Three things changed in Macau's engineering approval system in October 2026, and a fourth is taking shape. All of them land on the desks of shop owners, office tenants and residential owners: two change how you file, one changes what your contractor must design, and one changes what goes into your contract.
1. Building Maintenance Fund: one window instead of two
From 9 October 2026, the Housing Bureau and DSSCU launched a one-stop application service for the Building Maintenance Fund. Previously the funding application went to one department and the works application to another. Now an applicant submits the funding application to the Housing Bureau and may hand over the prior notification or works licence documents at the same time, with the Bureau forwarding them to DSSCU. The service covers the P級 and M級 common parts repair subsidy scheme and the building repair subsidy and interest-free loan scheme — but not renewal or modification works under those two schemes.
The three steps
- Submit the funding application, optionally together with the complete set of prior notification or works licence documents
- The Housing Bureau completes file analysis and a site inspection
- The Housing Bureau notifies the applicant to supply the outstanding works documents and informs them of the outcome
Ten principal documents are required, including the signed application form, a copy of the owners' meeting resolution, the works quotation with colour photographs taken before construction begins, and a declaration of the applicant's relationship with the contractor. P級 and M級 repairs additionally require the convening notice, the posted photographs and the contractor's particulars (廖東明, deputy head of the Housing Bureau's Building Management Department, scheme briefing, 8 October 2026).
Three warnings that cost owners money
- Do not start work before the subsidy is approved. If works begin beforehand, the application will not be approved — the reverse of the usual order of operations.
- One-stop filing is not a waiver. The works documentation must still be submitted in full, and if the works application is refused, the subsidy will not be approved either.
- Everything filed must be true, complete and valid. False declarations cancel the subsidy and may also carry civil and criminal liability.
Since 2007 the fund has approved some 7,700 cases and granted subsidies totalling close to MOP 760 million (鄭錫林, deputy director of the Housing Bureau, same briefing). Enquiries: 2859 4875.
2. Paper authorisations and electronic archiving
On 22 October 2026, DSSCU announced a new electronic archiving service for paper authorisations, introducing it at a sector seminar attended by around 150 industry representatives. The briefing covered the Urban Building Legal System and its subsidiary legislation, the amendments to the water supply and drainage technical regulations, the newly issued gas appliance exhaust and ventilation duct design guideline, and the rules for appointed agents handling business on the electronic platform. The Environmental Protection Bureau presented its guideline on acoustic measurement and report preparation for lifting and pressurisation facilities.
The bureau is working on a paper original plus electronic copy transition arrangement for engineering plans. Electronic filing is the direction of travel, but paper signatures are not going away in the short term — prepare for both. Enquiries: DSSCU service centre, 85903800.
3. A new gas exhaust and ventilation duct design guideline
The gas appliance exhaust and ventilation duct design guideline presented at the October seminar carries a last update date of 15 October 2026 on the DSSCU downloads page and has been uploaded to the bureau's website. For anyone running a restaurant, cha chaan teng or commercial kitchen, this is the change with the most immediate cost and inspection consequences: the drawing, the site installation and the handover inspection must agree with each other and with a published document. Where the duct dimensions on the drawing do not match what was installed, that is no longer a minor correction at the end of the project.
Related requirements are also in force. The administrative regulation on the general provisions for water supply and drainage took effect on 1 March 2026, raising the design storm return period for drainage systems from once in 20 years to once in 50 years. Kitchen and washroom drainage designed to the old standard is now out of date.
4. A draft fire-safety code for external wall repairs
According to Macao Daily on 15 October 2026, the cross-departmental coordination group on optimising the regulation of works in progress and maintenance has prepared the draft Guideline on Notes for External Wall Maintenance Works in Buildings in Use (Fire Safety) and begun collecting industry comments. The Secretary for Transport and Public Works 譚偉文 has directed that it be finalised as soon as possible, removing potential safety hazards at source. The guideline sets standards for the critical control points of external wall maintenance on occupied buildings: scaffolding and netting standards, site smoke control, and re-inspection of fire escape systems.
All three address the same reality — external wall work carried out while a building is still in use is itself a risk condition. Owners planning façade refurbishment, sign replacement or new canopies should write the netting specification, the smoke control arrangements and responsibility for re-inspecting fire escape systems into the contract, rather than after the scaffold is up.
5. Retrofit, and who can carry all of it
Statistics and Census Service figures put office vacancy in Macau at approximately 13.9% as at the first quarter of 2026, while JLL's 2026 Macau Property Market Mid-Year Review records overall office capital values down 8.7% against end-2025 and 2,726 newly registered companies in the first half of the year, up 35% year on year. New supply keeps arriving while older buildings enter their repair cycle — so for contractors in renovation, MEP, kitchen and environmental construction, retrofit rather than new build is where the real volume lies over the next two years.
Each item above — the Maintenance Fund file, the alignment of prior notification or works licence filings, exhaust and ventilation design, and fire-safety arrangements for external wall work — needs one contractor coordinating them, not five working in parallel. Prof Team Engineering Co., Ltd. is a DSSCU-registered contractor for the execution of works (Registration No. 7003/2024, Certificate No. 1648/DIP/2025), covering renovation, MEP, kitchen, air-conditioning and environmental construction. We can prepare the combined Maintenance Fund and works filing documents on a client's behalf and provide technical solutions for external wall maintenance and kitchen exhaust design.