- Register your business with BC Registries
- File your municipal business licence
- Get liability insurance covering property exteriors
- Buy a commercial-grade machine and surface cleaner
- Price by the job with minimums, not by the hour
- Build a brand and instant-quote website
- Time marketing to spring cleanup and pre-listing seasons
Few trades match their climate as perfectly as pressure washing matches Metro Vancouver. Eight months of rain feeds moss on roofs, black algae on vinyl siding, and slippery green film on driveways and walkways — and every spring, hundreds of thousands of homeowners look at their property and reach for Google. Add realtors prepping listings and stratas maintaining common areas, and demand is structural.
It's also a satisfying business to sell: the before/after is instant and dramatic, jobs are quick, and route density (like landscaping) rewards owning a neighbourhood. The operators who break past hobby income are the ones who look like a company — because house washing quotes at $400–$800, and nobody hands that to an unmarked truck.
What it costs to start
| Item | Typical range |
|---|---|
| BC business registration | ~$40–$380 |
| Municipal business licence | $100–$250/yr |
| Liability insurance | $700–$1,500/yr |
| Commercial pressure washer (4 GPM+) | $1,200–$3,500 |
| Surface cleaner, hoses, wands, chems | $500–$1,500 |
| Water tank / trailer setup (optional) | $1,000–$4,000 |
| Branding, website & quoting | $0 DIY – $3,000+ agency |
| Realistic lean total | $3,000–$8,000 |
A homeowner-grade machine will bottleneck you immediately — commercial GPM is what makes jobs profitable per hour. Buy flow rate, not just pressure.
What the market pays
Common Metro Vancouver pricing: driveways $150–$350, house washes $400–$800+, roofs (soft wash) $500–$1,200+, decks and patios $200–$500. What you take home depends on how full your calendar is, your niche, your service area, and how professional you look. Spring is a gold rush; realtor and strata relationships extend the season.
Pressure Washing Pricing Calculator
Work out what to charge before you quote your first job. Set the job size, condition and the hourly rate you need to earn, and get a number you can defend.
Open the calculator →Licensing & requirements in BC
No certification is required — registration, municipal licence, insurance. The compliance note specific to this trade: like mobile detailing, wash-water and cleaning-solution runoff into storm drains is regulated by Metro Vancouver municipalities, and soft-wash chemicals (sodium hypochlorite mixes) demand plant and surface protection practices. Professional runoff handling isn't just bylaw hygiene — it's a differentiator on strata and commercial bids where it gets asked about directly.
Let's name it
“Isn't this just a summer side hustle?” Only if you sell it that way. Moss doesn't check the calendar — roof and gutter demand runs through fall and winter here, and house-wash season starts earlier than most operators bother to market. The business wrapper is what turns seasonal cash into a year-round company.
Talk it through on a free callThe 7 steps, properly
01Register and licence
Sole proprietorship (~$40) plus your municipal licence. Working across cities — nearly universal in this trade — makes the Inter-municipal Business Licence worth pricing against per-city licences.
02Insure before the first ladder
You're spraying high-pressure water at people's most expensive asset, sometimes from height. $700–$1,500/yr in liability coverage is the cost of being hireable for the good jobs.
03Buy commercial flow
A 4+ GPM commercial machine with a surface cleaner turns a 3-hour driveway into a 45-minute one. Your hourly profit lives in GPM.
04Learn soft wash
Roofs and delicate siding aren't pressure jobs — they're chemistry jobs. Soft washing opens the highest-ticket work (roofs at $500–$1,200+) and signals professionalism.
05Price by job with instant quotes
Publish ranges and quote from photos or satellite view. Speed-to-quote wins this trade — homeowners book whoever answers first with a credible number.
06Brand the transformation
Half-cleaned driveway photos are irresistible content. A brand and website built around befores-and-afters converts both social traffic and Google searches.
07Work the calendar
Market hard in late winter for spring, court realtors year-round for pre-listing washes, and pitch gutter/roof moss work in fall. Stack strata contracts for recurring base revenue.
The shortcut: launched in about 10 business days
Everything above is doable yourself over a couple of months of evenings. Or you hand us the details on one 30-minute call and we build all of it — registration, licence filing, brand, website, online booking, payments, accounting setup, Google Business Profile, socials, and your service agreement — in about 10 business days, with 30 days of support after handoff. Pressure washers fit Starter ($997) to get legal, branded, and quotable fast before spring. Multi-city operators chasing strata contracts should step up to Launch ($1,997) for the local pages and credibility kit.
Pressure Washing business FAQ
Do I need a licence to pressure wash in BC?
No certification — but you do need business registration and a municipal business licence, and clients hiring for house and roof washes will expect insurance. We prepare and file the paperwork; approvals rest with the municipalities.
What equipment should I start with?
A commercial machine at 4+ GPM, a surface cleaner, and proper hoses — roughly $2,000–$5,000. Flow rate (GPM) determines how fast you finish jobs, which determines your real hourly rate. Add soft-wash capability to unlock roof work.
How much can I make pressure washing in Vancouver?
Typical job pricing runs $150–$350 for driveways up to $500–$1,200+ for roofs. In-season operators completing 2–3 jobs daily gross $15,000+ per month. The rain that makes the moss also makes the market.
What about runoff and chemical rules?
Metro Vancouver municipalities regulate what can enter storm drains, and soft-wash chemicals require careful handling around plants and pets. Professional runoff practices are both bylaw compliance and a selling point on commercial and strata bids.
When should I launch to catch the season?
Before it starts. Spring demand ignites as soon as the weather breaks, and the operators already ranked on Google with reviews capture it. A 10-day Prontco build in late winter means you enter the season as a real company, not a new one.
What it costs to licence a pressure washing business, city by city
The work is the same across Metro Vancouver. The paperwork is not: the five cities use five different licence categories, three different renewal clocks and two different inter-municipal schemes. Every figure below was read off the city’s own fee schedule on 22 September 2026, and we pass all of it through at cost.
| City | Annual licence | Application | Multi-city option |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vancouver | $376–$277 General Contractor | $77 | Metro West — $300 |
| Burnaby | $378 first year, $133 to renew Contractor — Misc | $55 | Metro West — $300 |
| Richmond | $166–$281 Service Use — 0 to 5 employees | — | Metro West — $300 |
| Surrey | $377 Contractor — General | $50 | Metro West — $300 |
| Coquitlam | Not published — we confirm it with the city set by the licence inspector | — | Tri-Cities Intermunicipal — $175 |
Richmond has no contractor category at all — it prices service businesses by employee count. Burnaby is the only one charging a high first year and a low renewal. Coquitlam doesn’t publish its schedule, so we phone the licence office rather than print a number we can’t source. The full rules for each city, including what you may and may not do from home, are on the city guides: Vancouver · Burnaby · Richmond · Surrey · Coquitlam.
Related guides
The rules, in plain English:
Launching in a specific city?