Press & media

Helping Build Canada. One project at a time.

Permit.ca is the marketplace where Canadian property owners, builders and developers find the qualified professionals their permit and construction projects require — and manage the work and payments in one place.

A marketplace, not a directory

Post a project, receive quotes, hire and pay — the whole transaction clears in one place.

Credentials verified where applicable

Licences and professional credentials are checked where applicable before a professional can quote.

Payments handled through regulated providers

Payments are handled through a regulated, Canada-registered payment provider and tied to agreed project milestones.

The story

Canada has to build. Every project starts with the right approvals.

Density has been legalized. The homes still have to get built.

Basement suites. Laneway homes. Additions. Multiplex conversions. The policy has moved faster than the pipeline that turns policy into finished units.

Before a shovel touches ground, a project needs professionals.

Drawings. An engineer’s stamp. A survey. A zoning review. Many building projects in Canada need permits, drawings, zoning review or input from qualified professionals before construction begins. It is the first step, and it is upstream of everything else.

That step still runs on phone calls and voicemail.

Owners often struggle to verify who they are hiring. Good firms are invisible to the people looking for them. Money changes hands on trust. Projects stall before anyone has drawn a line.

Permit.ca moves that step online.

Post a project once. Receive quotes from relevant professionals. Keep scope, messages, files and milestone payments connected in one place, so the work can move forward with less chasing.

A housing story

Every week a permit sits still is a week a home isn’t built. We sit at the front of that queue. Clearing it faster is the least glamorous and most direct contribution we can make to supply.

A jobs story

Every project that clears puts work on a professional’s desk. Architects, engineers, BCIN designers, land surveyors, planners, arborists — most of them small Canadian firms. We help put food on those tables.

The stories everyone has

Everyone knows someone who got burned.

The contractor who took the deposit and stopped answering. The drawings that never arrived. The work that failed inspection and had to come out. The basement finished quietly ten years ago that’s now blocking a house sale.

Ask around any dinner table in this country and someone has a version of it.

Those stories need three things to happen.

No way to check who you’re hiring.

We make credentials easier to verify before anyone can quote.

No record of what was agreed.

Scope, messages, files and revisions are logged against the project permanently.

Money that’s already gone.

Payments are handled through regulated providers and tied to agreed milestones.

Take away all three, and the story doesn’t happen.

Who we’re helping

Behind every permit is a person.

A permit is paperwork. What sits behind it is almost never paperwork. These are the projects people bring us.

Room for Mom and Dad

A family finishing the basement into a legal suite so ageing parents can move in downstairs instead of into a home across town. Multi-generational living is one of the project types Permit.ca is built to support.

The house they outgrew

A couple with a third child on the way, adding a rear extension rather than moving. Same street, same school, more room. They want more room without leaving the community they already call home.

The first café

Someone who saved for years, signed a lease and is now paying rent on an empty room. Change of use, fire separations, an occupancy permit. The Canadian dream has a permit application buried in it.

The sale that was stuck

A basement finished years ago without a permit, discovered by a buyer’s lawyer at the worst moment. Getting it permitted can help move a stalled sale forward.

The suite that can finally be rented

An owner who wants to rent legally, inspected and above board — not quietly. That can mean rental income for the owner and another legal home on the market.

The fourth location

A franchisee opening in a new municipality, where the build is identical and the rules are not. The faster the drawings clear, the sooner the doors open and the staff get hired.

None of these people wanted to learn what a BCIN designer is. They wanted a home that fits, or a business that opens.

Canadian business

Every storefront starts with a permit.

Before a café pours a coffee or a clinic sees a patient, someone has to get the space approved. Change of use. Fire separations. Barrier-free access. Mechanical and electrical drawings.

It’s the least visible part of opening a business and one of the most expensive places to get stuck — because the lease clock is already running and the rent doesn’t wait for a building department.

Every week removed from that timeline can mean rent saved, revenue earned earlier, and staff hired sooner.

Spaces we help open
Cafés & coffee shopsRestaurants & barsRetail & storefrontsFranchise rolloutsOffices & co-workingMedical & dental clinicsGyms & studiosDaycaresSalons & spasPharmaciesWarehouses & industrialMultiplex & infill

Small firms on both sides

The business opening the doors is usually small. So is the firm drawing the plans. Many professionals in this category are independents and small practices — the work we route supports a Canadian business on either side of the project.

