After a rapid expansion of residential swimming pool and spa construction following the pandemic, permit levels in the latest monthly index for December fell to their lowest level since 2020.

The Pool Construction Permit Index, created by NAHB using proprietary data from Construction Monitor, can be used to track pool and spa construction projects nationwide. Perhaps intuitively, the raw data used to create the index has strong seasonality. Most permits are submitted during warmer months, like May and June, while there are typically few pool construction permits collected in November and December.

As of December 2025, pool construction permits were 34.3% lower than the January 2020 reading, our baseline for this index. The index was down 25.5% from the month prior and down 34.7% from one year ago.

As previously mentioned, the raw data displays strong seasonality across months. Due to this seasonality, it is difficult to determine the true trend of residential pool construction. To account for this, a seasonally adjusted index was created to account for the seasonal changes.

For the seasonally adjusted estimates, pool construction permits continued to peak in 2021 but have steadily declined to lower levels. The current December reading is 23.4% lower than our index base of January 2020 and down 26.8% from a month ago and 37.3% lower than last year. The seasonally adjusted data, shown in red below, allows for a clear visualization of how the Pool Construction Permit Index has changed over the past five years. December data was the lowest in the data series.

Geographic Analysis

The index is dependent on where pool construction is most likely to take place. For 2025, almost 1/3rd of pool construction permits were in Florida. The next closest state was California with a 14% share of pool construction. New York and New Jersey were the only states in the Northeast to break the top ten in terms of pool permit shares in 2025.