New business licences: the commercial lead source most trades never use
How cleaning, painting, flooring, signage, HVAC and electrical companies use new business licences to find commercial fit-outs in Vancouver the week they're licensed — with PermitRadius's Businesses library.
PermitRadius Research · Published Sep 28, 2026 · Updated Sep 28, 2026
In short
Vancouver issues roughly 800 business licences a month. A new licence at a street address means a fit-out is under way or just finished: paint, flooring, signage, cleaning, HVAC, electrical and security all follow. PermitRadius keeps every new business licence inside your radius — businesses only, never individuals — grouped by neighbourhood and type, the week it's issued.
01 · Why a licence is a lead
Before a restaurant, clinic, salon, gym or shop opens, it gets a business licence at its address. The licence is public the day it's issued and usually lands somewhere between the lease signing and the opening — the exact window when the tenant is buying paint, flooring, millwork, signage, a cleaning contract and an HVAC service plan. Almost nobody in the trades reads the licence feed. It's on the same open-data portal as the permits.
02 · What PermitRadius keeps
Only businesses with a street address, and only businesses: rental licences (which are homeowners) and licences held by individuals are removed before anything is stored. What's left is grouped into the categories trades care about — food and drink, retail, health and beauty, office and professional, fitness and studios, contractors — with the business name, type, address, neighbourhood, issue date and staff count.
03 · New this week, by neighbourhood
The Businesses tab of the Library shows the last 30 days by default, grouped by neighbourhood with counts, or as a flat list sorted newest first. Narrow to restaurants and retail, or to one neighbourhood, or to this week; the map shows where they are; every business has a status, notes, a follow-up date, Street View and directions.
7000 blk 135 Pl
Killarney · Vancouver
$4.1M
Townhouse
Brightwater Builders Ltd.
17 permits this year · repeat builder
04 · Who this is for
Post-construction and commercial cleaning, painting, flooring, drywall, signage, security and alarm, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, glass, and anyone who sells a service contract to a small business. A new licence is the earliest moment a business has a real address and a real budget.
05 · Coverage and what's next
Business licences cover Vancouver today; Surrey and Victoria publish comparable feeds and are next. Property records (the Homes tab) cover Vancouver's 89,000 land parcels. Both are refreshed daily and sit alongside the permit feeds from five cities. Public record, read the day it's published; the timing is your edge.
See this for your radius
Which builders are pulling permits within 15 km of your yard?