Short answer: Surrey building permits for warehouses and industrial space are mostly fit-outs, not new buildings. From January 2 to October 1, 2026, the City of Surrey issued 99 industrial building permits (94 of them for warehouses) with a declared construction value of about $153.9 million. Seventy were tenant improvements and 16 landlord improvements. Eleven new buildings make up almost all of the value, and seven of those were issued in the first quarter.
This report is for warehouse operators, industrial landlords and brokers in Surrey, British Columbia, and for anyone who searched for Surrey building permits and wanted the industrial picture rather than the permit portal. Every number comes from the City's own open data and can be checked.
By quarter
| Quarter (2026) | Industrial permits | Declared value | Median permit | New buildings | Tenant improvements | Landlord improvements |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 (Jan–Mar) | 37 | $129.5M | $98,000 | 7 | 24 | 4 |
| Q2 (Apr–Jun) | 31 | $17.0M | $135,000 | 2 | 23 | 6 |
| Q3 (Jul–Sep) | 31 | $7.3M | $85,000 | 2 | 23 | 6 |
| Total | 99 | $153.9M | $100,000 | 11 | 70 | 16 |
Warehouse, manufacturing, industrial and storage uses, sign permits excluded. Two permits with work type "See Description" ($2.2M) are in the totals but not in a work column. Source: City of Surrey, Issued Building Permits, records to 2026-10-01. VendFynd analysis.
The steady part of the market is the fit-out: 23 or 24 tenant improvements every quarter, and their combined value grew from $3.6M in Q1 to $4.3M in Q2 and $4.7M in Q3. Landlord improvements rose from 4 to 6 a quarter. New-building value is lumpy: a single new warehouse permit in March was worth $54.6M, more than the whole of Q2 and Q3 combined.
By type of work
| Type of work | Permits | Declared value | Median | Largest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tenant improvement | 70 | $12.5M | $69,150 | $1.74M |
| Landlord improvement | 16 | $3.3M | $140,500 | $840,000 |
| New building | 11 | $135.9M | $7.6M | $54.6M |
| Other ("See Description") | 2 | $2.2M | – | $2.0M |
Warehouses dominate. All 11 new buildings, all 16 landlord improvements and 65 of the 70 tenant improvements are for the "Warehouse" use; manufacturing has 4 tenant improvements and storage 1.
By size of permit
| Declared value | Permits |
|---|---|
| Under $100,000 | 48 |
| $100,000 to $499,999 | 31 |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 9 |
| $1M to $4.9M | 4 |
| $5M and over | 7 |
Nearly half of all industrial permits are under $100,000, and the median is exactly $100,000. That's the scale of interior work when a tenant moves into or reorganizes an existing unit, which is also when a lunchroom gets laid out.
How warehouses compare with other uses
Across all 1,924 permits in the dataset, worth about $3.56 billion, housing carries the value: 45 apartment permits alone total about $876.8M. But among fit-outs (tenant and landlord improvements of every kind, 382 permits), warehouse is the most common use, with 81, ahead of offices (73), restaurants (53) and retail (48). If you want to know where businesses are moving into Surrey, the warehouse fit-out is the most frequent signal.
Where the industrial businesses are
The permit data has addresses but no area field, so for geography we used Surrey's business licence data, which assigns each licence to a town-centre area.
| Area (City's field) | Warehouse, manufacturer or wholesale businesses | of which warehouses |
|---|---|---|
| Newton | 742 | 87 |
| Grandview | 295 | 97 |
| Guildford | 243 | 38 |
| Cloverdale | 128 | 21 |
| Clayton | 127 | 27 |
| Whalley | 109 | 21 |
| South Surrey, Fleetwood, City Centre | 28 | 11 |
| All Surrey | 1,673 | 303 |
Commercial/Industrial licences, 2026 table, one per business name and address; a business can hold more than one category. One record has no area.
Newton alone has 44% of these businesses. Grandview has the most licences in the "Warehouse" category itself.
What this means for a warehouse break room
A fit-out is when the lunchroom, its outlets and its layout get decided, and it's the cheapest moment to leave room for a machine. Operators look at people on site per shift, not the size of the building: a 300,000 sq ft distribution centre with a small crew can be a weaker site than a busy 30-person assembly unit. In BC, no employee can work more than 5 consecutive hours without a half-hour meal break (Employment Standards Act s.32), so every shift has at least one fixed break when people want food fast. Our shift-work setup guide covers placement and night shifts.
One Surrey rule is worth knowing: the premises owner must notify the City's licence inspector in writing before the number of vending machines on the premises increases (Business License By-law 13680, s.65(3)). The operator licenses each machine at $41 a year; see our licence fee comparison.
Placement is $0 to you: the operator covers the machine, install, stocking, service and removal, and you provide the spot and an outlet (about $15–20 a month in power for a refrigerated machine). With VendFynd it's month to month, 30 days' notice, no-cost removal, under our host terms. See if your site qualifies. For the wider region, see new workplaces in Metro Vancouver this summer.
About this data
- Permits: City of Surrey, "Issued Building Permits" open data, all 1,924 records (issue dates 2026-01-02 to 2026-10-01), downloaded 2026-10-12. The live dataset holds the current year only, so this report covers 2026; we couldn't find a published 2025 permit file to compare against. Values are the construction value declared on the permit, not a sale or lease price. The dataset has no floor-area field.
- Industrial filter: uses Warehouse, Manufacturing, Industrial and Storage; sign permits (fascia, freestanding) removed, leaving 99. A demolition or a permit filed under another use (for example "Offices" inside an industrial building) isn't counted.
- Licences: City of Surrey "Business Directory" open data, 2026 table (27,185 records, Commercial/Industrial 13,114), downloaded 2026-10-12. Counted once per business name and address. The data has no employee counts.
- Names: applicant, contractor and business names were not used or published. Contains information licensed under the City of Surrey's open data terms.
Sources
- City of Surrey, Issued Building Permits (open data): https://opendata-surrey.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/f3ec200f59a342e38c52248f07fe610d, downloaded 2026-10-12
- City of Surrey, Business Directory (open data): https://opendata-surrey.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/468ff5ff67354da5be095a9bce006137, downloaded 2026-10-12
- City of Surrey open data, terms of use: https://opendata-surrey.hub.arcgis.com/pages/terms-of-use
- City of Surrey, Business License By-law No. 13680, s.65(3) and Schedule A: https://www.surrey.ca/city-government/bylaws/13680, accessed 2026-10-12
- BC Employment Standards Act, s.32: https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/00_96113_01, accessed 2026-10-12