Does the property come with a water licence in BC?
In BC a spring or a creek on your land isn't yours to use without a water licence, unless it's for the house and no one else holds it. A report lists the licensed springs and drinking-water diversions on the Province's open maps within 300 m of the lot line, with each licence's purpose, priority date and quantity.
The Province's open maps hold 6,449 current licences on 5,253 springs and 2,770 points where drinking water is diverted from a stream, read 2026-10-11; a report lists those within 300 m of any BC lot.
The report opens at this answer, with the lot drawn on the map and every other check alongside. A PID (on the tax notice or title) always finds the lot; an address works when it's an exact match.
What the answer means
- The rules
- All water in BC belongs to the Crown. Taking water from a creek, spring or lake needs a water licence, except household use of water no licence or reservation already holds (Water Sustainability Act, s. 6 (3)); a well for the house needs none (s. 6 (4)). A licence lets its holder divert and use the quantity it names and build the works for it (s. 7), and when water runs short, licences on the same stream or a connected aquifer take precedence by their priority date, earliest first (s. 22). A licence tied to land passes with it when the land is sold, and the seller must tell the Province in writing before the sale completes (s. 25). The holder pays a yearly rental, must make beneficial use of the water (s. 30), and can lose a licence not used for 3 years in a row (s. 94).
- What the maps show
- These are the Province's open maps of licensed springs and of points where drinking water is diverted from a stream for two or more homes or a water system. Other water licences (a creek diverted for one house, irrigation, storage) are only in the Province's water rights databases, which aren't open data, so no licence listed here doesn't mean none is held on or near the lot (our reading).
- A licence on the land you buy
- A licence is tied to a piece of land, not to its holder, so it comes with the sale only if it's tied to the lot you're buying: a spring on the lot can be licensed to a neighbour, and the lot's own licence can draw from a creek next door, its pipe crossing other land. Ask for the licence, its number, the land it's tied to, its quantity and purpose, any easement for the pipe, and whether the yearly rental is paid (our reading).
- Priority
- When a creek runs low, the licence with the earliest priority date takes its water first, then the next, and a household user of unrecorded water has no priority at all. An old licence upstream can leave a newer one with nothing in a dry August (s. 22; our reading).
- Who to ask
- Ask the seller whether a water licence comes with the land, its number and what it allows, and look it up by number or by the creek's or spring's name in the Province's Water Licence Search; FrontCounter BC (1-877-855-3222) answers questions about licences.
Our summary of the Water Sustainability Act, ss. 6, 7, 22, 25, 30 and 94, read on BC Laws 2026-10-11. The open maps hold only licensed springs and drinking-water diversions; the full licence record isn't open data. Confirm with the seller and FrontCounter BC before you buy or build.
Source: Licensed Springs, Province of BC (Open Government Licence – British Columbia); Drinking Water Sources (Surface Water PODs), Province of BC (Open Government Licence – British Columbia); Water Sustainability Act, SBC 2014, c. 15, ss. 6, 7, 22, 25, 30 and 94 (summarised in our words, read 2026-10-11); Water Rights Databases, Province of BC (the Water Licence Search Tool) (linked, read 2026-10-11).
See also water wells, community watersheds, water and sewer service and streamside setbacks.
Buying rural land? Before you buy rural land in BC: the nine questions that decide an offer, on one printable page.