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Average and Median Income in Vancouver

Updated

Metro Vancouver’s median after-tax household income was $79,500 in 2020, 16.1% higher than five years earlier in constant dollars, against a national change of +9.8%. In September 2026, the Greater Vancouver REALTORS benchmark home cost about 13.5 times that income. This page is one of the city profiles in our average income in Canada section; the British Columbia income page covers the province and the Victoria income page covers BC’s capital region.

Census household income for the Vancouver CMA is taken from Statistics Canada’s 2021 Census income table (98-10-0061-01), which reports the 2020 income year. What individual earners make is on our Vancouver income percentile page.

Vancouver’s income growth from 2015 to 2020

Vancouver CMA households2015 (in 2020 dollars)2020ChangeCanada, 2020
Median income after tax$68,500$79,500+16.1%$73,000
Median income before tax$78,500$90,000+14.6%$84,000
Mean income before tax$104,300$117,300+12.5%$106,300

The mean and the median tell different stories here. In 2020 the mean before-tax household income sat 30% above the median, against 27% above for Canada; when the mean sits above the median, a smaller number of high incomes is pulling the average up. For later data, the Canadian Income Survey (which measures economic families and people living alone, not households) reported a 2024 median after-tax income of $78,900 for Vancouver and $75,800 for British Columbia.

Benchmark prices and rents against Vancouver incomes

Greater Vancouver REALTORS put the MLS HPI benchmark at $1,075,900 in September 2026, a typical-home measure covering the board’s Metro Vancouver area. Set against the 2020 after-tax median, that is about 13.5× income, a multiple pairing an older income with a current price. On the same after-tax basis Vancouver’s multiple was higher than Toronto’s (City of Toronto average price) and higher than Victoria’s (a sales-weighted average, not a benchmark), with more cities in our income by city comparison. Prices by home type are on the Vancouver housing market page.

CMHC’s October 2025 Rental Market Survey reported average purpose-built rents in the Vancouver CMA of $1,809 a month for a one-bedroom and $2,367 for a two-bedroom. Its vacancy rate was 3.7%, against 1.6% the year before. More on the Vancouver rental market page; other household costs are in our cost of living in Vancouver guide.

How Vancouver earns its income

Labour Force Survey estimates for 2025 count 1,698,000 people employed in the Vancouver CMA. Of these:

  • 15.9% were self-employed, compared with 12.7% in all CMAs combined;
  • 13.2% worked in professional, scientific and technical services (10.9% in all CMAs);
  • 4.9% worked in information, culture and recreation (4.4%);
  • 4.2% worked in public administration (6.1%).

The CMA’s unemployment rate was 4.6% in 2019, 9.4% in 2020 and 5.9% in 2024, and its population went from 2,771,430 in July 2021 to 3,088,036 in July 2025. The income tax calculator shows BC take-home pay for a given salary.

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Sources

The figures and rules on this page come from these sources, last checked against them between September 24, 2026 and October 4, 2026. How we check facts.