Capital Regional District

Starting a food business in Colwood

What City of Colwood adds to the Island Health and provincial rules: its business licence, home-based businesses, and markets and events.

Business licence

No one may carry on business in Colwood without a Colwood licence or a valid Intermunicipal or Inter-Community licence. Home occupations are licensed as "Home Crafts/Home Occupation", and a home-based or intermunicipal licence may need a fire inspection.

Fee: “Home Crafts/Home Occupation $100”, charged once when you apply; licences renew automatically each year

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Running it from home

Allowed, with conditions

Colwood allows home occupations, and one that provides food or drink must be approved by the Medical Health Officer before it operates. The work must happen inside the home — or an accessory building on lots of 5,000 m² or more — with no manufacturing or light industrial use and no noise, smoke, odour or other nuisance beyond what a dwelling normally produces.

  • Food or drink: approval by the Medical Health Officer before operating (s. 2.1.07(7)).
  • Residents plus one non-resident employee (s. 2.1.07(2)).
  • Wholly inside the dwelling; an accessory building (no larger than 40 m²) only on lots of 5,000 m² or more. There is no floor-area cap inside the dwelling (s. 2.1.07(3)).
  • No manufacturing, welding or other light industrial use; no noise, vibration, smoke, dust, odour, litter or heat beyond a normal dwelling; no fire hazard or traffic congestion (s. 2.1.07(6)).
  • No outdoor storage; one unlit sign of up to 0.3 m² (s. 2.1.07(4)–(5)).
  • Where the home has a secondary suite or ADU, only if the business adds no traffic or parking (s. 2.1.07(11)).
  • Some zones allow a home office only — for example HAH1, CD28 (Latoria South) and CD29 (Meaford) — so check your zone.
Zoning decides whether a business can run from your home; Island Health decides what food can come from a home kitchen. What you can make at home to sell

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Markets and events

Selling goods on Colwood streets, boulevards, parks or recreation facilities needs Council permission, through a licence of occupation, contract, special event permit or other approval. Food trucks need $5,000,000 insurance naming the City, Island Health approval and FOODSAFE, a Fire Department inspection, and may operate only on private property zoned for restaurant use unless at a City-sanctioned event.

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Mobile businesses

Colwood is in the Greater Victoria Intermunicipal licence, whose eligible categories include catering, and in the Vancouver Island Inter-Community licence; each is a designation added to the base licence. The Inter-Community bylaw posted on Colwood’s site is still the 2020 one (No. 1813).

Fee: "Intermunicipal Designation $50 + Base License Fee"; "Inter Community Designation $70 + Base License Fee"

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Notes on the sources (2)
  • "Approved by the Medical Health Officer" is the bylaw’s wording; which current Island Health process it corresponds to was not checked.
  • Colwood’s Land Use Bylaw Update page returned "Access Denied", so a pending replacement of the home-occupation rules cannot be ruled out.

Other municipalities · Farmers’ markets

Last checked 26 September 2026. We check this guide regularly against Island Health, provincial and municipal sources, but regulations and laws change often and we can’t guarantee it is complete or current. Confirm with Island Health and your municipality before you apply, build or sell.

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