Victoria indicatorsDays to issue a permit for larger buildings
160 days (median)
No target found. Who could set one: Victoria City Council. Targets and comparisons
Source: City of Victoria (calculated here). We read it on Nov 11, 2026.
Over time
Median days from file creation to permit issued (complex buildings)
2025 Days, by year
- 160 days
M municipal election: Oct 15, 2022P provincial election: Oct 24, 2020; Oct 19, 2024
Median days from file creation to permit issued (complex buildings)
2025 Days, by year
- 160 days
M municipal election: Oct 20, 2018; Oct 15, 2022P provincial election: Oct 24, 2020; Oct 19, 2024
Targets and comparisons
No target found
No target for permit times found in the City’s Five Year Financial Plan Bylaw, 2026 or its Building Permits and Building and Renovating web pages, as of November 12, 2026. Who could set one: Victoria City Council.
Documents checked: Five Year Financial Plan Bylaw, 2026 (No. 26-040), Schedule 5 (adopted May 7, 2026); City of Victoria Building Permits and Building and Renovating web pages (viewed November 12, 2026).
Show the numbers as a table
| Period | City of Victoria |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 160 |
| 2024 | 112 |
| 2023 | 85 |
| 2022 | 137 |
| 2021 | 77 |
| 2020 | 88 |
| 2019 | 95 |
| 2018 | 68 |
Who decides
City of Victoria Council. Decides zoning and development permits, and regulates building by bylaw. Local Government Act, s. 479
Show the 1 other body and the laws
| Body | What it decides | Law or bylaw |
|---|---|---|
| City of Victoria Council | Decides zoning and development permits, and regulates building by bylaw. | Local Government Act, s. 479 Local Government Act, s. 490 Community Charter, s. 8 (3) (l) |
| Province of B.C. | Sets the B.C. Building Code. | Building Act, s. 3 |
Councils: last general local election October 17, 2026; next on October 19, 2030, the third Saturday of October set by the Local Government Act, s. 52. Province: last general election October 19, 2024; next set for October 21, 2028 unless called earlier (Constitution Act, s. 23).
Each row says what a body decides and links to the law, order or bylaw that gives it that role. It does not say who caused a change: markets, households and other governments also move these numbers. Who decides what, for every measure · How we choose
What this number does not show
- Calculated here from the City's building permit file: for each permit of the type the City labels “complex” (larger buildings, including most apartment and mixed-use projects), days from the date the file was created to the date the permit was issued; the middle value (median) for permits issued in each year.
Two more limits
- The file creation date may be when an application was first opened rather than when it was complete, and some projects are issued in phases. Treat this as an estimate of the City process, not an official processing time.
- A better measure would be: Permit time by stage, City time against applicant time. Not published as data. Not asked for yet.
Not measured yet in housing: renovictions and tenant displacement. See all 17 gaps
In plain words
Up 43% in a year. Up 68% since 2019.
The typical (median) number of days from application to issue for the City’s complex building permits, which cover apartments, multi-unit and larger commercial buildings, by year of issue.
How we decide “Worse”
The change is 42.9% of the earlier value, at or above the 5% threshold.
A lower number means permits for larger buildings are issued faster. Speed is only one part of a permit process; this page does not measure quality or safety review. Median of 160 days for the 104 complex building permits issued in 2025, compared with 112 days for 88 permits in 2024 (+43%). For 2026 up to Nov 9: 156 days (76 permits).
Outcome measures read Better, Worse or About the same; published government targets read Ahead of, On or Behind target; value-judgement measures read Rising, Falling or Steady in a neutral colour. A change smaller than the agency's own margin of error, or otherwise smaller than 5% of the earlier value, is About the same (or Steady). No change is calculated across a marked break in a series. The rule.
All notes on this number
Why it matters. Homes cannot be built until a permit is issued. Faster permits do not guarantee more homes, but long waits add cost and delay.
- Calculated here from the City's building permit file: for each permit of the type the City labels “complex” (larger buildings, including most apartment and mixed-use projects), days from the date the file was created to the date the permit was issued; the middle value (median) for permits issued in each year.
