{
  "geography": "City of Victoria",
  "scope": "city",
  "period": "Q2 2026 (April to June)",
  "period_start": "2026-04-01",
  "period_end": "2026-06-28",
  "refresh_frequency": "Quarterly (City economic dashboard)",
  "id": "business-licences-issued",
  "category": "Economy",
  "title": "Business licences issued by the City",
  "levels": [
    "Business owners",
    "Municipal (licensing)"
  ],
  "plain_question": "How many business licences had the City issued, compared with the same point a year earlier?",
  "value": 7215,
  "display_value": "7,215",
  "unit": "licences (Q2 2026)",
  "comparison": {
    "previous_period": "Q2 2025",
    "previous_value": 7004,
    "change_percent": 3.0
  },
  "since_text": "Was 7,004 in Q2 2025 (+3.0%)",
  "trend": "improving",
  "direction_good": "up",
  "trend_basis": "7,215 business licences in Q2 2026 compared with 7,004 a year earlier (+3.0%), as reported in the City's economic dashboard.",
  "right_direction": "A higher number means more businesses hold a City licence.",
  "caveats": [
    "A licence shows a business is registered to operate in the City; it does not show its size, whether it is open daily, or storefront vacancy.",
    "Licences include home-based and non-store businesses and some rental categories, not only storefronts.",
    "The City also publishes licence records as open data, but they carry no neighbourhood field, so a downtown-only count is not shown."
  ],
  "series": [
    {
      "period": "Q2 2025",
      "value": 7004
    },
    {
      "period": "Q2 2026",
      "value": 7215
    }
  ],
  "source": {
    "name": "City of Victoria, Victoria's Economic Dashboard, Q2 2026",
    "url": "https://www.victoria.ca/building-business/economic-development",
    "dataset_url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026",
    "download_url": "https://www.victoria.ca/media/file/ec-dev-data-report-q2-2026"
  },
  "licence": {
    "name": "Public data, not under an open licence. Used with attribution.",
    "url": "https://www.victoria.ca/legal-disclaimer",
    "open": false
  },
  "verified_text": [
    "Business licences issued Business licences by neighbourhood 2025 2026 7,004 7,215 3%"
  ],
  "data_published": null,
  "retrieved_at": "2026-11-11T08:37:37Z",
  "attribution": "Source: City of Victoria, Victoria's Economic Dashboard, Q2 2026. Public document, used with attribution; not endorsed by the publisher.",
  "licence_type": "public"
}