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# Do I Actually Need a Groundwater Licence in BC? The Five-Minute Answer.
- URL: https://bcgroundwaterwire.ca/do-i-actually-need-a-groundwater-licence/
- Published: 2026-10-03T13:03:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-09T03:45:14.000Z
- Description: If your water well serves only your household, no. If the groundwater does anything else, you likely need a BC water licence. Here’s where the Province draws the line.
- Author: Colleen Roberts
- Tags: Licensing, #question, #who-farm, #who-business, #who-lender

BC draws one line, and it decides almost everything: domestic use or not.

**Domestic use of groundwater needs no licence.** Under the Water Sustainability Act, domestic use is household use by the occupants of a private dwelling, or of more than one on a single parcel: drinking, cooking, and washing; fire prevention; water for animals kept for the household or as pets; and a garden or lawn of up to 1,000 square meters next to the home.

**Almost everything else needs one.** Irrigating a hayfield or an orchard, watering a herd, running a business, a greenhouse, a campground, or a golf course: these are non-domestic uses. They need a water licence or other authorization unless an existing exemption applies.

**The surprise case.** A well serving a strata, a co-op, an apartment building, or a hotel isn’t domestic use under the Act, even though people live there.

**What about the proposed exemption?** The Province is exploring an exemption for non-domestic groundwater use under 2 cubic meters a day, counting all non-domestic use on a property, and only where water is available. It isn’t law. Until it is, the rules above stand.

**The Note:** The question isn’t how much water you use; it’s what the water does. A cow kept for the household is domestic. A herd raised for sale is not. Small doesn’t make a use exempt, either: until the law changes, a small farm or business use still needs a licence.

**Who should pay attention:** Anyone using a well for more than a home: farms, ranches, rural businesses, strata and co-ops, and buyers of land with a working well.

**What to do next:** If any of your water use is non-domestic and unlicensed, read [Missed the 2022 Deadline? What It Really Means Now](https://bcgroundwaterwire.ca/missed-the-2022-deadline-what-it-really-means-now/) next, then get a licence estimate. If your well is domestic only, you need no licence, though registering the well with the Province is still worth doing.