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Private construction investment tied to new permits rose 157% to roughly $5.6 billion in the first half of 2026, according to the Dominican housing ministry.
- The ministry running the reform got a new leader in mid-August, when President Luis Abinader moved Jean Luis Rodríguez into the post and sent his predecessor to run Dominican foreign policy.
- The government's own license counts from July and September don't fully match, even as diaspora banks build mortgage and investment fairs around the reform.
Six weeks after Jean Luis Rodríguez took over as the Dominican Republic's housing minister, he stood before business leaders in Punta Cana and made an unusually specific promise: construction permits would soon take no more than 30 days, provided the paperwork was complete. Behind that pledge sits a reform effort that has already reshaped how fast builders can break ground, and how much private money is flowing into Dominican real estate.
Six Months, $5.6 Billion
During the first half of 2026, the Ministry of Housing, Habitat and Buildings, known locally as Mivhed, signed off on 921 construction licenses, 80% more than the 512 it approved over the same stretch of 2025, according to a communiqué from the Dominican Presidency's press office. Those approvals cleared the way for roughly RD$330 billion in private investment, about $5.6 billion, a 157% jump from the year before.
A Different Snapshot, A Higher Number
Add one more month and the picture shifts. By the end of July, Mivhed had issued 1,122 licenses, an 85% increase over the 605 approved a year earlier, tied to roughly RD$406.7 billion, or close to $6.9 billion, in investment, Infobae reported from the ministry's own presentation. July alone brought a record 201 licenses, the busiest single month since the agency was created in 2021.
Then the Cabinet Changed
Ito Bisonó, the minister behind those numbers, didn't stay long in the job. On August 16, President Luis Abinader moved him to lead Dominican foreign policy, replacing longtime chancellor Roberto Álvarez, and installed Rodríguez, who had spent six years running the country's Port Authority, at the head of housing, according to Acento's coverage of the decree. Before leaving, Bisonó framed the overhaul as more than a tech upgrade: "The transformation of the permitting system began well before the technology," he said.
Rodríguez picked up the reform where his predecessor left off, and on September 15 he used a business forum in Punta Cana to describe a "Zero Bureaucracy" program that, he said, had processed around 1,100 licenses so far in 2026, a more than 75% jump from the 628 handled in all of 2025, tied to roughly RD$500 billion, or about $8.5 billion, in investment, according to the Dominican Presidency. "I declare myself an enemy of red tape," Rodríguez told the audience, describing plans for artificial-intelligence tools that flag incomplete files and a single digital case record developers can track in real time.
The Rest of the Economy Is Feeling It
The Central Bank's own accounting showed the sector expanding 14.9% year over year in June 2026, contributing close to 30% of that month's overall economic growth, while credit flowing to construction firms climbed 22.6%, adding more than RD$34 billion compared with June 2025, per El Caribe's reporting on the central bank data.
What It Means If You're Building From Abroad
For Dominicans living outside the country, the reform shows up most directly at real estate fairs built specifically for them. Banco BHD sponsored its fourth New York City property fair from September 11 to 13 at The Armory Arena in Washington Heights, bringing more than 25 Dominican developers and real estate firms to meet with prospective buyers, according to El Nuevo Diario. "Our commitment is to stand by them before, during and after that decision," said Freddy Simó, the bank's vice president for specialized sales.
Banreservas has run a similar playbook. Its third New York and Lawrence, Massachusetts fair in March offered mortgage rates starting at 9.5%, and the bank's overseas offices were by then managing more than RD$16 billion in deposits and a loan portfolio topping RD$3.5 billion tied to the diaspora, with roughly 100,000 remittance transactions processed, Diario Libre reported. Remittances remain central to that relationship: the Central Bank has projected the country will take in close to $12.2 billion from Dominicans abroad this year, even as Acento noted that more than 400 Dominicans were deported from the United States in just the first two months of 2026, a backdrop that could push some toward securing a home base sooner rather than later.
What Comes Next
Rodríguez's 30-day target has no firm start date yet; he described it as the "final stage" of a broader push, not a completed rollout. Whether that promise holds, and whether Mivhed ever reconciles its July count with the numbers cited in September, will shape whether 2026 ends up as the year permitting genuinely got faster, or the year the paperwork just got harder to track.
