Canada · North America
Moving to Vancouver
Vancouver quick facts
Canada at a glance
North America
Economy
World Bank · 2025Religion
% of populationCIA World Factbook / national censuses
Cost of living in Vancouver
Can you move to Canada?
Pick your passport to see whether you can enter Canada — and what it takes to stay.
Entry rules come from github.com/imorte/passport-index-data, updated 17 February 2026. They change without notice — confirm with the official immigration service before booking.
Getting set up in Canada
Work permits, permanent residence, and the SIN you need before payday
Canada separates the right to be here from the right to work: a work permit is employer-specific unless it is one of the open categories, and permanent residence runs through the Express Entry pool or a provincial nomination. Whichever route brought you, the first thing to do on landing is get a Social Insurance Number, because no employer can put you on payroll without it.
Read the full step-by-step guideExchanging a licence, and buying insurance from the government
British Columbia exchanges licences directly with a defined list of countries and requires testing from everywhere else, including a road test that is not a formality. Basic insurance is bought from ICBC, a public monopoly, with optional cover available from private insurers. The single most valuable document you can bring is a letter of experience from your previous insurer, because without it you are rated as though you have never driven.
Read the full step-by-step guideOpening an account, and building a credit score from nothing
Opening a Canadian chequing account is straightforward — the major banks run newcomer packages that waive fees for a year and do not require Canadian credit history. The hard part is that your credit record does not cross the border, and a Canadian score gates renting, phone contracts and borrowing. The fix is deliberate and slow, so start it in your first month.
Read the full step-by-step guideMSP, the waiting period, and finding a family doctor
British Columbia's Medical Services Plan covers physician and hospital care with no premiums since 2020, but coverage begins only after a waiting period of the balance of your arrival month plus two further months. That gap needs private cover. MSP also does not include prescriptions outside hospital, dental, vision or ambulance transport, and finding a family doctor is the province's most persistent problem.
Read the full step-by-step guideGetting a phone plan without credit history, and why it costs so much
Canadian mobile is expensive by international standards and the market is concentrated in three groups. Without Canadian credit history a postpaid plan usually requires a deposit, so most newcomers start on prepaid or with a flanker brand. Home internet is fast and competitive in the city, and in a rental you should check what the building is actually wired for before assuming a provider is available.
Read the full step-by-step guideFederal and BC tax, residency by ties, and three separate housing taxes
Canada taxes residents on worldwide income, and residency is determined by residential ties rather than by a day count. You file one return covering both federal and BC tax. What is distinctive here is housing: Vancouver property is subject to a municipal Empty Homes Tax, a provincial Speculation and Vacancy Tax and a federal Underused Housing Tax, each with its own annual declaration.
Read the full step-by-step guideEach guide has verified costs, timelines, required documents, and the non-obvious gotchas — sourced from official government pages. Last verified August 2026.
Essential English phrases
Reading a list isn’t learning it. Globe Quest turns these into a trainer — hear each phrase spoken, drill them with spaced repetition, and get scored as you say them out loud.
What to know before you go
Apply for your SIN in the first week — nothing about being paid works without it
CriticalThe Social Insurance Number is issued free by Service Canada and is required before an employer can put you on payroll. Applying in person at a Service Canada centre usually produces the number the same day; online applications take longer. Bring your passport and your work permit or Confirmation of Permanent Residence. People who leave this until after their start date end up with delayed first paycheques, and it is entirely avoidable.
MSP has a waiting period, and you need private cover to bridge it
CriticalBritish Columbia's Medical Services Plan charges no premiums, but coverage does not begin the day you land — it starts after the balance of the month you arrive plus two further months. That gap is genuinely uninsured, and Canadian healthcare is expensive when you are paying for it directly. Buy interim private cover before you fly, and enrol in MSP as soon as you have arrived rather than waiting until the coverage date approaches.
Your credit history does not come with you, and it blocks more than you expect
CriticalWhatever your record elsewhere, in Canada you start at zero. That affects renting, mobile phone contracts, car insurance and any borrowing. The standard fix is a secured credit card — you deposit a sum and borrow against it — used lightly and paid in full each month, plus one of the newcomer packages the major banks run specifically to issue an unsecured card without Canadian history. Start this in month one, because it takes months to produce a usable score.
Vancouver taxes empty and foreign-owned housing three separate times
CriticalThe City of Vancouver levies an Empty Homes Tax, British Columbia levies a Speculation and Vacancy Tax across the region, and the federal government levies an Underused Housing Tax. They are three distinct taxes with three separate declarations, and the provincial and municipal ones require an annual declaration from owners even when the property is occupied and nothing is owed. Missing a declaration is what triggers a bill, not owning the wrong thing.
