Starting a food business in Esquimalt

Opening a shop, café, kitchen or truck in Esquimalt

Business licence

$100 under 5,000 sq ft, $200 over; $120 for a restaurant with a liquor licence. Prorated by quarter; renew by January 31 or pay a $25 late fee.

Applying for the licence

Online (MyEsquimalt), paying when you apply. Contact Island Health first; attach its permit or inspection report, and a liquor licence if you have one.

Checking zoning

Check with Development Services (250-414-7103) before you sign a lease. A Property Information Letter stating the zoning costs $52.50 and must be requested in person.

Building permit

Needed for a change of occupancy even without construction. $100 for the first $1,000 plus $13 per $1,000 to $100,000 (about $1,387 at $100,000); a plan-processing fee of 25% may be asked up front. Occupancy permit before you open.

Fire inspection

No inspection before the licence is published. Fire inspectors visit commercial properties at least once a year; the scheduled inspection is free, and each re-inspection after a failed one costs $150.

Food truck fire inspection

No fire inspection is published. A truck needs Island Health approval and may work only on property zoned for restaurant use, unless at a permitted special event.

Where to ask: Business licences, 250-414-7136

Business licence

Every business in Esquimalt, home occupations included, needs an Esquimalt licence or a valid inter-municipal or inter-community licence. Payment is due by January 31 each year.

Home-based fee: Home Occupations $100.00; Home Crafts $50.00 (its definition lists handmade articles, not food); late fee $25.00

Running it from home

Esquimalt allows any occupation carried on by a resident that is “clearly incidental” to living there, provided it meets the home-occupation conditions — and food is not excluded (the only banned uses are repair work and body-rub or escort services). The no-odour rule is the one most likely to matter for food. The business must stay inside the home or accessory buildings and use at most 15% of the floor area.

• No more than 15% of the dwelling’s floor area, and never over 46 m² (s. 13(3)).
• Run only by a resident; no employees in the dwelling other than immediate family living there (s. 13(5)–(6)).
• Wholly inside the dwelling or accessory buildings; no exterior storage or other outside sign of the business except a permitted sign (s. 13(2), (4)).
• No odorous, toxic or noxious emissions, heat, glare or noise (s. 13(7)).
• No more traffic or parking than is characteristic of the neighbourhood (s. 13(8)).
• At most two home occupations per dwelling, only one of them with more than one customer at a time — and that kind is not allowed in a detached accessory dwelling unit or secondary suite (s. 13(1), (12)).

Markets and events

A market on public land needs a business licence ($100, waived if it charges vendors nothing), and an individual selling from a space in a licensed market is exempt from the business licence bylaw. The market’s licensee must obtain and display the health, fire and other approvals at each booth. A licence for a fair, craft fair or other itinerant show held outside a licensed premises lasts one day.

Mobile businesses

Esquimalt is in the Greater Victoria Intermunicipal licence, which may still be issued for a mobile food vehicle, and in the Vancouver Island Inter-Community licence. Its new Inter-Community bylaw (No. 3189, adopted June 22, 2026) sets a $170 fee on top of the local licence and excludes mobile food vending — carts, trailers and trucks — but the updated regional scheme starts only once every participating municipality has adopted it.

Fee: Intermunicipal $100.00; Inter-Community $170 on top of the local licence (Bylaw 3189)