Vancouver historical permit elapsed times

Compare elapsed calendar days in a dated cohort of issued permits. These figures describe past issued applications; they are not today's queue time or a prediction for your project.

Issue-date window: 2025-10-12 to 2026-10-11. Snapshot checked 2026-10-12. Source: City of Vancouver issued building permits.

Elapsed days from creation of a permit number to first issuance
City category	Issued permits	Median days	90th percentile days
Renovation - Commercial/ Mixed Use - Lower Complexity	1,055	27	77
Renovation - Residential - Lower Complexity	864	23	112
Other: Demolition / Deconstruction	680	106	298
New Build - Low Density Housing	630	154	316
Other: Addition / Alteration	512	119	324
Other: New Building	238	327	722
New Build - Standalone Laneway	161	95	245
Other: Salvage and Abatement	60	184	349
Other: Temporary Building / Structure	43	14	55

How to read the figures

The median splits the included issued permits in half. The 90th percentile is the nearest-rank value at or above 90% of that category's observations. A large spread can reflect different scopes, revisions and applicant response time. It does not measure time spent solely with City reviewers.

Methodology and exclusions

We use the City's permit-number creation date, issue date and elapsed-day field. The City defines elapsed time to first issuance, including weekends and holidays. Preparation before a permit number is created is outside this measure. Pending, rejected and withdrawn applications are absent from an issued-only dataset, so these statistics cannot describe all applicants' outcomes.

We retrieved 4,243 records and retained 4,243 unique permits. Records with missing or invalid dates, negative elapsed days, or elapsed days inconsistent with the date difference were excluded (0); duplicate valid permit numbers were excluded (0). We preserve the City's PermitCategory when present; otherwise we group by TypeOfWork with an “Other” label. Categories with fewer than 10 included permits are suppressed (0 permits).

No addresses, applicant names or project descriptions are published. This is a fixed snapshot, refreshed through a reproducible script; it does not update automatically during a page visit. Download the source cohort through the City API. City data is used under the Open Government Licence – Vancouver; our calculations are not endorsed by the City.

Plan using your actual application category

Confirm current guidance directly with Vancouver and allow separately for design, development approvals and applicant revisions. Find the official application pathway or read how permit timelines differ.