Kitchen Renovation Cost in Vancouver, BC

How much does a kitchen renovation cost in Vancouver?

A full kitchen renovation in Vancouver typically costs $25,000 to $75,000 CAD. Condo kitchens run $22,000 to $45,000, mid-range detached-home kitchens $35,000 to $70,000, and high-end kitchens $85,000 to $200,000 or more. Cabinet refacing, at $7,000 to $16,000, is the cheapest real transformation.

Those are the numbers we quote from in Metro Vancouver as of 2026, not national averages. Vancouver runs roughly 15–25% above the Canadian average on kitchen work, driven by trade labour rates and by a housing stock that needs more remediation than newer markets do.

Everything below is broken out so you can see where the money actually goes, and which lines are worth spending on.

All figures include labour, materials and disposal, and exclude appliances and GST. A kitchen of 100–200 sq ft is assumed.

Where the money goes in a $50,000 kitchen

In a typical $50,000 Vancouver kitchen renovation, cabinetry takes $19,000, countertops $6,500, labour across all trades $13,000, and the remaining $11,500 covers flooring, tile, lighting, plumbing fixtures, permits and disposal. Appliances are separate.

This is a real allocation from a mid-range detached-home kitchen: 12 cabinets, quartz counters, a tiled backsplash, engineered flooring and no structural change. Use it to sanity-check any quote you are given.

Appliances are excluded throughout. A full appliance package runs $6,000 for builder-grade to $40,000+ for integrated European.

What cabinetry costs, by level

Cabinetry is 35–45% of a kitchen budget, so the cabinetry level sets the whole number. For the same 12-cabinet kitchen in Vancouver: stock boxes cost $8,000 to $14,000, semi-custom $15,000 to $28,000, and fully custom $30,000 to $65,000 installed.

The difference is not only appearance. It is box material (particleboard versus plywood), whether the run is built to your wall or padded out with filler panels, drawer hardware, and how the finish is applied.

In an older Vancouver house, custom earns its price more often than it does in a new build: when walls are out of plumb and ceilings are 8 ft 4 in rather than 8 ft, stock boxes leave gaps and dead space that a built-to-size run does not.

See custom kitchen cabinets, refacing and IKEA installation.

What countertops cost per square foot

Installed countertop prices in Vancouver run $55 to $95 per square foot for laminate and butcher block, $80 to $150 for quartz, $85 to $160 for granite, and $140 to $300+ for marble. A typical kitchen needs 40 to 55 square feet, including the island.

Fabrication is a fixed cost regardless of material, which is why small kitchens have a higher effective per-foot price. Cutouts, waterfall ends and thicker mitred edges add $400 to $1,800 each.

Quartz is the default recommendation for family kitchens: no sealing, no etching, consistent slabs. Full detail on the quartz and granite and marble pages.

What makes a Vancouver kitchen cost more than the quote

Four things account for most overruns here: an electrical panel too small for modern appliances ($2,500–$6,000), moving plumbing ($1,800–$7,000), subfloor or water damage found at demolition ($1,200–$9,000), and strata or permit delays that add weeks rather than dollars.

None of these are surprises to a contractor who has worked on the local housing stock. They are surprises to homeowners because low quotes leave them out on purpose, then recover them as change orders once the kitchen is already in pieces.

Our quotes name them as allowances up front, so the price you approve is the price that holds unless the scope changes.

Hold 10–15% back as contingency. On a $50,000 kitchen that is $5,000 to $7,500. Most projects do not need all of it; the ones that do would otherwise stall.

Do I need a permit, and what does it cost?

A like-for-like kitchen renovation in Vancouver needs no building permit. You need one to remove a load-bearing wall, move a plumbing stack, or change the room’s use. City of Vancouver building permits for kitchen work typically run $300 to $1,500; electrical and gas permits are $150 to $450 each.

Timelines matter more than the fee. A simple building permit takes 4 to 10 weeks in Vancouver; a structural change requiring engineered drawings can take longer. We start that clock during design, not after demolition.

Electrical work is a separate permit through Technical Safety BC or the City, and it requires inspection at rough-in and at final. Gas fitting is the same. Neither is optional, and both show up in a home inspection when you sell.

How to bring a kitchen budget down without regretting it

The four cuts that save real money without showing: keep the layout, reface instead of replacing sound boxes, choose a mid-tier quartz over a premium slab, and keep the existing flooring if it is in good condition. Together those typically save $18,000 to $30,000 on a full renovation.

• Keep the plumbing and the range where they are. Moving the sink is the single most expensive layout decision in any kitchen, and it rarely changes how the room works.
• Reface rather than replace, if the boxes are sound. Saves 40–60% of cabinetry cost. See cabinet refacing.
• Choose quartz in the middle of the range. The visual difference between a $95/sq ft and a $150/sq ft quartz is small; the durability difference is nil.
• Spend on drawers, not on doors. Deep pot drawers change how a kitchen works every day. Decorative door detail does not.
• Tile a standard format in a simple pattern. Herringbone and mosaic double the setting labour on the same tile.
• Do not cheap out on the sink base or the hardware. These are the two components that fail first, and replacing them later costs more than doing them properly now.

How our quotes are structured

Every quote is fixed price and itemised: cabinetry, countertops, tile, flooring, fixtures, trades, permits and labour appear as separate lines with named allowances. The price changes only if you change the scope, or if demolition exposes something nobody could see.

An allowance is a stated budget for something you have not chosen yet — the tap, the tile, the light fittings. Ours are set at a realistic level for the finish you have described, not at a number designed to make the quote look competitive and then get topped up later.

If demolition finds rot, knob-and-tube or an undersized panel, you get a written change order with a price on it before any additional work happens. Nothing is done first and billed afterwards.