How to open a grocery or specialty food store on Vancouver Island

1. 1

   Zoning for your food business

   Your municipality

   Before you sign a lease

   Before you sign a lease, check that the zone for the address allows your use — and in Victoria, ask Permits and Inspections to confirm the space’s legal use too, which can differ. Cities define uses narrowly: a restaurant, a take-out, a drive-through and food processing are often separate uses, and a use a zone doesn’t list is not allowed there. Making food with no counter is usually an industrial use: Langford excludes primary processing of meat, poultry and fish from its light-industrial use, and Nanaimo excludes processing livestock, fish and poultry from its food-processing use. Victoria’s 2018 zoning bylaw bans drive-throughs in every zone it covers.

   Cost:

   Saanich will confirm zoning in a letter for $200, within 10 working days.

2. 2

   Plan approval for your food premises

   Island Health

   Every food premises the regulation covers — restaurant, bakery, processor, food truck, commissary and most shops — needs its floor plans and equipment approved by an Environmental Health Officer before it is built or altered, and before it opens; a shop selling only whole produce, or prepackaged food that doesn’t need refrigeration, is exempt. The premises must be separate from living quarters.

3. 3

   Building permit for alterations or a change of use

   Your municipality

   Altering a commercial space — or only changing its use, say a shop becoming a café — needs a building permit, even with no construction; painting and other cosmetic work don’t. You can’t move in until the city issues an occupancy permit. A change of occupancy can trigger seismic, fire-separation, accessibility and sprinkler upgrades, and a restaurant for more than 30 people usually needs an architect. Langford and Nanaimo want Island Health’s stamped floor plans with the application; Victoria needs Island Health’s approval before it issues the permit.

   Cost:

   Victoria: $100 to apply plus 1.40% of the construction cost. Saanich: $100 for the first $1,000 plus $13 per $1,000 up to $500,000, and an application fee from $100 by project value. Langford: $63.41 for the first $1,000 plus $12.66 per $1,000 up to $100,000 (less above). Nanaimo: $105 plus $10 per $1,000 up to $100,000, then $7 per $1,000. Starting without a permit doubles the fee in Langford, and in Saanich (up to $20,000 extra).

   Time:

   Victoria expects four to six months for extensive changes. Nanaimo targets 8 weeks for a tenant improvement, and says it isn’t meeting its targets.

4. 4

   Fire safety: kitchen hood, suppression and inspection

   Your fire department

   Your licence may need a fire inspection

   Cooking that gives off smoke or grease-laden vapour needs a hood, duct and automatic fire-suppression system built to the NFPA 96 standard, which the BC Building Code and Fire Code both require. Nanaimo’s guide lists what counts: ranges, fryers, grills, woks and ovens roasting meat do; pastry ovens, conveyor pizza ovens, coffee makers and steamers don’t. Hoods and ducts must be cleaned often — at least monthly in Saanich — and the manual-release instructions posted in the kitchen. Saanich inspects before it approves a business licence; Victoria requires an inspection, which you arrange once you apply for one.

5. 5

   Approval to operate

   Island Health

   Food premises that don’t serve food for immediate eating — food processors, bakeries without a counter, food stores, commissaries — receive an approval to operate instead of a permit. Health approval must be in place before you open.

6. 6

   Health operating permit

   Island Health

   If you serve food to eat on the spot

   Needed by a “food service establishment” — anywhere food is prepared and served for immediate eating: restaurants, cafés, take-outs, caterers, most food trucks. Issued after a pre-opening inspection; permits are personal and not transferable to a new owner.

   Cost:

   $150 a year for up to 50 seats (and for take-outs and caterers), $250 over 50 seats; a mobile unit pays a flat $75, or $150 prorated. Other permits are prorated by month for seasonal businesses. No fee if you operate 14 days or fewer in a fiscal year (April–March).

7. 7

   A legal-for-trade scale, if you price by weight

   Measurement Canada

   If you sell by weight

   Only matters if you charge by weight — by the pound or kilo at the counter or market table. Then the scale must be a “legal for trade” model, the kind sold for retail use with a Measurement Canada approval number, rather than a kitchen scale, and a private service company checks it every five years. It sits level, faces the customer and is zeroed, and packaging isn’t charged. Food sold by the piece, or in packs that all weigh the same, doesn’t need one; neither does portioning a burger patty.

