Short answer: in September 2026, the four city datasets our Radar reads recorded 87 new licences and permits for vending-relevant sites, against 90 in August and 82 in July. If you searched for new businesses in Vancouver, the headline is that the City issued 47 first-time licences in our tracked types in September, the most of the summer, but they sit at only 23 street addresses. Large Vancouver permits fell to $75.7 million after two big apartment months, and Burnaby and Surrey were quieter than August.
This is the monthly refresh of our summer 2026 report, with the same filters, for people opening, moving or fitting out a workplace in Vancouver, Burnaby or Surrey, British Columbia. Every count comes from public open data; we name no business.
Month on month
| Source | July | August | September | October 1–9 (partial) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vancouver new business licences | 39 | 39 | 47 | 12 |
| …at this many street addresses | 35 | 33 | 23 | 12 |
| Vancouver large building permits | 8 ($455.2M) | 6 ($278.7M) | 14 ($75.7M) | none published yet |
| Surrey building permits | 17 ($16.0M) | 13 ($163.4M) | 17 ($12.6M) | 1 ($21.5M) |
| Burnaby new business licences | 18 | 32 | 9 | 20 |
| All four (records) | 82 | 90 | 87 | 33 |
VendFynd analysis of City of Vancouver, City of Surrey and City of Burnaby open data, extracted 2026-10-12. Dollar figures are construction values stated on permits. October is partial: Vancouver licences run to October 9, Surrey permits to October 1, and the newest Vancouver permit in the dataset was issued September 29.
Vancouver licences: more licences, fewer addresses
September looks like the busiest month of the summer on licence count alone. It isn't. 21 of the 47 licences are individual lawyers and law corporations at one address, each reporting the firm's total headcount of 117. Counted by address, September had 23 new workplaces, against 33 in August and 35 in July.
| Vancouver new licences, by address | July | August | September |
|---|---|---|---|
| Street addresses | 35 | 33 | 23 |
| Median reported staff per address | 15 | 17 | 28 |
| Addresses with 40+ staff | 9 | 11 | 9 |
| Addresses with 100+ staff | 3 | 7 | 4 |
| Downtown addresses | 14 | 17 | 12 |
By licence type, September's 47 were 36 offices, 3 fitness, 2 industrial, 2 health care, and one each for a college, an auto shop, a hotel and a venue. Oakridge had 3 new addresses, the most outside Downtown.
We started counting addresses this month because licence counts flatter professional buildings. The same pattern drives our Downtown towers analysis: in a shared building, the decision and the headcount sit with the building, not the tenant.
Vancouver permits: a quieter month after two big ones
July ($455.2M) and August ($278.7M) were carried by new apartment buildings, a large new hotel and a new industrial building. September's 14 permits total $75.7 million:
| Use | Permits | Construction value |
|---|---|---|
| Office alterations ($1M+) | 8 | $23.0M |
| Industrial (new building) | 1 | $22.7M |
| Apartments (new building) | 1 | $19.4M |
| College alteration | 1 | $6.2M |
| Care-home alteration | 1 | $2.4M |
| Clinic fit-outs | 2 | $2.1M |
Eight office fit-outs of $1 million or more is four times the count in July or August (2 each). Four of them are Downtown. Each usually means an employer building a new floor with a new kitchen or break room.
Surrey: clinics and small industrial fit-outs
Surrey's 17 September permits total $12.6 million. Five are health-care fit-outs ($8.4M combined, including three hospital-related tenant and landlord improvements), five are warehouse, manufacturing or lab improvements ($1.2M), four are office improvements ($2.6M), and one is a new 60-unit apartment building. August's $163.4 million was mostly one 404-unit student residence ($80.2M) and two apartment buildings (172 units). October opened with a $21.5 million new office building permit on October 1.
Burnaby: a slow September, a busier October
Burnaby dates each licence by the month it covers from, so a licence issued in late September for October counts in October. That explains the shape: 32 new licences in August (18 offices, 9 clinics, 4 industrial), only 9 covering from September (6 offices), and already 20 covering from October (8 offices, 4 industrial, 4 clinics and 3 care facilities).
What this means if you're moving in
- One building, one machine. If your new office shares an address with other new tenants, talk to the building manager: a shared lobby or floor machine is usually the better site.
- Count the people, not the licences. Our people-on-site estimator turns a payroll number into a realistic daily headcount, and the site-fit scorer gives a score out of 100.
- Plan it into the fit-out. The break-room spot and a grounded outlet cost nothing to plan now and money to add later.
- Get it in writing. Use the vending agreement checklist. With VendFynd it's $0 to you, month to month, 30 days' notice and no-cost removal; you provide the spot and an outlet (about $15–20 a month in power). See if your site qualifies.
About this data
- Datasets: City of Vancouver business licences and issued building permits; City of Surrey issued building permits; City of Burnaby business licences. Extracted 2026-10-12. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Vancouver, the Open Government Licence – Surrey and the Open Government Licence – Burnaby.
- Filters: the same as the summer report, chosen for vending relevance, so these are not total new-business counts for any city. Vancouver office types count only with 10+ reported employees.
- Method changes: Vancouver licences are now also grouped by street address (the headcount per address is the largest any licence there reports). Burnaby uses one fixed baseline for 2026 (licence numbers above the 99th percentile of numbers covering from December 2025) instead of a rolling 90–150-day window, so its July and August figures differ slightly from the summer report's.
- Limits: a licence or permit is not an opening date; employee counts are self-reported; permit data is published with a lag of days to weeks. 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/surrey::issued-building-permits
- 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 2026-10-12.