The honest answer is a range, and the range is wide. A full bathroom renovation in Vancouver runs from the mid twenties for a straightforward rebuild in the same footprint to well past sixty thousand for a primary bathroom with custom stone, a curbless shower and a heated floor. Most of the bathrooms we build land somewhere between. Treat every number in this note as a ballpark; the real one comes after someone has stood in your bathroom and looked at what’s behind the tile.
What follows is what moves the number, in the order it usually matters.
The room you have
Size matters less than people expect. A small bathroom and a large one need the same trades, the same waterproofing, the same plumbing rough-in. The large one needs more tile and more hours setting it, but the fixed costs are similar. What moves the price more than square footage is the condition of what’s underneath.
A 1960s bungalow in Burnaby Heights or a 1920s character home in Kitsilano is on its original bathroom or a 1990s update. Either way, when the tile comes off we find a mortar-bed shower with no membrane, framing that has moved, and a subfloor that’s soft around the toilet. Fixing that is not optional and it’s not visible in the finished photos, and it can add several thousand dollars before a single tile goes on. A 2010s townhome in Surrey or a Richmond rebuild usually needs less repair and more flatness work for large-format tile.
Same footprint or new layout
Keeping the toilet, the vanity and the shower where they are is the single biggest saving in a bathroom renovation. Moving plumbing means opening floors and walls, a plumber for more than a day, and usually a permit through the city. Moving a toilet drain in a condo can mean core drilling through a concrete slab and getting strata approval. If the layout works, keep it and spend the money on the assembly and the finish.
The shower
The shower is where the money goes and where it should. A tub-to-shower conversion in the same footprint, with a curb, a glass panel and porcelain tile, is the most cost-effective upgrade in the room. A curbless shower with a linear drain adds floor work: the subfloor has to be recessed or built up so the slope starts outside the shower, and the waterproofing has to run well past where the water lands. It looks like a hotel. It costs like one too. Our note on what’s behind a tiled shower explains why the assembly is the part you should never cut.
Tile and stone
Porcelain runs from a few dollars a square foot to twenty or more for large-format or slab. Handmade ceramic and zellige sit in the middle and cost more to install because every piece is different. Natural marble starts where good porcelain ends and climbs from there, and it needs sealing and setting materials that porcelain doesn’t. Bookmatched slab walls are the top of the market in both material and labour.
The labour side scales with the format and the layout, not just the price of the tile. A mosaic floor, a herringbone wall, or a pattern that has to centre on the vanity takes days longer than a straight field of 12 by 24 porcelain. That’s not a markup; it’s hours. See bathroom tile for how the choices play out.
Fixtures, glass and heated floors
Fixtures range from a few hundred dollars for a builder-grade set to several thousand for a brand a designer specified. A frameless glass panel or enclosure is measured after the tile and installed last, and it’s a real line item. A heated floor adds the cable, the thermostat, an electrician and an uncoupling membrane, and for a Vancouver bathroom in January it’s the upgrade people say they’d pay for twice.
Who’s running the job
Hiring a general contractor who subcontracts the tile is one path. Hiring a tile contractor who runs the whole bathroom with their own plumbing, electrical and glass trades is another. The second is usually tighter on schedule and on the details where tile meets everything else, because the person planning the layout is the person setting it. That’s how we run bathroom renovations, and it’s why our quotes include the assembly work most quotes leave out.
Where the cheap quote hides its cost
Every low quote we’ve been asked to match is low in the same places. No membrane, or a paint-on product used as if it were one. No leak test. Greenboard behind the tile. Grout at the corners instead of silicone. No flatness work before large tile. None of that is visible on the day the job is finished. All of it is visible three to five years later, on the ceiling of the room below. A bathroom that has to be done twice is the most expensive bathroom there is.
Rough ranges, honestly hedged
For a Vancouver bathroom in 2026, as a starting point and not a quote:
- Same footprint, tub-to-shower conversion, porcelain tile, standard fixtures: mid twenties to high thirties.
- Full rebuild with a curbless or large-format shower, heated floor, upgraded fixtures and glass: forties to fifties.
- Primary bathroom with natural stone or slab, wet room layout, custom details: sixty and up.
Condos in Burnaby or downtown Vancouver add strata logistics and sometimes core drilling. Older homes on the North Shore add substrate repair. Where you land depends on the room, and the only way to know is a site visit.
What to send us
Photos of the current bathroom, rough dimensions, whether you want to keep the layout, and the tile you’re drawn to. From that we can tell you which range you’re in and what would move you up or down. Then we come and look, and you get a written number that doesn’t change unless the scope does. Request a quote when you’re ready.