Starting a food business in Oak Bay

Opening a shop, café, kitchen or truck in Oak Bay

Business licence

Restaurants and shops: $100 for up to 1,000 sq ft, plus $7.25 for each extra 100 sq ft as we read the bylaw’s table, to a $2,000 maximum. Half price after June 30.

Applying for the licence

No online form: email, drop off or mail the commercial application with a floor plan (required) and your seat count. How fast it’s approved depends on Island Health’s review.

Checking zoning

Before leasing, confirm the use is permitted (planning@oakbay.ca). A Letter of Zoning Confirmation costs $200. Restaurants are allowed only in the C-2 and C-3 zones, up to 200 m².

Building permit

Needed for a change of use. $150 plus 1.3% of the project value up to $100,000; 20% of it is a non-refundable fee paid when you apply. Health authority approval goes in with the application. Allow several weeks.

Fire inspection

No inspection before the licence is published. Inspections follow a risk-based schedule the Fire Chief sets; the first is free, and each follow-up for deficiencies costs $150.

Food truck fire inspection

A fire inspection every year, $50, with the certificate displayed. The Fire Chief may accept another department’s inspection from the past 12 months.

Where to ask: Fire prevention, 250-592-9121

Business licence

Every business in Oak Bay needs a valid Oak Bay licence (or an Intermunicipal licence), displayed where it can be seen and valid January 1 to December 31. New home-based fees of $100, $150 and $200 by business type (Bylaw No. 4979) had three readings on September 8, 2026 and were on the September 21 agenda for adoption; the District says they were adopted, but the minutes and an updated consolidation aren’t posted yet. The last consolidation shows $50 a year.

Home-based fee: Type 1 $100, Type 2 $150, Type 3 $200 (Bylaw No. 4979, reported adopted September 2026); the last consolidated bylaw shows “Home Based Business” $50.00

Running it from home

Oak Bay rewrote its home-based business rules in 2026; the District says they were adopted in September, but the posted bylaw still has blank adoption lines and the consolidated zoning bylaw still shows the old rules. The old rules ban manufacturing, business visitors, sales on the premises and commercial deliveries. The new Schedule "G" bans restaurants, retail stores and manufacturing facilities but lets a business sell goods it produces, without saying whether a home food producer counts as an "artist or maker".

• New rules: Type 1 — 30% of the dwelling to 28 m², no customers; Type 2 — up to 46 m², one customer on the lot at a time by appointment, only on lots of 558 m² or more; Type 3 — up to 70 m², up to four at a time by appointment, only on lots over 1,000 m². Only one business per home, except Type 1.
• New rules: sales limited to goods the business produces (including urban-agriculture produce or goods made by an artist), one roadside stand for produce or artists’ goods, and goods ancillary to the business.
• New rules: no restaurant, retail store, or commercial workshop or manufacturing facility; no odours, smoke or other emissions across the lot.
• New rules: at most one non-resident employee on the lot; hours 7:00am–7:00pm every day for Types 1 and 2, 9:00am–5:00pm Monday to Saturday for Type 3; one sign; one extra parking space for Type 3.
• Old rules (zoning consolidated to June 8, 2026): no merchandise displayed, sold or bought on the premises; no business visitors; no commercial workshops or manufacturing; no delivery or shipment of merchandise by commercial vehicle; no sign.

Markets and events

The consolidated bylaw has a daily licence for craft fairs, exhibitions and other itinerant shows at $50.00 a day; the 2026 amendment (reported adopted) replaces it with special-event fees of $25 for a single day or $50 for a season. Oak Bay’s special event permits page mentions the sale of food but sets no vendor rules, and the Oak Bay Night Market is organized by the Oak Bay Business Improvement Association.

Mobile businesses

Oak Bay is in the Greater Victoria Intermunicipal licence, and its list of eligible classes includes "Food and Beverage Service" under mobile sales services. No Oak Bay page on the Vancouver Island Inter-Community licence was found, and Oak Bay is not on the Inter-Community participant lists Colwood and North Cowichan publish (a low-confidence finding).

Fee: "Inter-Municipal Licence (For operation in CRD) $100.00"