How to open a restaurant or café 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

   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.

3. 3

   Food primary liquor licence

   Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch

   Only if you serve alcohol — apply early

   Lets a restaurant or café serve alcohol when food is the main business, with a varied menu cooked in its own kitchen. Take-out-only restaurants, food trucks and food courts are not eligible. You need a CRA business number and a Business BCeID; the floor plan needs your municipality’s occupant-load stamp, and the municipality signs off only for service past midnight, dancing or karaoke, or a temporary use area. The licence also allows sealed alcohol for takeout or delivery with a meal — sold before 11 p.m., delivered by 11:30 p.m., by drivers 19 or older with Serving It Right. A catering endorsement adds off-site events.

   Cost:

   $950 for the application and first year ($475 + $475); renewal from $325 a year, by liquor purchases. Adding a catering endorsement: $330, then $130 a year.

4. 4

   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.

5. 5

   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.

6. 6

   Grease interceptor

   The CRD in Greater Victoria; your municipality elsewhere

   In Greater Victoria, a food business that sends fat, oil or grease down the drain must install a certified, properly sized grease interceptor, and file a Waste Discharge Assessment Form with the CRD before choosing or replacing one — Victoria wants the CRD’s answer before it issues a building permit. Dishwashing, prep and barista sinks and dishwashers drain through it; toilets and hand sinks must not. Have it pumped out at least every 12 months and before grease and solids reach a quarter of its depth, and keep two years of records. Food trucks are exempt. Nanaimo requires one where wastewater carries excessive grease; elsewhere, ask your municipality.

   Cost:

   CRD fines reach $10,000 a day.

7. 7

   Gas and propane work

   Technical Safety BC

   If you cook with gas or propane

   Installing or altering a gas range, fryer, line or propane tank must be done by a licensed gas contractor under a Technical Safety BC installation permit — on the Island, no municipality issues its own, and the homeowner permit isn’t open to a business. Every new appliance must carry a certification mark or a Technical Safety BC approval mark. A business that owns a propane tank also needs an operating permit for it; refillable cylinders don’t.

8. 8

   Fire safety: kitchen hood, suppression and inspection

   Your fire department

   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.

9. 9

   Food safety plan and sanitation plan

   You write them; Island Health approves them

   Written procedures showing how you keep food safe (critical control points and limits) and how you clean and sanitise. Required of every food service establishment and every premises where food is processed or prepared, and approved before a permit or approval is issued.

10. 10

    FOODSAFE Level 1

    BC FOODSAFE Secretariat

    Required by law of every operator of a food service establishment, and of at least one person on shift when the operator is away. Island Health asks for the certificate with a permit application.

    Cost:

    $69 online (Open School BC) or $115 by distance education; classroom fees vary by provider. Valid 5 years.

11. 11

    Health operating permit

    Island Health

    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).

12. 12

    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.

13. 13

    Municipal business licence

    Your municipality

    Last: approved once the other sign-offs are in

    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.

14. 14

    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.

15. 15

    Serving It Right

    Province of BC (Responsible Service BC)

    Only if you serve alcohol

    Required by law of every licensee, manager and server who sells or serves alcohol. Licence terms add anyone delivering it — including a third-party app’s driver, who must also be 19 or older (common carriers such as Canada Post are exempt). At special events, servers can take the shorter Special Event Server course at any size; permit holders and managers can use it only for events under 500 people.

    Cost:

    The course is free; the exam is $40 (Special Event Server: $25). Valid 5 years.

16. 16

    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.

17. 17

    BC PST registration

    BC Ministry of Finance

    Only if you sell soda, kombucha or alcohol

    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.

18. 18

    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.

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