Research · Verified on 2026-09-04
Estonia is the European reference for digital building permitting: a single platform — the e-ehituse platvorm of the Maa-ja Ruumiamet — where planning, permits, works and use live in the same register, with full public search. We took the case (the “menetlus”) apart live: what it contains, what it shows to whom, and where the GDPR line sits. It is the mirror of what Portugal's PEPU promises and has not yet delivered.
One platform, four registers, procedure services and guides — all in the same place.
The e-ehituse platvorm is the information system of the Maa-ja Ruumiamet (cadastre and territory) that “brings together the data of the state construction and planning registers, the procedure services and the guides in the field”. The technical architecture is public on the site itself: separate API services for buildings, procedures and documents, Keycloak authentication for those who process cases — and public search without login for those who consult. Alongside, the e-ehitus thematic portal publishes the guides by life-cycle phase and the unified national BIM requirements — Estonia has had for years, in a public guide, what the PortugalBIM strategy had not published as of 04-09-2026 (action plan overdue, no guides).
Four phases, each with its procedures — all narrated in the official guides.
| Phase | Typical procedures | What stays in the register |
|---|---|---|
| Kavandamine — planning | Detailed plan initiation (detailplaneering) | Planning case in PLANIS; restrictions in force visible as a layer on the building's map |
| Projekteerimine — design | Design conditions (projekteerimistingimused) | Requirements the design has to meet, open to consultation |
| Ehitamine — construction | Building permit (ehitusluba), building notification (ehitusteatis), data submission notification | From preparation to handover: “transparency and traceability to assess the quality of construction and compliance” (official guide) |
| Kasutamine — use | Use permit (kasutusluba) | Use label, energy labels, the building's archive data |
Each instance is a menetlus — a numbered procedure, with the authority processing it, a named manager, status, dates and public measurement of duration. The public document search also filters by “document in public display” (avalik väljapanek) — public consultation is a state of the case, visible to anyone.
No login, in the search's “Dokumendid” tab — and export of the results in XLSX.
| What you see per document | What it means |
|---|---|
| Dokumendi kuupäev / Registrisse kandmise kuupäev | Document date and date of entry into the register — the register is auditable |
| Dokumendi number / liik / seisund | Number, type (building permit, use permit, notification…) and status |
| EHR kood / nimetus / aadress | The building it belongs to — direct link to the building dossier |
| Taotleja | The applicant of the procedure |
| Seotud menetlus | The procedure the document belongs to |
| Menetlev asutus / Menetleja | The processing authority and the responsible technician |
| Menetluse lõpp / Menetluse kestus | The end and the duration of the procedure, published — permitting time is made public |
Filters available: document type, address/EHR code/cadastral, document number, authority, date range, procedure number, status — and the already mentioned “document in public display”. Alongside, the buildings tab publishes per building: national identifier (EHR), address, year of first use, area, floors, use, ownership type, heritage — and the building's footprint in GeoJSON (full detail in the digital building logbook dossier).
The public building dossier is the index of its entire procedural history.
A live example, opened during this research: the dossier of building EHR 101000001 (a 1917 house, Tallinn) — ten public sections: general information (with cadastral number and direct links to the land register and to the cadastre), uses, location with restrictions, dimensions, constructions and materials, technical indicators, documents, energy labels and archive — with buttons to save the dossier as PDF and export searches in XLSX. Three state registers cross-referenced on one screen, public.
The Estonian model: the structured register is public; the artefact with personal data is controlled.
Since 30-01-2026, access to the attachments of cases has been temporarily closed “as a precaution”, in cooperation between the Maa-ja Ruumiamet, the Ministry of Climate and the data protection authority: the attachments uploaded by the parties (applications, permits, summons, supporting documents) may contain personal data. Restricted data automatically goes under the AK mark (legal basis: the Public Information Act); only the municipality or the technical authority removes the mark. Automatic anonymisation of the documents is not planned — and there is a deeper reason: in construction documents, names and signatures are legally load-bearing (responsibility is signed for); what gets anonymised is the register, not the artefact. Detail in the official announcement.
None of these countries opened everything: each opened one layer of the building — the register (Netherlands), energy (United Kingdom, France), the permit (New York), the case (Estonia). No layer is, by itself, the digital building logbook that the directive defines. First the facts — tested live on 04-09-2026, with no account at all — then the verification against the law.
| Country | What is actually open | Proof (tested on 04-09-2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | Everything, of the building. The national BAG register (addresses + buildings) publishes complete national extracts and a map service (WFS) without a key, without an account, with a change history. People stay in another register, a closed one (BRP) — the building layer was born without personal data, so it opens in full. | BAG WFS: any building returns year of construction, status, use, area, number of units and the complete polygon — anonymously (Kadaster/BAG) |
| New York (city) | Everything, of the permit. Every building permit issued, with the life cycle by type of work, in an open API with daily updates. | live count: 3,990,267 permits, no account (DOB Permit Issuance) |
| United Kingdom | All energy labelling: the certificates (EPC) of England and Wales, searchable one by one and in bulk (free account). | EPC open data |
| France | The DPE (energy performance diagnosis) as open data — millions of assessments, the raw material of the energy logbook. | ADEME · DPE existing dwellings |
| Denmark | Territory geodata (including buildings) free since 2013; the housing register (BBR) requires a free account/agreement. | Dataforsyningen |
| Estonia | The case: numbered procedures, documents with published duration, building dossier down to the geometry — with attachments behind the AK mark since 30-01-2026. | The sections above on this page, captured live |
All obtained on 04-09-2026, with no account at all. Two exceptions, stated above: France publishes the DPE as a bulk file (dataset page linked in the table) and Denmark asks for a free account.