How it works

The model is familiar. The category is not.

Two-sided marketplaces reorganised travel, transport and food. Construction’s professional layer is still fragmented. Permit.ca brings that work into one marketplace, with payment infrastructure built in.

1

Post the project

In plain language. No industry vocabulary required.

2

Relevant pros quote

Credentials checked where applicable before a professional can quote.

3

Payments through regulated providers

Handled through a regulated, Canada-registered payment provider.

4

Milestones move on approval

The client approves agreed milestones before the next payment step moves forward.

Network effects

More projects attract more professionals, which brings better quotes, which attracts more projects. Marketplaces compound once that loop closes.

Fintech-enabled

Payment infrastructure is handled through regulated providers registered in Canada, with milestone-based controls built into the workflow.

Built here

Permit rules change at every municipal boundary. The product is built around Canadian building departments, not adapted from elsewhere.

Fast facts

The details, checked.

Everything on this page is on the record. If you need something that isn’t here — data, a specific figure, a professional to interview — ask and we’ll get it to you or tell you plainly that we can’t.

What it is
A marketplace connecting property owners, builders and developers with qualified construction and permit professionals.
Where it operates
Started in the Greater Toronto Area. Expanding across Canada.
Disciplines covered
18 professional categories — structural, mechanical, electrical, civil, geotechnical and fire protection engineering; architects and BCIN designers; land surveyors; urban planners; environmental, heritage and code consultants; arborists; energy advisors; permit expeditors.
Verification
Licences and professional credentials are checked against the relevant issuing body where applicable before a professional can quote.
Payments
Handled through a regulated, Canada-registered payment provider and tied to agreed project milestones.
Cost to clients
No platform fees. Revenue comes from the professional side of the marketplace.
Story angles

Threads worth pulling.

Directions other reporters have found useful. We can put you in touch with professionals and property owners on any of them.

01The permit is the housing-crisis bottleneck nobody talks about.
02Why hiring an engineer in Canada still runs on voicemail.
03Everyone has a contractor horror story. What would it take to end them?
04Structured payments arrive in an industry still run on a handshake.
05The hidden cost of opening a small business: rent paid on a room you can’t use yet.
06Small design and engineering firms are getting a new front door.
Cleared for use

Quotes and boilerplate.

Use these as they are — no approval needed. If you want something said differently, or on a specific topic, we’ll get you a fresh quote same day.

“Canada cannot build its way out of a housing shortage without the people who make building legal. That work happens before anyone breaks ground, and it has been invisible.”

Bilal Asad

Chief Executive Officer, Permit.ca

“Nobody should have to send thousands of dollars to a stranger and hope. We make credentials easier to verify, and we put a clearer payment process around the work.”

Bilal Asad

Chief Executive Officer, Permit.ca

Boilerplate

Permit.ca is a Canadian marketplace that connects property owners, builders and developers with qualified professionals for permit and construction projects — including architects, engineers, designers, surveyors, planners and consultants. Credentials are checked where applicable before a professional can quote, and payments are handled through a regulated, Canada-registered payment provider with milestone-based controls built into the workflow. Permit.ca operates in the Greater Toronto Area and is expanding across Canada. Learn more at permit.ca.

Brand assets

Logos and usage.

Logo — colour

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Logo — white

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Icon — colour

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Icon — white

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Clear space

Leave space around the mark equal to the height of the shield. Minimum size 24 px tall.

Please don’t

Recolour, stretch, rotate, add effects or rebuild the mark. Use the white version on dark backgrounds rather than the colour one.

Naming

Permit.ca on first reference; Permit is fine afterwards. Not PermitCA or Permit CA.

Media kit (PDF)

Four pages: the story, fast facts, story angles, cleared quotes, boilerplate and brand guidance. Everything on this page, in one file you can keep.

Press contact

Talk to a human.

Interviews, data requests, background briefings, or a professional to speak to on the record — send a note and we’ll come back to you.

press@permit.ca
Response

Within one business day.

Deadlines

Tell us yours in the first line and we’ll work to it.

Based in

Greater Toronto Area, serving clients across Canada.

Send us a message

We’ll reply to the address you give us.

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