The Welsh Government has released its latest house building figures for 2025/26, showing an 11% increase in housing completions and a 12 % increase in starts compared with last year, with 5,159 new homes delivered.
Whilst this is an improvement, house building remains significantly below historic levels. Annual completions averaged 8,558 homes during the early 2000s and reached a more recent peak of 6,900 homes in 2015/16.
While representing positive progress, the new data underlines the significant challenge of increasing housing supply in Wales to the level required during this Senedd term, following several years of historically low delivery.
Annual house building would still need to increase by around 70% from current levels to meet the Welsh Government's estimated annual housing need of 8,700 homes.
The figures for 2025/26 also show:
- 79% (4,064 homes) of completions were private enterprise dwellings, up 21% on the previous year.
- 21% of completions (1,095 dwellings) were delivered by Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) or local authorities, down from 27% in the previous year.
- Around 4,800 new dwellings were started in 2025/26, up 12% on 2024/25.
- At local authority level, new dwelling completions ranged from 34 in Neath Port Talbot to 1,121 in Cardiff.
- Most new dwelling completions were houses or bungalows (73%), with flats accounting for the remaining 27%.
Despite the increase, delivery remains around 15% below pre-pandemic levels (6,037 completions in 2019/20). Earlier this year, the Welsh Government published estimates showing that around 8,700 new homes are needed each year until 2030 simply to keep pace with household growth, before addressing the existing backlog of unmet housing need of 9.4000. Today's figures show overall delivery remains around 41% below that annual requirement.
A recent Home Builders Federation report, The Social and Economic Impact of Home Building in Wales, highlighted the significant economic and social benefits that increased housing delivery could bring. If market conditions enabled the industry to deliver an additional 23,000 homes, this would support around £200m of private investment in affordable housing through Section 106 agreements, approximately £65m towards new and improved schools, £21m for parks, open spaces and recreation facilities, and generating around £650m in additional tax revenues for public services.
The Home Builders Federation has welcomed the Welsh Government's commitment to examining ways to reduce planning bureaucracy, develop a new National Development Framework and support housing delivery. However, urgent action is needed to ensure every part of Wales has an up-to-date Local Development Plan, extend Help to Buy Wales beyond September and establish a clear national all-tenure housing target to provide greater certainty for investment.
Commenting on the figures, Mark Harris, Planning and Policy Advisor for Wales at the Home Builders Federation, said:
"While today's figures represent some progress, they also underline the scale of the challenge ahead, with annual housing delivery still well below the level needed to meet Wales's housing requirements.
"We are encouraged by the new Welsh Government's recognition of the importance of increasing housing supply and its commitment to looking at ways to improve the planning system and support growth. There is a real opportunity to create the conditions that will allow the industry to invest with confidence and deliver more homes across Wales.
"The home building industry stands ready to work in partnership with the Welsh Government to help turn that ambition into reality, delivering the homes, jobs and economic growth that communities across Wales need."