Canton of Luzern Selects Adfinis and eBau by inosca for End-to-End Digitalization of Building Permit Applications

BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Canton of Luzern (Lucerne) has selected the ‘eBau by inosca’ solution through a public tender process and will become the eighth Swiss canton joining the inosca inter-cantonal development community. Together with Adfinis as the development service provider, around 4,000 annual building permit applications will now be processed in a fully digital, end-to-end workflow. Adfinis won the public tender process with the most advantageous, highest-scoring proposal. The project launch and kick-off is scheduled for 2026, with the goal of achieving end-to-end digitalization and acceleration of all building permit applications in the Canton of Luzern via a common, transparent digital platform.

The project focuses on tailoring the solution to the canton’s specific requirements, including customized forms, workflows, and interfaces – and effectively replaces the SharePoint-based ‘eBAGE’ system that has been in use at Canton Luzern since 2012. As an experienced partner, Adfinis brings extensive expertise in implementing and continuously developing open source platforms. By joining the inosca community, the Canton of Luzern benefits from valuable synergies with other member cantons across Switzerland, as well as seamless digital collaboration across all stakeholders – from building applicants and cantonal departments to municipalities and external parties.

The inosca community develops eBau as open source software (EUPL license), hosted transparently on GitHub. Participating cantons incur no licensing fees, while maintenance and development costs are shared in a collaborative manner. The project serves as a prime real-world example of the ‘Public Money? Public Code!’ principle, focusing on sustainable, transparent, and vendor-neutral IT solutions.

“With eBau by inosca, we are providing the Canton of Luzern with a proven open source solution that maximizes synergies through its community-driven approach and enables efficient, seamless processing of all building permit applications. We are very much looking forward to working with the cantonal team and to a successful project.”

– Adrian Wittwer, People Lead Software Engineering at Adfinis

Adfinis supports organizations in the design, build, and operation of innovative, sustainable, and resilient IT solutions based on trustworthy open source technology. The inter-cantonal development community inosca was founded in 2013 to create a vendor-neutral, shared digital solution for the building permit process across Swiss cantons. Through inosca, cantons can process their building permit workflows faster, more easily, and more cost-effectively. Adfinis acts as a strategic partner and technical development service provider, actively contributing to both the continuous enhancement and operation of the solution. The addition of the Canton of Luzern to the community marks a significant step forward for the open source ecosystem.