Non-residential building consents
Auckland slump hits non-residential consents
1 Oct 2025
Our take on the latest Non-residential building consents (Wed 1 Oct 2025)
Value of non-res consents
$596m
In August 2025
Total consents down 37% from August 2024
Offices and Auckland region both down about $230m from August 2024
The key numbers...
- The monthly value of non-residential consents slipped below $600m in August for the third time this year, and after seasonal adjustment, consents were their weakest for any month so far in 2025.
- August 2024’s result was boosted by a $100m office consent in Maungakiekie-Tāmaki in Auckland, accentuating the decline in this August’s figures. However, total office consents were down $229m due to a $101m fall for Māngere-Ōtāhuhu, along with smaller declines in Wellington and Devonport-Takapuna. Palmerston North bucked the trend with a $32m increase in office consents compared with August last year.
- Hospital consents fell to just $25m, the lowest monthly total since June 2021 after adjusting for building cost inflation. The falls were concentrated across Auckland, with Howick, Rodney, and Albert-Eden all recording declines of between $16m and $30m.
- Retail and social building consents also dropped more than $44m from a year earlier. The biggest fall for retail consents was in Taupō (down $24m), although Selwyn recorded a $15m increase in consents for this building type. A $35m decline in social buildings in Whau (Auckland) dragged the nationwide inflation-adjusted volume of social consents to its lowest level in over three years.
Auckland's non-res downturn gathers pace
Volume of consents, annual running total, 2009/10 $m
...and our reaction
- A similar result in September to the ones we have seen in July and August could see non-residential consents record their weakest seasonally adjusted quarterly total since 2013. After seeming to stabilise since February this year, the inflation-adjusted annual volume of consents has fallen to a new five-year low, and it is on the verge of hitting its lowest level since 2014.
- The downturn in consents in Auckland is stark, with the annual volume of the region’s consents at its lowest since early 2016. The 24%pa decline over the last 12 months in Auckland’s consent volumes is the second largest since 1999, surpassed only by the lull in consents around the COVID-19 lockdown in the first half of 2020.
- The volume of consents in Northland is at its lowest level since 2018, while Otago’s consents have also slipped to a four-year low.
- Although there has been considerable focus on weakness in public sector consents since mid-2023, the annual volume of private sector consents has dropped 13% over the last year, the fastest decline since 2020. The annual volume of private sector consents has not been lower since 2014.
- Renewed weakness in the data raises questions about whether non-residential consents have bottomed out yet. Regardless, the softness in the numbers points towards continued pressure on work put in place throughout at least the next year, with Auckland looking like a major drag on the industry’s prospects.
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