How Much Does a 6, 12 or 24-Unit Apartment Building Cost in Quebec in 2026?

In short — For a 6-unit building in Quebec, CMHC estimates essential construction costs between $1.9 and $2.3 million, or $311,000 to $388,000 per door. The largest prefab contract in Quebec history just signed at about $313,000 per door. And costs are still climbing: +2.3% year over year according to Statistics Canada. Here are the figures that can be verified, the ones that can only be extrapolated, and the list of what is never in the price.

Ask three contractors what a six-unit building costs and you will get three answers — because each one includes different things. Before comparing anything, you need to speak the same language: cost per door.

Cost per door: the only number that lets you compare

Cost per door is the total project cost divided by the number of units. It is the metric lenders, public programs and developers use, and the one we use throughout our modular multiplex guide. But a cost per door means nothing until you know what it contains. Three scopes circulate:

1. Essential construction costs — the building itself. This is the scope of the CMHC estimates quoted below.
2. Project cost — building plus land, excavation, utility connections, professional fees, taxes and contingency. This is what your banker wants to see.
3. Factory price — in prefab, the manufacturer's price covers the modules and assembly but almost always excludes land, excavation and transport beyond a certain radius.

Most quote confusion comes from these three scopes traveling under the same word, "price."

The figures that can be verified in 2026

Two readings matter. First, the CMHC range — class-B estimates prepared by Vermeulens in the first quarter of 2025 — puts a new sixplex between $1,861,000 and $2,326,000 in essential construction, or $255 to $319 per square foot. Second, the gap between the $313,000 per door on the SDE's 478-unit contract and the roughly $600,000 recent average in Gaspésie does not measure prefab alone: it measures order volume, free land and a tight financing stack. Process matters; scale does too.

And the target keeps moving: according to Statistics Canada's building construction price index, residential costs rose another 2.3% year over year in the second quarter of 2026 — with quarterly jumps of 2.5% in Montreal and 2.6% in Quebec City, driven in part by the construction industry's negotiated wage increases. Last year's quote is no longer a price.

6, 12 or 24 units: how to reason by size

There is no public schedule of cost per door by building size. So here are the orders of magnitude — labeled for what they are: the verified CMHC range for the sixplex, then our extrapolations from it.

Why cost per door does not simply double with size:

• What works in your favor. One lot, one excavation, one site mobilization and one set of plans amortize across more doors. In the factory, repeating the same module does the same work — the heart of the economic case in our developers' guide.
• What works against you. Past a certain size, the Construction Code changes gears: stricter fire-safety requirements, an elevator depending on height and use, heavier structure and acoustics between floors. CMHC itself notes that stacking units reduces efficiency gains and pushes cost per door up. A 24-unit building is not four sixplexes glued together.

Arbitrating those threshold effects is exactly why a quote priced on your land is worth more than any table — ours included.

Modular or conventional: where the gap actually opens

On the bare building, factory and site buy the same lumber, the same drywall and the same skilled labor: do not expect a miracle on direct cost. The gap opens elsewhere:

• The schedule. The factory works while the site is being excavated. On a multi-unit project that means months less carrying cost — construction loan interest, taxes, site insurance — and rents arriving sooner. Our analysis of modular project timelines puts numbers on that mechanism.
• Predictability. Some integrators lock the price at signature — 8Module, for example, guarantees price and delivery date on its multi-residential projects. Disclosure — 8Module is a commercial client of Modulaire Québec; we receive compensation when we refer a lead. This content remains editorial and independent — 8Module neither commissioned nor reviewed it. Full disclosure.
• Weather and rework. A module assembled indoors never meets a January freeze or a mid-build water infiltration.

In a year where the cost index climbs quarter after quarter, a price locked early is itself a saving.

What is never in the price

Whatever the construction method, check line by line what the quote excludes. The usual absentees:

• Land — and in Montreal or Quebec City it can weigh as much as the building;
• Excavation and foundations, highly variable with soil and water table;
• Utility connections for water, sewer and power, plus municipal park fees and charges;
• Module transport beyond a given radius — Quebec manufacturers typically exclude it past about a hundred kilometers from their bases;
• Professional fees for architecture, engineering and surveying, taxes and contingency — budget it, the index does not go down.

The CMHC estimates in the table above likewise cover essential construction costs only: the agency publishes its assumptions and exclusions list, and reading it before you budget is the best fifteen minutes of your project.

From table to firm number

A table locates you; it finances nothing. To turn an order of magnitude into a budget: our price calculator gives a first range by region and finish, our guide to modular rental building returns translates cost per door into yield, and the financing guide shows which programs stack if your project targets affordability.

Have a lot, a door count in mind and a target year? We can prepare a quote request priced on your project — free and without obligation.