Home-based business zoning

Do you need it?

How to get it

Two different rules decide whether you can sell food made at home. Your municipality’s zoning says whether a business may run from your home at all; Island Health says which foods a home kitchen may make, and where they may be sold. You need a yes from both.

1. 1

   Check your municipality’s rule

   The table below has each one. North Cowichan doesn’t allow food at all; Langford allows catering only; Saanich and Sidney let nothing be sold from the home.

2. 2

   Check your zone, not just your town

   Some zones allow only a home office — several of Saanich’s multi-unit and other zones, and some of Colwood’s. Victoria has two zoning bylaws, so check which one covers your address.

3. 3

   Check what Island Health allows from a home kitchen

   Only lower-risk foodsLower-risk foodFood that keeps safely at room temperature because it is too dry, too sugary or too acidic for bacteria to grow — bread, cookies, most jams, hard candy. It is the only kind a home kitchen may make for sale, and only for a farmers’ market.All terms in the glossary, sold in person at farmers’ markets. Anything else needs an approved kitchenApproved kitchenA kitchen Island Health has approved to make food for sale: its plans were approved before it was built, and it holds an operating permit or approval. A home kitchen is not one, unless it is a separate kitchen that went through the same approval.All terms in the glossary.

4. 4

   Get Medical Health Officer approval where it’s required

   Colwood and Langford require it before a home business that provides food operates.

5. 5

   Apply for a home-based business licence

   Your municipality’s home-based fee is in the business licenceBusiness licenceYour municipality’s permission to do business there, renewed each year in most towns. It is separate from Island Health’s permits and from zoning: you usually need all three.All terms in the glossary table.

Can you run a food business from home? Town by town

Zoning decides whether a business may run from your home at all. These are the rules each municipality sets; Island Health’s rules on what a home kitchen may make apply on top.

• Victoria

  Unclear — ask the municipality

  Victoria has two zoning bylaws, and which one covers your home has to be checked by address (in VicMap, or with zoning@victoria.ca). Neither has a food-specific rule. The older Schedule D, which the City’s licence form still cites, allows small-scale making but bans sales to customers at the home, restaurants, and more than one person in the business; Zoning Bylaw 2018 bars sales on the premises except as accessory to the business.

• Saanich

  Allowed, with conditions

  Where the zone allows it, any use the zoning bylaw permits can run as a home occupation, with no food-specific rule — but nothing may be sold or displayed at the home, only residents may work in the business, and no dwelling may have a second kitchen. The RC, RT, RM, Ra and RP zones (and two others) allow only a home office (or child daycare), which rules out home food production there, houses in RM zones included. Planning reviews every home-based application for zoning.

• Langford

  Allowed, with conditions

  Catering only. Langford lists the home businesses it allows — “the following uses and no others” — and the one food use is catering (food for delivery and consumption off-site) in a one-family dwelling, with Medical Health Officer approval before it operates. Making packaged food to sell, such as baking or preserves, is “food and beverage processing and packaging”, which the bylaw names as light industry and bans as a home occupation. On lots of 4,000 m² or more, “small scale manufacturing” is allowed as a home industry, which may conflict with that ban — ask Planning.

• Esquimalt

  Allowed, with conditions

  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.

• Oak Bay

  Unclear — ask the municipality

  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".

• Colwood

  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.

• Sidney

  Allowed, with conditions

  Sidney’s zoning bars every home occupation from displaying or selling goods — foodstuffs named — from the property, so a home food business cannot sell from the home. The work must stay inside the dwelling or an accessory building, with only residents working on site and no fumes, smoke or odours detectable outside.

• Nanaimo

  Allowed, with conditions

  A home-based business is allowed in any dwelling unit or secondary suite in Nanaimo, whatever the zone, and there is no named ban on food production, catering or processing. Restaurants are prohibited — and selling ready-to-eat meals for pickup likely counts as one — and you may sell only items the business makes. Limits on floor area, customer visits and staff depend on the type of home and the lot size.

• Duncan

  Allowed, with conditions

  Duncan allows up to two home-based businesses per dwelling, with no clause specific to food, and you may sell only goods directly associated with the business and produced on the property. Odours, vapours and heat may not cross the parcel line, and in a multi-unit building no customers or employees may come to the premises.

• North Cowichan

  Not allowed

  North Cowichan limits home-based businesses to a fixed list — arts and crafts studios, private car repair, day care, hairdresser, office and books, professional office, and small tool and appliance repair — and no food use is on it: “catering” and “food processing” appear nowhere in the bylaw. So a food business can’t run from home as a home-based business; ask Planning about rezoning or a temporary use permit.

• Courtenay

  Allowed, with conditions

  Courtenay allows a home occupation run by a resident with no employees, and has no clause specific to food. It may sell only goods related to the business or produced on the parcel, may not be a retail outlet, and may use only mechanical equipment like that in an ordinary household or hobby — a limit that matters for commercial kitchen equipment. Its ban on manufacturing (“the production of articles and goods”) sits awkwardly beside selling goods produced on the parcel, so confirm your plans with Planning.

• Campbell River

  Allowed, with conditions

  Campbell River permits home-based businesses in all residential zones, with no food-specific rule other than a ban on cannabis operations, edibles included. The business must stay inside the house (accessory buildings only in rural zones) and may sell only catalogue sales or products made on the premises.

Once you have it

• Every rule caps the business somehow: floor area, employees who don’t live there, customer visits, signs, and no odours or noise beyond a normal home.
• Growing past those limits means moving production to an approved commercial kitchen — renting time in one is the usual next step.

What comes next

Which businesses need it