The 72% Illusion: Data Center Approval Rates Hide a Stalling Market

When a developer files a permit for a new data center, there are broadly four possible paths forward. The permit can be approved by the local government. It can be denied by that same body. Or the project can be canceled or suspended, killed by the developer before a final verdict.

Since the data center boom and backlash began, approval rates have slipped. At the end of 2025, 80% of projects were approved, and 20% were denied. That rate has slowly dropped to 72% in Q3 of this year.

If 72% sounds to you like a high approval rate, you're right. The approval-or-denial rate hides the new outcomes that now happen to most projects: suspensions and cancellations.

In late 2024, most projects received a government decision. Of all outcomes, about 70% were approvals; another 15% were denials. Only around 16% were canceled or suspended.

In other words, when a developer started a project, they could feel fairly certain they could work with the location. Cancellations and suspensions cost money, but when 69% of outcomes are approvals, confidence is high.

That era ended around April of this year. The share of outcomes that were approvals had already been sliding, from around 70% to 53%. But after Q1 2026, it plummeted, until only 1 in 3 projects received an approval. Suspensions alone now outpace approvals (39% to 34%), and together with cancellations, stalled projects have outnumbered approvals since April.

The new normal of suspensions and cancellations isn't uniform. In traditional data center hubs like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Virginia, stalls made up 31%, 40% and 44% of Q3 outcomes, well below the 53% national share. Texas and Ohio sit near the average, and California is the exception at 62%. Projects in the first three data center hubs are still more likely to be approved or denied by county and town boards than cancelled by the original developer.

But in states with fewer data centers, the picture looks different. In areas with fewer data center history, like Oregon, Iowa, Maryland, and Michigan, stall rates range between 72% to 82% this quarter. Those states pose a challenge to the developers that the traditional hubs don't: unclear permitting pathways, outspoken opposition, and lukewarm governments. Land can look promising enough to file a permit – before the real red flags come out and the project stalls.

For developers, an 89% “approval” rate in Texas is reassuring until you realize half of the state's Q3 outcomes were suspensions or cancellations, not decisions. For local officials, 72% nationally suggests they're still saying yes. But that figure misses what actually happens to most projects now: purgatory.

If you’ve been working in data centers for a long time, you might not even consider cancellations or suspensions a serious problem. Historically, that was true – but not anymore.

Working on a data center, or deciding where to build next? At Spark, we track every permit, hearing, moratorium and suspension across more than 3,000 US counties, so you can see where projects clear and where they stall before you commit. Reach out to see how Spark AI can show you where projects clear and where they stall in any state, county or township, and to get our latest state-by-state rankings. We'd love to trade notes.