INSTAT, Institute of Statistics

Short-Term Statistics Unit, Directory of Economic Statistics

Vllazën Huta Street, Building 35, Entrance 1, Tirana, Albania, ZIP Code, 1017

Data for building permits issued provide information for buildings and civil engineering works in national level. The statistical information about building permits issued is a short-term indicator for the future development of the construction sector.

Data for building permits issued that INSTAT collect and publish on building permits issued are:

• Total number of building permits issued (residential and non-residential buildings).
• Total area in square meters of building permits issued (residential and non-residential buildings).
• Approximate value of building permits issued for buildings (residential and non-residential buildings), and civil engineering works.
• Approximate value of building permits issued by clients for buildings (residential and non-residential buildings), and civil engineering works.

Classification of Types of Constructions (1998)

The statistical information covers data on building permits issued in the Albanian Republic territory. 

Buildings are roofed constructions which can be used separately, have been built for permanent purposes, can be entered for persons and are suitable or intended for protecting persons, animals or objects.

Residential buildings are constructions at least half of which is used for residential purposes.

Non-residential buildings are constructions which are mainly used or intended for non-residential purposes.

Building permits total area is the area in square meters where the approved project is implemented.

Civil engineering works are all constructions not classified under buildings: railways, roads, bridges, highways, pipelines, telecommunication and electricity lines, etc.

Client is the person or structure which realize the construction. 

The statistical units are: Residential and Non-Residential buildings for those who are issued building permits. Civil Engineering Works for those who are issued building permits. 

All types of building permits issued. 

Building permits issued data covers the whole territory. 

The time series of building permits issued is published since 1995. 

Not applicable. 

• Number of building permits issued for residential and non-residential buildings.     
• Total area in square meters.
• Approximate value of building permits issued in thousand ALL.

The reference period of the statistical data on building permits issued is quarterly. This report is based on reference year 2023. 

The legal basis on which STS indicators are based consist on:

• National Statistical Law
• Official Statistics Programme 2022-2026

 Classifications and definitions according to relevant EU regulations:

• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197

Building permits issued statistics are transmitted to Eurostat. 

Article 31 on Statistics Law reads as follows: Data collected, processed and stored for the production of official statistics shall be treated by INSTAT, statistical agencies and any organization or person mandated by them, as strictly confidential when they allow statistical units to be identified, either directly or indirectly, thereby disclosing individual information that has not already been made public on other grounds. All employees of the bodies/controllers mentioned in the first paragraph of this point, who are aware about the data they use during they daily work, are obligated to maintain the confidentiality of reliability even after the end of their working function. Direct identification means when a statistical unit is directly identified from its name or address or any officially allocated and commonly known identification number. When data processing is made in a manner that allows the identification of the data subject, the data should immediately be encrypted in order for the subjects to be no longer identifiable.

Albanian Institute of Statistics protects and does not disseminate data it has obtained or it has access to, which enable the direct or indirect identification of the statistical units. Albania Institute of Statistics takes all appropriate preventive measures so as to render impossible the identification of individual statistical units by technical or other means that might reasonably be used by a third party. Statistical data that could potentially enable the identification of the statistical unit are disseminated by Albania Institute of Statistics if and only if:

a) these data have been treated, as it is specifically set out in the Regulation, in such a way that their dissemination does not prejudice statistical confidentiality or 

b) the statistical unit has given its consent, without any reservations, for the disclosure of data.

The confidential data that are transmitted to Albania Institute of Statistics are used exclusively for statistical purposes and the only persons who have the right to have access to these data are the personnel engaged in this task. Issues referring to the observance of statistical confidentiality are examined by the staff working in Albania Institute of Statistics. The responsibilities of this staff are to recommend on:  which detailed level the statistical data can be disseminated, so as the identification, either directly or indirectly, of the surveyed statistical unit is not possible; the anonymization criteria for the microdata provided to users; the access granting to researchers on confidential data for scientific purposes.

The data are published in aggregated level, by type of buildings and civil engineering works (referring the Classification of Types of Construction, CC) and by prefectures (referring local government units). Data on individual level are never published. 

Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. The announcements and delays are pre-announced in this calendar. In the case of delays, the date of the next publication and the explanation of the reasons for the delays are specified.

The calendar of publications is available on the INSTAT website.

In line with the article 34 of Law No.17/2018 “On Official Statistics”, dated in 17.04.2018, disseminates statistics on INSTAT website and other media for simultaneous access, respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The following dissemination channels are used to release the results:

• Website – online release;
• Written requests;
• Special publications;
• Data request, section available for external users

The building permits statistics are published quarterly, approximately 60 days after the end of the reference quarter. 

The press release contains information about key building permit indicators. The press release of the Building Permits is published online on INSTAT's website. 

Building permits issued results are published on INSTAT's official website: “Building Permits” and “Regional Statistical Yearbook”. 

