Building permits in Metro Vancouver.

The permits a project needs, in one place

Most homeowners plan for a building permit and meet the rest as surprises. A Metro Vancouver project usually needs the building permit from the city, a development permit where the zoning designates one, a demolition permit where an existing building comes down, and separate electrical and gas permits from Technical Safety BC, which is a provincial organisation rather than part of any city.

Underneath those sits a provincial requirement that has nothing to do with the drawings. Before a municipality issues a building permit for a new home, BC Housing requires a New Home Registration Form as proof that a licensed residential builder is in place with home warranty insurance arranged. The alternative is an approved Owner Builder Authorization, which must be in hand before construction starts anywhere in British Columbia, including in areas where no building permit is required at all.

The chapters in this guide take each of these in the order a project meets them, starting with which permits apply to your work and ending with occupancy.

What decides how long it takes

Three things set the calendar: how complete the application is when it is filed, which reviews the property triggers, and the municipality's current volume.

Completeness is the one the owner controls. Richmond states that incomplete applications will not be accepted. Surrey states that only complete single family applications can be submitted and that missing documents result in rejection. An incomplete submission does not hold a place in the queue while the gaps are filled.

Which reviews apply depends on the lot and the city. Burnaby changed its process effective 1 July 2026 so that some projects need a development permit before a building permit can be submitted or issued, which is a full extra review stage that a neighbouring municipality may not require for identical drawings.

Volume is the part nobody controls, and it moves through the year. Surrey republishes its processing figures rather than posting them once, which is the right way to read any published number: as a description of the quarter it was measured in.

Where projects lose the most time

The largest avoidable loss happens before the application is filed. Site reports shape the design rather than merely describing it. A geotechnical report that calls for a pile foundation changes the structural drawings, and an arborist report that sets a root protection zone can change where the building sits. Commissioning those reports after the drawings are finished means paying for the drawings twice and losing the calendar time as well.

The second largest loss happens inside the correspondence cycle, where reviewers issue comments and the applicant responds. Each pass through that loop costs the length of the reviewer's current queue. Answering every comment in one coordinated resubmission, rather than sending answers as each becomes ready, is the difference between one cycle and three.

The third is the provincial licensing step, discovered late. A New Home Registration Form cannot be backdated, and neither can an Owner Builder Authorization, which BC Housing requires to be approved before construction starts.

Permits on a multiplex, and where to read more

A multiplex under the small scale multi unit housing rules follows the same permit structure as any other residential building, with the zoning questions answered by the provincial framework and the municipal bylaw that implements it. The cost side of a multiplex, including how city fees are calculated, is covered in the multiplex costs guide rather than here, and the design constraints are covered in the multiplex design guide.

Work on a heritage or character house adds a separate review track, and that is covered in the heritage guide.

This guide stays with the permits themselves: which ones apply, what has to be in place first, what a complete application contains, how review runs, how long it takes, and what happens from the first inspection through to occupancy.