8. 8

   Deposits on drinks in containers

   BC Recycling Regulation (Encorp / Return-It)

   If you sell drinks in containers

   Anyone selling a drink in a sealed container must collect a deposit of at least 10¢ per container, shown on the receipt — unless it is drunk on your premises. A business that makes a drink in BC is its “producer” and must be covered by an approved stewardship plan: for non-alcoholic drinks, register with Encorp (Return-It) and pay its recycling fee per container. There is no small-producer exemption.

   Cost:

   2026 recycling fees: plastic 7¢, glass 13¢, aluminum 0¢ per container, on top of the 10¢ deposit the customer pays.

9. 9

   Bags, takeout containers and utensils

   Federal, provincial and municipal rules

   Plastic checkout bags, plastic utensils, stir sticks and foam or PVC takeout ware are banned. A paper bag costs the customer at least 25¢ and a reusable one $2, shown on the receipt — though restaurants may give free paper bags for delivery. Utensils, straws, napkins, condiments and lids go out only when the customer asks or accepts an offer (or takes them from a self-serve station), including on app orders — though a lid may go on a delivery or drive-through drink without asking. Victoria also requires reusable ware for dine-in since March 2026.

10. 10

    Patio and sign permits

    Your municipality

    For a patio or signage

    Exterior signs need a permit in Victoria, Saanich, Langford and Nanaimo; Saanich doesn’t allow roof, projecting, animated or portable signs. Once you hold a business licence, a patio on a Victoria sidewalk or street needs a yearly patio licence: a site meeting with City staff, an application, an inspection once it is built, and $5 million of liability insurance naming the City. Elsewhere, ask your municipality about patios.

    Cost:

    Signs: $100 each in Victoria (waived until late January 2027), $200 each in Saanich, $100 plus $70 a sign in Langford, $5 per square metre in Nanaimo (minimum $40, maximum $150 a sign). Victoria patios: $100 to apply, then $1.96–$5.78 per square foot for a year, or $0.98–$2.89 for a six-month seasonal licence (2025/26), by area and type; from 2027 rates rise 2.5% a year under an amendment set for adoption in September 2026, replacing a planned doubling.

11. 11

    Municipal business licence

    Your municipality

    Business licences are issued by each municipality, and every one of the twelve checked requires one — home-based food businesses included. Fees differ: most charge about $100 a year for a home-based licence, Nanaimo $165, and Oak Bay $100 to $200 by type under new rules reported adopted in September 2026; Courtenay’s rises from $75 to $150 in 2027. Langford and Colwood charge once, and the licence then carries on. Mobile businesses can share one licence across municipalities — the Greater Victoria Inter-Municipal licence or the Vancouver Island Inter-Community licence ($170 on top of the local licence under the newest bylaws) — but the updated Inter-Community bylaw several municipalities have adopted excludes food trucks, carts and trailers — it starts once all participating municipalities have adopted it — and North Cowichan’s mobile food licence cannot be used intermunicipally.

12. 12

    Registering your business name

    BC Registries

    Trading under your own name needs no registration. Any other name means reserving it and registering within 3 months of first using it; a partnership registers within 3 months of forming. Incorporating is the alternative, and only a corporation, co-op or society gets exclusive use of its name.

    Cost:

    Name request $30 (reserved 56 days); sole proprietorship or partnership registration $40; incorporation $350, then a $43.39 annual report.

13. 13

    WorkSafeBC coverage

    WorkSafeBC

    Once you hire staff

    Required by law once you hire anyone — full-time, part-time, casual or contract. WorkSafeBC suggests applying 30 days before your first hire. A self-employed owner with no workers doesn’t have to register, but can buy personal coverage.

14. 14

    GST registration

    Canada Revenue Agency

    Most groceries are zero-rated, but candy, snacks, carbonated drinks, hot food, catering and sweet baked goods sold in packs of fewer than six are taxable at 5%. You must register once your sales pass $30,000 in a quarter or over four quarters — and zero-rated grocery sales count toward it.

15. 15

    BC PST registration

    BC Ministry of Finance

    If you sell soda beverages or other taxable goods

    Food, candy included, is exempt from PST. Sweetened carbonated drinks — kombucha included — are taxed at 7%, and liquor at 10%. Sell only exempt food and you don’t register; sell soda beverages and you do, unless you are a small seller with $10,000 or less in sales and no shop.

Rules where you are

Business licences, zoning and home-business rules differ by municipality.

• City of Victoria
• District of Saanich
• City of Langford
• Township of Esquimalt
• District of Oak Bay
• City of Colwood
• Town of Sidney
• City of Nanaimo
• City of Duncan
• Municipality of North Cowichan
• City of Courtenay
• City of Campbell River