Car insurance is bought from the government, and your driving record may not transfer
ImportantBasic auto insurance in BC comes from ICBC, a public monopoly, with optional extra cover available privately. Bring a letter of experience from your previous insurer — without documented claims-free history, you are rated as a new driver and the difference over a year is substantial. Licence exchange is straightforward from some countries and requires testing from others, so check your country's status before you assume.
The winter is not cold, it is dark and wet, and that catches people out
Good to knowVancouver rarely freezes hard, but the rain runs from November into March under low cloud, and the short daylight combined with constant grey is what people actually struggle with. Locals take vitamin D, get outside in the rain rather than waiting for it to stop, and ski — the mountains inside the city limits are a twenty-minute drive and they are above the cloud. Treating winter as something to endure indoors is the mistake.
Top industries & employers
Technology
Amazon, Microsoft, Shopify, Slack, Hootsuite, Later
Vancouver's tech sector grew substantially on the back of US companies opening engineering offices here — same time zone as Seattle and San Francisco, with a far easier immigration route for international hires.
Film & visual effects
Sony Pictures Imageworks, Industrial Light & Magic, DNEG, Method Studios, Animal Logic
Known as Hollywood North, Vancouver is one of the largest production centres in North America, and the visual effects and animation studios are a major and unusually international employer.
Video games
Electronic Arts, Relic Entertainment, Blackbird Interactive, Phoenix Labs
EA's Burnaby studio has anchored a games cluster here for three decades, and the surrounding studios draw heavily on the same talent pool as the VFX houses.
Natural resources & mining finance
Teck Resources, Goldcorp legacy operations, Ritchie Bros, numerous TSX-V listings
Vancouver hosts an unusual concentration of mining company head offices and the specialist finance, legal and geology services around them — a legacy of the province's resource economy.
Ports, logistics & trade
Port of Vancouver, Seaspan, Westshore Terminals, DP World
The Port of Vancouver is Canada's largest and the primary Pacific gateway, which drives a substantial logistics, customs and trade-services economy across the region.
Clean technology
Ballard Power Systems, Svante, Carbon Engineering, Corvus Energy
British Columbia's carbon tax and hydroelectric power base have supported a genuine cleantech cluster, particularly in hydrogen fuel cells and carbon capture.
Where to go in Vancouver
Stanley Park & the seawall
Nature · West End, central
A thousand acres of rainforest on a peninsula at the edge of downtown, ringed by a seawall path that runs far beyond the park itself.
Local tip: The seawall continues for over twenty kilometres past the park through False Creek and out to Spanish Banks — the park loop is the famous part and the least interesting. Cycling is counter-clockwise only, which is enforced by everyone around you.
Granville Island
Food · Under the Granville Bridge
A former industrial island turned public market, theatres, breweries and workshops, reached by tiny passenger ferries.
Local tip: Drive there and you will spend forty minutes looking for parking. The Aquabus from Yaletown or Hornby Street takes five minutes, costs very little and is the correct way to arrive. Go on a weekday morning; weekends are unmanageable.
Commercial Drive
Neighborhood · East Vancouver
The old Italian quarter, now the most distinctive street in the city — cafés, produce stores, and a determinedly independent character.
Local tip: The stretch between Venables and 1st is where the original Italian cafés survive, and they still show football at six in the morning. This is where East Vancouver's identity actually lives rather than where it is marketed.
Grouse & Cypress mountains
Nature · North Shore, 25 minutes by car
Ski hills inside the metropolitan area, with night skiing in winter and hiking trails in summer.
Local tip: The Grouse Grind is the famous hike and it is a relentless staircase with no view until the top. Cypress and Mount Seymour are quieter, and in winter the mountains sit above the cloud layer that makes the city grey — a clear day up there while it drizzles below is the single best thing about a Vancouver winter.
Richmond's Golden Village
Food · Richmond, 25 minutes on the Canada Line
Arguably the best Chinese food in North America, concentrated in a few square kilometres of suburban malls.
Local tip: The night market in summer gets the attention, but the year-round strength is the restaurants inside Aberdeen, Yaohan and Parker Place. Regional specificity is the point — Hunan, Shanghainese and Cantonese are all separately and seriously represented.
Bowen Island
Hidden gemNature · 20-minute ferry from Horseshoe Bay
A small forested island in Howe Sound, close enough to be a suburb and remote enough to feel like a different province.
Local tip: Walk on rather than taking a car — the ferry is far cheaper and the village is at the dock. It is a genuine day trip that most Vancouver residents have somehow never made, and the Killarney Lake loop takes about two hours.
Emergency numbers in Vancouver
Compare Vancouver with…
Side-by-side cost of living, language, climate and careers — to help you choose.