Short answer: Vancouver is adding gyms. Issued Fitness Centre business licences inside the City rose from 206 in 2024 to 244 in 2026, up 18%, and those reporting 10 or more staff rose from 69 to 87. So far in 2026, 49 fitness businesses are new to the licence register (19 fitness centres and 30 instructors or studios), and Downtown, Fairview and Mount Pleasant are where they're opening.
This report is for gym and studio owners tracking the market, people opening a new club, and anyone who searched for new gyms in Vancouver and wanted the numbers rather than a list. It's built entirely from the City of Vancouver's open business-licence data, which anyone can check.
The trend
| Folder year | Fitness centres | of which 10+ staff | of which 40+ staff | Sport and fitness instruction | All fitness licences |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 206 | 69 | 7 | 234 | 440 |
| 2025 | 215 | 75 | 7 | 190 | 405 |
| 2026 (to Sep 28) | 244 | 87 | 8 | 220 | 464 |
Issued licences for premises inside the City of Vancouver. Source: City of Vancouver business licences, extract 2026-09-28. VendFynd analysis.
Fitness centres grew every year, and the larger ones grew faster: clubs reporting 10 or more staff are up 26% since 2024, against 18% for fitness centres overall.
Instruction licences fell in 2025, then recovered. Many are sole trainers and small studios whose licences come and go; the 2025 folder also has an unusually high number of licences still marked "Pending" (59 for instruction), so part of that dip may be timing in the data rather than closures.
New in 2025 and 2026
We call a licence new if the same business name and type had no licence of any status in the previous year's folder.
| New in 2025 | New in 2026 (to Sep 28) | |
|---|---|---|
| Fitness centres | 30 | 19 |
| Sport and fitness instruction | 23 | 30 |
| Total | 53 | 49 |
| Median reported staff | 2 | 1 |
| With 10+ staff | 7 | 3 |
Most new fitness businesses start small: a studio, a trainer or a boutique class concept. The larger clubs in the trend table mostly grew into their size, or opened as new locations of existing brands under an existing name, which this method doesn't count as new.
Closures happen too. In the 2026 folder, 43 fitness licences are marked "Gone Out of Business" (35 of them instruction, 8 fitness centres), and another 18 cancelled and 22 inactive.
Where they are
| Local area | All fitness licences, 2026 | Fitness centres, 2026 | New in 2026 | New in 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Downtown | 102 | 64 | 9 | 16 |
| Kitsilano | 69 | 39 | 4 | 4 |
| Fairview | 59 | 35 | 8 | 5 |
| Mount Pleasant | 42 | 24 | 6 | 4 |
| Kensington-Cedar Cottage | 29 | 12 | 2 | 7 |
| Riley Park | 22 | 9 | 2 | 5 |
Downtown leads with 102 fitness licences, ahead of Kitsilano (69) and Fairview (59). New openings in 2026 lean toward the central Broadway corridor: Fairview and Mount Pleasant together account for 14 of the 49.
Why a vending company looks at gym licences
Gyms are among the best fits for a drink machine, but staff counts undersell them. Fitness centres report a median of 5 employees, and only 8 of 244 report 40 or more. What matters is members through the door and long opening hours. In neighbouring Burnaby, the gyms our Lead Finder mapped in September 2026 were open a median of 88.5 hours a week, and 6 of 44 around the clock (hours report). That's why our site-fit scorer counts gym members separately from staff.
For a new club, the practical point is timing: the machine's spot and outlet are easiest to plan before the floor plan is fixed. For what goes in it, see what to put in a gym vending machine. A machine is $0 to the gym: 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 drink machine). See if your gym qualifies.
About this data
- Dataset: City of Vancouver, "Business licences" open data, folder years 2024, 2025 and 2026, extract 2026-09-28. The City publishes these three folder years in the current dataset; earlier years aren't in it. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Vancouver.
- Method: in-city licences in the business types "Fitness Centre" and "Sport and Fitness Instruction". Trend counts use status "Issued". "New" means the same business name and type has no licence of any status in the prior folder year, so a business that changed its name counts as new, and a new location opened under an existing name doesn't.
- Limits: the 2026 folder is partial (to September 28), employee counts are self-reported, and one licence covers one business at one address. City-run community centres aren't part of this count. Names were used only for matching; no business is named.
Sources
- City of Vancouver, Business licences (open data): https://opendata.vancouver.ca/explore/dataset/business-licences/, extract 2026-09-28
- Open Government Licence – Vancouver: https://opendata.vancouver.ca/pages/licence/