Commercial Building Permits in Montréal: What the Process Actually Involves

The building permit is the core, but it's often not the whole file. Depending on the work and the borough, a commercial project can also need site planning and architectural integration (PIIA) review before the permit issues, and a separate certificate of occupancy (certificat d'occupation) to authorise the use. Which of these apply depends on your project and your borough. Montréal has centralised the applications on one platform — the Allégo platform (permis.montreal.ca) — but the decisions are still the borough's.

The City of Montréal charges building-permit fees on the declared value of the work. As of 2026, for building construction and renovation the rate is $9.80 per $1,000 of estimated work value, subject to a minimum:

Two things people miss: the fee is non-refundable if the application is cancelled or refused, and the tariff has multiple categories — the $9.80/$1,000 rate is for building construction and renovation, while detached accessory structures like fences and decks are charged on a different rate. PIIA and other approvals carry their own fees on top. Fees current as of 2026; the City sets its tariff annually — confirm before budgeting.

Effective January 2025, the Ville de Montréal holds all 19 boroughs to a 120-day maximum permit-issuance period — piloted from 1 November 2024 in Ville-Marie, Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie, Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, Le Sud-Ouest, LaSalle, and Verdun. Read that as a ceiling the City holds boroughs to, not a promise your permit will take 120 days; a complete, well-scoped application clears well inside it.

Historically, boroughs varied by roughly a factor of three — on 2017 figures, from about three weeks in the fastest to over ten weeks in the slowest. That older picture is only useful for relative ordering; it has shifted since and is not a current service level.

The scoping that matters most: you'll see long borough figures quoted — around 18 months in Ville-Marie, 20+ months in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Those are new-construction authorisations, not interior work. An interior commercial fit-out runs a faster track than new-build authorisation, and a new-construction number should not set your fit-out expectations. The single biggest lever you control on timeline is a complete first submission.

2017 figures are relative data only; the 18-/20-month figures are 2023 new-construction authorisations. Confirm current timelines with your borough.

The detail that most often adds weeks is PIIA (plan d'implantation et d'intégration architecturale) review, required before permit issuance in many cases. It carries fees that differ by borough and adds review time, because files route through the borough's comité consultatif d'urbanisme (CCU), which recommends to borough council — a calendar you don't control. A general trigger that appears across borough by-laws: construction or expansion over three storeys or over 925 m², with exceptions in certain commercial zones. Beyond that, the specifics vary by borough. Two worth knowing:

Signage triggering PIIA in Ville-Marie is a common surprise for retail and restaurant tenants. Current as of 2026 — confirm with the borough.

A certificat d'occupation is a separate approval from the building permit, and it also comes from the borough. It authorises a given activity to operate in the space, and it attaches to both the establishment and its operator — which is why a change of operator voids it, along with a change in floor area or a change or addition of activities. You may see it called a permis d'occupation or a certificat d'occupation d'établissement d'affaires, depending on the borough.

For some businesses it's a hard dependency, not a formality. An operator of a bar or restaurant must hold the occupancy permit before applying for an alcohol permit — so a restaurant that leaves the occupancy certificate late cannot even start its alcohol application. The same pattern applies to tourist establishments, which must hold the certificate before applying to the CITQ (Corporation de l'industrie touristique du Québec). If your opening depends on serving alcohol, the occupancy certificate is on the critical path.

The single most useful thing to know: the City states plainly that you should confirm the activity you intend to carry on is permitted before renting or buying a space. Zoning may not allow your use at a given address, and finding that out after signing a lease is an expensive way to learn it. Separately, an increase in occupant numbers, a change of use, or a modification of the premises additionally requires a transformation permit.

Current as of 2026 — confirm with the borough.

This one is province-wide, not a Montréal quirk — it sits in Quebec's Act respecting land use planning and development (Loi sur l'aménagement et l'urbanisme). Once a notice of motion is given to adopt or amend a planning by-law, no permit may be issued for work the pending by-law would prohibit.

The freeze is time-limited, not indefinite: for zoning and PIIA changes it lapses if the by-law isn't adopted within two months of the notice, and again if the adopted by-law isn't in force within four months of adoption — it is not a flat “four months from the notice.” And it only bites if the notice states the precise nature of the by-law and designates the zone concerned; an imprecise notice creates no freeze (Dorval v. Centres de la jeunesse et de la famille Batshaw, 2012 QCCA 1493). If you're told a pending by-law has frozen your permit, it's worth having checked whether the notice actually reaches your project. We design and build — for anything contested, that's a question for your own advisor.

Reflects the Loi sur l'aménagement et l'urbanisme (arts. 114 zoning, 117 subdivision, 145.20.1 PIIA, 145.30 municipal works agreements); general Quebec law, current as of 2026 — confirm with the municipality and your own advisor.

Everything above is Montréal's borough system. Laval, Longueuil, and the Vaudreuil-Soulanges municipalities each run their own permit process — separate from Montréal's and from each other. The fee schedule, the 120-day cap, and the borough PIIA triggers on this page are Montréal's; they don't apply off-island. We won't quote timelines for those municipalities here that we haven't verified — the point is simply that the Montréal process stops at the island, and the right move off-island is to confirm the specific municipality's rules for your address.

Current as of 2026 — confirm with the municipality.

This guide is the reference for how the system works. For how a permit file is actually prepared and run for you — drawings, submission, responding to the city — see our permits service. For how the borough you're in shapes a specific Montréal project, see our Montréal service-area page. Nothing here is a substitute for confirming your own project with your borough.