- The file creation date may be when an application was first opened rather than when it was complete, and some projects are issued in phases. Treat this as an estimate of the City process, not an official processing time.
- Rezoning and development permits come before a building permit and are not included.
- Cancelled permits are excluded. Each permit number is counted once.
- Filter, exactly: PermitType = “Building Permit (BP)”, type = “BP-COMPLEX”, Status not “CANCELLED”, and both CREATED_DATE and IssuedDate present, with the issue date on or after the creation date; a permit number that appears more than once is counted once (its last row). Permits issued in 2025 that pass the filter, by status: ACTIVE 49, COMPLETED 46, EXPIRED 6, IN-PROGRESS 2, ON HOLD 1. Counting every status, cancelled ones too (1 in 2025), gives 105 permits and the same median, 160 days.
- The City's type labels changed over time; years before 2018 used different labels and are not shown.
A better measure
- What
- Permit time by stage, City time against applicant time
- Who could publish it
- City of Victoria
- Status
- Not published as data. Not asked for yet.
This page uses the best public number we found. Data requests
Which places
Area: City of Victoria
The City of Victoria municipality only, all neighbourhoods.
Included
- All City of Victoria neighbourhoods, including Downtown, James Bay, Fairfield, Fernwood, Oaklands, Hillside/Quadra, North Park, Burnside, Victoria West, Rockland, Jubilee and Gonzales
Not included
- Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, Langford and every other municipality in the region
Official definition
How the agency describes it: City of Victoria (municipality).
How we calculated it
Calculated here This figure is not published by an agency as is. It is calculated here, by script, from the public data listed below. It belongs with New homes approved by the City.
Formula
For each complex building permit: days = issue date − file creation date. Yearly figure = median of those days for permits issued that year.
With the latest numbers
- 2022: 128 permits, median 137 days.
- 2023: 105 permits, median 85 days.
- 2024: 88 permits, median 112 days.
- 2025: 104 permits, median 160 days.
Inputs
Building Permits (since they went digital in 1994): permit type, status, file creation date and issue date
- Published by
- City of Victoria
- Period used
- 2018 to Nov 9, 2026
- Latest release
- Nov 9, 2026
Keep in mind
- Calculated here from the City's building permit file: for each permit of the type the City labels “complex” (larger buildings, including most apartment and mixed-use projects), days from the date the file was created to the date the permit was issued; the middle value (median) for permits issued in each year.
- The file creation date may be when an application was first opened rather than when it was complete, and some projects are issued in phases. Treat this as an estimate of the City process, not an official processing time.
- Rezoning and development permits come before a building permit and are not included.
- Cancelled permits are excluded. Each permit number is counted once.
- Filter, exactly: PermitType = “Building Permit (BP)”, type = “BP-COMPLEX”, Status not “CANCELLED”, and both CREATED_DATE and IssuedDate present, with the issue date on or after the creation date; a permit number that appears more than once is counted once (its last row). Permits issued in 2025 that pass the filter, by status: ACTIVE 49, COMPLETED 46, EXPIRED 6, IN-PROGRESS 2, ON HOLD 1. Counting every status, cancelled ones too (1 in 2025), gives 105 permits and the same median, 160 days.
- The City's type labels changed over time; years before 2018 used different labels and are not shown.
Retrieved Nov 11, 2026, 9:17 PM B.C. time. This page’s data and calculation (JSON).
Licence and credits
Published under an open licence: anyone may reuse it with credit. About licences.
Calculated here from public data; see “How we calculated it”.
- Calculated here from
- City of Victoria
- Period
- Permits issued in 2025
- Updated
- Daily (City file); shown by calendar year
- Retrieved
- Nov 11, 2026, 9:17 PM B.C. time
- Details
- Formula and every input
Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - City of Victoria.
Inputs and results
What this pays for, or what goes into it
Inputs are money, staff or decisions; results are what services delivered. One does not prove the other moved. Kinds of measure
What goes into this
Spot a mistake?
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