Data on building permits are published in the official website of INSTAT: https://databaza.instat.gov.al:8083/pxweb/en/DST/

Data bases at micro level are not published due to confidentiality reasons. Aggregated data is the only type of data that is provided to external users. This data are given to the users in the case these data are not confidential  based on Article 31 of Official Statistical Law No.17/2018.

Users can submit specific requests for data through the INSTAT website in a dedicated session to contact in the following link: Data-Request.

The methodology of the building permits issued is based on Eurostat manuals and regulations on Short-Term Statistics, which contains a comprehensive set of recommendations on the compilation of the Building permits statistics indicators. Also the methodological notes are published at INSTAT website.

Short-Term Statistics Unit documents all processes and procedures used for calculations related to building permits for internal purposes. 

INSTAT is committed to ensure the highest quality with respect to the compilation of statistical information. In accordance with the Statistics Law No 17/2018, INSTAT use statistical methods and processes in compliance with internationally recognized scientific principles and standards conduct ongoing analyses of the statistics with a view to quality improvements and ensure that statistics are as up-to-date. In performing its tasks it follows the general principles of quality management from the European Statistics Code of Practice. INSTAT declares that it takes into account the following principles: impartiality, quality of processes and products, user orientation, employee orientation, effectiveness of statistical processes, reducing the workload for respondents.

Building permits issued data are compared with the data of the previous years in order to distinguish if the data are coherent or they had big changes. 

Users on building permits issued data are as follows:

•  Public Administration Institutions;
•  Universities;
•  National and international NGOs;  
•  Private Businesses;
•  Researchers, students and other similar groups. 

Page Views (Hits) in the field of Construction in 2023 are around 6,296 clicks.

During 2023 INSTAT conducted User Satisfaction Survey. The survey results show that the overall quality of statistics in the field of Construction is rated 3.92 (or 78.4 %) on a scale of 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good).

INSTAT organizes every year User Satisfaction Survey. 

The statistical data produced on building permits issued are in the required level of detail, for number and total area of building permits issued by type of buildings; approximate value of building permits issued for buildings and civil engineering works; building permits issued by type of clients (public or private). The degree of completeness of the data for 2023 is 100 %. This calculation takes into account the data produced by INSTAT versus those required by Eurostat. 

The information about building permits issued is collected from administrative sources, by their obligation according to the law. The information is collected by exhaustive way and is not a part of any survey. 

Not applicable. 

The non-sampling errors are mainly referred to possible revisions of the administrative data sources reported data. Data review occurs only if the relevant institutions review the data sent to INSTAT for the purpose of updating or any potential human error. If the relevant institutions review the data sent to INSTAT, these changes will be reflected in the nearest publication and brief explanatory information will be provided to users.

Results of Building Permits are published on INSTAT website 59 days after the end of the reference period (Q+ 59 days). The reference period of these results is December 31st, 2023.

The data of Building Permits are disseminated according to the publication calendar. The publication of Building Permits has been punctuality in time to 100 % of publications carried out over the years.

The data on building permits issued are compiled according to the Eurostat methodology and are comparable on international level. The building permits data are representative for the whole country also the data are produced in national level and by prefectures. 

Building permits data for number, total area and approximate value are available since 1995. Data for “Type of client” are available since 1999.

Starting from the  first quarter 2016 it has been added the “Office buildings” indicator while “Residential buildings” indicator is detailed by number of dwellings, providing comparability over the time of 8 years (CC2 = Jlast-Jfirst + 1 = 8).

The data are constantly checked to ensure their comparability over time.

Not applicable.

The internal consistency of the data is checked before it is finalized. The links between variables are checked and coherence between different data series. The internal consistency for example for the variables V411- Total number of building permits issued and V412 - Total area of building permits issued are coherent. 

People working on building permits issued data are: Total staff in Central Office: 1 employee; Staff in Regional Offices: 12 employees.

Revision policy is done in accordance with general revision policy and errors treatment policy introduced by INSTAT in the links below:

• Revision Policy
• Errors Treatment Policy

The same revision policy is applied to national releases and transmissions to Eurostat.

In case that the urban planning offices of the respective municipalities, will report any change in the data sent to INSTAT, this information will be updated and reflected in the next publication with a short explanatory information for the users. No revisions of data on “Bulding Permits” for 2023 have been conducted, subject to this report.

No numeric information exists regarding the Mean Absolute Revision (MAR) and Mean Revision (MR).

Administrative source, data are collected by regional statistical offices at the respective municipalities.

Data collection is carried out quarterly. 

The data on building permits issued is an administrative data. The statistical information on building permits issued is collected by INSTAT regional statistical offices in cooperation with the urbanization offices of municipalities.

Logical checks and mathematical controls are made to the collected information of building permits issued for all indicators that INSTAT produce, during all the time of data processing. 

Not applicable.

Not applicable. The data on building permits issued are published only on absolute figures, they are not seasonally adjusted or calendar adjusted. 

None.