Netherlands · BAG — building 0003100000117485 (WFS, anonymous):
bouwjaar (year of construction) = 1991 status = Pand in gebruik (in use) gebruiksdoel (use) = woonfunctie (residential) oppervlakte_min/max = 77 / 79 m² aantal_verblijfsobjecten (units) = 14 geometrie = Polygon (17 vertices, complete footprint) uri = bag.basisregistraties.overheid.nl/bag/id/pand/0003100000117485
New York · DOB Permit Issuance — one permit (Socrata API, anonymous):
borough / address = BROOKLYN · 193 WILSON AVENUE, 11237 bin (building id) = 3073812 · block/lot = 03246 / 00001 job_type / work_type = A2 · OT · residential = YES permit_type = EW (equipment) · permit_status = IN PROCESS filing_status / date = RENEWAL · 2021-03-22 total in the dataset = 3,990,267 permits
United Kingdom · EPC — certificate 1090-0965-0722-3091-3203 (the GOV.UK public register):
rating actual / potential = C (80) / B (83) valid until = 15-12-2030 type / area = mid-floor flat · 93 m² primary energy = 108 kWh/m².year environmental impact (CO₂) = B suggested improvements = step by step, with potential after each step
Estonia · EHR — building 101000001 (the platform's public search):
ehrCode / address = 101000001 · Harju maakond, Tallinn, Nõmme, Haava tn 7/2 firstUseDate (1st use) = 1917 underArea / floors = 92.0 m² · 1 purposeOfUse = Üksikelamu (11101) — single-family house ownershipType = kinnisasi (registered immovable) last document = no. 2111529/100475248 geometry = GeoJSON Polygon (footprint, cadastre coordinates)
France · DPE / Denmark · BBR — no anonymous sample possible from here: France serves the DPE as a bulk file (link in the table) and Denmark asks for a free account to download. The difference between opening by API and opening by file is part of the picture.
What the EPBD 2024/1275 asks of a digital building logbook: a “common repository of all the important data” — energy performance certificates, renovation passports, smart-readiness indicators and life-cycle GWP (Art. 3(41)); the renovation passport stored in the logbook (Art. 12(8)); the data of the technical systems linked to the logbook (Art. 16(1)); and the national database interoperable with cadastre and logbooks (Art. 22(7)). The Commission's 2025 study sums up the viable minimum: unique identifier, administrative and certificate data, renovation recommendations, a materials inventory and maintenance information.
| Requirement of the law | EE | NL | NYC | UK | FR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unique building identifier + administrative data | ✓ EHR | ✓ BAG | ✓ BIN | ± | ± |
| Building geometry | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Energy certificate linked to the asset | ✓ in the dossier | ✗ (separate) | ✗ | ✓ own register | ✓ DPE |
| Archive of cases and legal documents linked to the asset | ✓ menetlus + public duration (attachments protected) | ✗ permits stay municipal | ✓ 4 M permits per building | ✗ municipal planning | ✗ |
| Renovation passport (roadmap over 15–20 years) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ± the EPC suggests steps, it is not a roadmap | ± same |
| Technical systems + materials + maintenance | ± materials and indicators sections; no maintenance | ✗ | ✗ | ± heating in the certificate | ± |
| GWP / life-cycle carbon + SRI | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ± emissions in the DPE |
Verdict of the verification: no country meets the logbook that the directive defines. Estonia comes closest (case + dossier per building + energy in the same place, with the GDPR boundary made explicit), but it has no renovation passport and no life-cycle carbon, and the legal attachments of the cases sit behind a mark. The Netherlands has the best asset register in the world — and no case inside it. New York has the best permit archive — and nothing on energy. The law's logbook is the junction of the layers — and that junction does not yet exist — verification of 04-09-2026 — nowhere.
The PEPU promises exactly this — and as of 04-09-2026 it still has no public face.
The Estonian platform answers the question the PEPU leaves open: what is a public case? A number, an authority, a manager, a status, a deadline, a duration measured and published — hanging off an identifiable building, itself public with year, area, use and geometry. The minimal list to demand of the Portuguese transposition and of the future digital building logbook: unique building identifier, public structured dossier (no personal data by design), numbered procedures with published duration, and the AK boundary — artefacts with personal data behind a mark, with the municipality as the door. The BIM mandate that closes the circle is in the PortugalBIM scorecard.