of 24.5%.
Those totals are the Gazette's sums of the four building-size categories the bureau reports for each county.
Single-family homes
Riverside County had 4,535 single-family units permitted through September, down 4.7% from 4,757. The bureau put the construction value of this year's single-family permits at about $1.41 billion, compared with about $1.47 billion in the 2025 file.
San Bernardino County had 2,684 single-family units, down 8.2% from 2,923. The reported value of those permits rose 3.3%, to about $791 million from about $766 million.
Apartments and other multifamily
Buildings with five or more units accounted for most of the year-over-year difference in both counties.
Riverside County's file shows 46 such buildings containing 966 units through September. The 2025 file shows 116 buildings with 2,413 units.
San Bernardino County's file shows 65 buildings with 1,244 units, compared with 109 buildings and 2,247 units a year earlier.
Two-unit and three- and four-unit buildings made up 79 units in Riverside County and 146 in San Bernardino County this year.
September alone
The bureau's monthly file shows 860 units permitted in Riverside County in September, compared with 862 in September 2025. Single-family units numbered 496, up from 474. Seven buildings of five or more units accounted for 357 units, compared with 340 units in 27 such buildings a year earlier.
San Bernardino County's September total was 511 units, compared with 527. Single-family units numbered 367, compared with 365, and eight larger buildings accounted for 131 units, compared with 136 units in seven buildings.
About the data
The figures cited here come from the first set of columns in each file. The files carry a second set of columns labeled "rep," with lower counts for some categories.
Both 2026 files carried a last-modified date of Oct. 27 on the bureau's server. The 2025 files used for comparison were last modified Jan. 13, 2026.
