Requirements
- Personal net worth. At least $300,000, half the Base threshold.
- Personal investment. At least $100,000 of your own capital, again half.
- Ownership. At least 51 percent. You must hold majority control, which rules out the partnership structures the Base stream permits.
- A new business only. You cannot buy an existing one under this stream. That is a material difference, because building from nothing in a smaller community is a different proposition from taking over a trading business with customers.
- Business experience. Three years as an active owner manager within the last five years. The window is narrower than the Base stream's ten years, so experience that has gone cold does not count here even though it would there.
- Language. CLB 4 in all four abilities, required at registration. Base has no such requirement.
- Location and residence. A participating community outside Metro Vancouver and the Capital Regional District, and you must live within that community's boundaries.
- Job creation. At least one new full time position for a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, as under Base.
The community requirement
This is the condition that makes the regional stream a different exercise rather than a discounted one. Before you can even register, a community has to have met you and agreed to support what you propose.
- An exploratory visit, first. You must visit the host community before registering. Not a video call and not a plan on paper.
- A referral letter from the community. The community itself decides whether to refer you. That is a relationship to build, and it depends on whether your business matches what that community says it needs, which the province publishes by sector alongside each community.
- You must then live there. Residence inside the community boundaries, not merely a business registered there.
- Communities can pause. Individual communities suspend their intake from time to time, so a community that was participating when you started planning may not be when you are ready to register. The province maintains the current list and each community's priority sectors.
Score the community fit before you spend anything. The referral is a gate no amount of capital opens, the scoring rewards the regional district you choose, and communities publish the sectors they actually want. Choosing the community to match the business, rather than the business to match the community, is the mistake that wastes the most time here.
What it buys you
Two advantages beyond the money, and one is easy to miss.
- A lower invited score. The most recent regional round invited at 113, against 117 for Base. Both are above the published minimum, but the regional bar has been the lower of the two.
- Faster scoring. Around four weeks against roughly six for Base.
- Regional points in the scoring. The regional district you choose is itself a scoring factor, so committing to a smaller community is rewarded in the score as well as in the thresholds.
Invitation volumes are very small. The most recent regional round invited fewer than five people. That is not a reason to avoid the stream, but it is a reason to present a genuinely strong concept rather than a merely sufficient one.
Requirements checker
A structured way to see where you stand against the published criteria. It returns an indication only, not an eligibility decision, not legal advice, and not a prediction that you will be invited.
Your situation
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