Do I need a building permit for a barn or farm building in BC?
Often not, but it depends on the building bylaw: many rural districts exempt a farm building that few people use on land classed as a farm, and it still has to meet the zone's setbacks.
Opens the report at this answer. A PID always finds the lot; an address needs an exact match.
What the answer means
A barn, a machine shed, a greenhouse or a hay shelter on a working farm is a farm building, and BC treats it apart from a house or a garage: a different code, often a different permit, and on ALR land a use the council can't forbid outright. A shop for anything other than the farm is none of those.
- What a farm building is
- A building, or part of one, with no residential occupancy, on land devoted to farming and used mainly to house equipment or livestock or to produce, store or process crops, produce or feed (the National Farm Building Code of Canada's definition, which the BC Building Code shares, as the Cariboo Regional District's page sets out). A garage, carport or RV shelter isn't one, and nor is any building lived in.
- The building code
- The BC Building Code 2024 requires every farm building to meet the National Farm Building Code of Canada 1995; BC didn't adopt the 2020 National Building Code's rules for large farm buildings (the Province's bulletin B24-05). A farm building of low human occupancy, one person or fewer per 40 m² of floor area in normal use, such as a livestock barn, a manure or machine store or a riding ring with no seats, is held to fewer fire and exit rules; a farm shop open to the public, an auction barn or a busy packing house isn't low occupancy.
- The building permit
- Whether a farm building needs a permit is in each local government's building bylaw. Two examples: the Cariboo Regional District's bylaw exempts a low human occupancy farm building under 600 m² on land used for a bona fide farm, one the assessor classes as a farm (s. 6.2 (d)); the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen exempts a low occupancy farm building under 20 m², an open hay shelter or animal shelter under 600 m² and a greenhouse up to 190 m², and issues a farm building permit for other low occupancy farm buildings under 600 m² on farm-class land. Others differ, and an exempt building still has to meet the zoning bylaw and the code.
- In the ALR
- Building a structure needed for a farm use, other than a house, is itself a farm use on ALR land, greenhouses included, along with the driveway and services it needs (ALR Use Regulation s. 5). A local government can't prohibit it except by a farming area bylaw where the Province has allowed one (s. 4; Local Government Act s. 552), though zoning can still say where on the lot it goes (our reading), and the building must meet every other law (s. 2). Fill placed or soil removed for a farm building needs no application over 1,000 m² or less (s. 35 (a)). A building for a use the regulation doesn't permit needs the Agricultural Land Commission's permission.
- Setbacks
- The Ministry of Agriculture and Food's standards for farming area bylaws (Local Government Act s. 551) give the most a council should ask for: 15 to 30 m from a lot line for a livestock or poultry barn, 7.5 m at the front and 4.5 m at the sides and back for a greenhouse or crop store, 4.5 m for a machine shed, 30 m for manure storage, composting or a silo, and 30 m from a drinking water source for most farm buildings (Guide for Bylaw Development in Farming Areas, Table 1). They're guidance; the zoning bylaw sets the setbacks that bind, and a council may or may not have adopted them.
- Farm class and the tax
- The exemptions above often turn on BC Assessment classing the land as a farm (class 9), which takes farm income and use; see farm status. Losing the class can take a building's exemption with it (our reading).
- What it means for a buyer
- A barn or shop built without a permit under a farm exemption is lawful only if it met the exemption when built and is still used as a farm building; turned into a home, a suite, a workshop for a trade or storage for rent, it needs the permit it never had (our reading). Ask what each building was approved as.
Our summary of the Province's bulletin B24-05 on the 2024 BC codes, the Agricultural Land Reserve Use Regulation (B.C. Reg. 30/2019, ss. 2, 4, 5, 35), the Local Government Act (RSBC 2015, c. 1, ss. 551, 552), the Ministry of Agriculture and Food's Guide for Bylaw Development in Farming Areas (2020 edition, Table 1), the Cariboo Regional District's farm buildings page and the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen's farm building application, read 2026-10-21. Other building bylaws aren't read here.
Sources, read 2026-10-21 and summarised in our words unless marked otherwise: The 2024 edition of the BC codes, bulletin B24-05, Province of BC; Agricultural Land Reserve Use Regulation, B.C. Reg. 30/2019 (ss. 2, 4, 5, 35); Local Government Act, RSBC 2015, c. 1 (ss. 551, 552); Guide for Bylaw Development in Farming Areas, Ministry of Agriculture and Food (2020 edition); Farm Buildings, Cariboo Regional District; Application for farm exemption or farm building, Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen.
Before you buy: who to ask
- The seller or their agent
- What was each barn, shop and shed approved as, with a permit or under a farm exemption, and what is it used for now? Is the land classed as a farm?
- The local government
- Does the building bylaw exempt farm buildings here, on what conditions, and what setbacks does the zone set for a barn, greenhouse or manure store?
- The Agricultural Land Commission
- Does what I plan to build count as a farm use, or would it need an application?
Look up the lot above: its report says whether any of it is in the reserve, gives the zone and its rules where we've summarised them, and the soil's farming capability.
See also building permits, sheds, shops and garages, farm status, chickens, horses and bees, fill and soil and applying to the ALC.
Buying rural land? Before you buy rural land in BC: the nine questions that decide an offer, on one printable page.