Short answer: between early July and late September 2026, four Metro Vancouver open datasets recorded 232 new licences and building permits for the kinds of sites that host vending machines: 121 new Vancouver business licences, 47 new Burnaby licences, 24 large Vancouver building permits and 40 Surrey building permits. Offices lead, followed by clinics and industrial space. A new site is the easiest time to set up vending: there's no old contract to end.
This report is for people opening, moving or fitting out a workplace in Vancouver, Burnaby or Surrey, British Columbia, and for property managers leasing up new space. It's a VendFynd analysis of city open data; every count can be traced to a public dataset.
What we counted
VendFynd's Radar imports four public datasets and keeps only records that suit vending:
- Vancouver business licences: licences issued in 2026 in a vending-relevant type, with no issued licence for the same name and address in an earlier year (so renewals are skipped). Office types need 10 or more employees.
- Burnaby business licences: licence numbers higher than those issued 90–150 days earlier (Burnaby numbers run in sequence and renewals keep theirs), in a vending-relevant type, at a Burnaby address.
- Vancouver building permits: new apartment buildings ($2M+; multiple dwellings $5M+), offices, industrial, hotels, clinics, schools, gyms and auto; plus $1M+ alterations for non-residential uses, which usually means a new tenant fitting out.
- Surrey building permits: new apartments, offices, warehouses, industrial and institutional buildings, and tenant or landlord improvements of $100K+ in those uses.
The window is July 4 to September 26, 2026 (the Radar's import date). Counts are aggregates; we name no business.
The totals
| Source | Records | Largest groups |
|---|---|---|
| Vancouver new business licences | 121 | Offices 85, clinics 9, industrial 7, gyms 6, auto service 5 |
| Burnaby new business licences | 47 | Offices 27, clinics 11, industrial 7 |
| Vancouver building permits (large) | 24 | Offices 10, apartments 5, industrial 3, clinics 3 |
| Surrey building permits | 40 | Industrial 13, offices 10, clinics 8 |
| All four | 232 | Offices 132, clinics 31, industrial 30 |
Vancouver: new offices with real headcounts
Of the 121 new Vancouver licences, 119 report an employee count. The median is 33 employees, 56 report 40 or more and 37 report 100 or more. Offices make up 85 of the 121 (remember that offices only count here at 10+ employees); the rest are 9 health-care licences, 7 industrial, 6 fitness, 5 auto service, 4 colleges and training schools, 3 venues and 2 hotels.
Monthly, the count rose through the summer: 35 in July, 39 in August and 46 in September.
Vancouver: $480 million of large permits
The 24 large Vancouver permits carry a combined construction value of about $479.6 million:
| Use | Permits | Construction value |
|---|---|---|
| Apartments (new buildings) | 5 | $332.1M |
| Industrial | 3 | $99.1M |
| Offices (mostly $1M+ interior alterations) | 10 | $29.9M |
| Clinics | 3 | $6.9M |
| Colleges | 1 | $6.2M |
| Auto service | 1 | $3.0M |
| Senior living | 1 | $2.4M |
Ten office alterations worth $1 million or more usually mean ten employers fitting out new floors, each with a new kitchen or break room.
Surrey: industrial fit-outs and student housing
Surrey's 40 permits total about $188.8 million. Industrial is the biggest group by count, with 13 permits ($6.4M combined), mostly tenant and landlord improvements to warehouses. The biggest by value are 1 student housing building (404 units, $80.2M) and 2 apartment buildings (172 units, $64.0M). Clinics account for 8 permits ($17.5M), and offices 10 ($11.2M).
Burnaby: offices and clinics
Burnaby's 47 new licences are mostly general offices (27) and health services (11), with 7 industrial, 1 gym and 1 private school. By month: 13 in July, 25 in August and 9 in September (September is partial, since Burnaby dates licences by the month they cover).
What this means if you're one of them
- Set up before move-in. Pick the break-room spot and confirm a grounded outlet during the fit-out, not after.
- Size it to your real headcount. Operators typically look for about 30–40 people on site on a normal day; the site-fit scorer gives you a score out of 100 in a minute.
- Know the power cost. A refrigerated drink machine adds about $16–17 a month on BC Hydro's small business rate (calculator).
- Get the terms in writing. Use the vending agreement checklist. With VendFynd it's $0 to you, month to month, 30 days' notice and no-cost removal.
For new residential buildings, our guide to vending in BC apartment and strata buildings covers who approves a machine in common property.
About this data
- Datasets: City of Vancouver business licences and issued building permits; City of Surrey issued building permits; City of Burnaby business licences. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Vancouver, the Open Government Licence – Surrey and the Open Government Licence – Burnaby.
- Window: records dated July 4 to September 26, 2026, imported by VendFynd's Radar on 2026-09-26 (one Vancouver licence carries an October 1 start date).
- Filters: as described under "What we counted". The filters are VendFynd's, chosen for vending relevance, so these are not total new-business counts for any city.
- Values are the construction values stated on the permits. Unit counts are only given where the permit lists them.
- Limits: a licence or permit doesn't mean a business opens on a given date, and Burnaby's licence-number method can miss or double-count a few records. No business names are published.
Sources
- City of Vancouver, Business licences: https://opendata.vancouver.ca/explore/dataset/business-licences/
- City of Vancouver, Issued building permits: https://opendata.vancouver.ca/explore/dataset/issued-building-permits/
- City of Surrey, Issued Building Permits: https://opendata-surrey.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/f3ec200f59a342e38c52248f07fe610d
- City of Burnaby, Business Licences: https://data.burnaby.ca/datasets/burnaby::business-licences/about
- Open Government Licence – Vancouver: https://opendata.vancouver.ca/pages/licence/
All accessed 2026-09-26.