Where your strata fee dollar goes

Across 2,000+ samples drawn from our pool of BC strata reviews, insurance takes about 20 cents of every operating-budget dollar, more than any other line. What happens to the rest depends on how the building is heated and how the city bills water.

A strata fee is the operating budget, including the contribution to the contingency reserve fund, divided among the owners by unit entitlement. The budget has to be itemized by category and approved by a majority vote at the annual general meeting. [1] We took the latest approved operating budget for each BC corporation in our sample, most of them for fiscal years 2025 and 2026, sorted every expense line into one set of categories, and divided by the number of units.

About $480 a month, before anything breaks

The median BC budget works out to about $5,800 per unit per year, or about $480 a month, and the middle half of buildings sit between about $4,800 and $6,900. That is an average per door. An individual owner's fee depends on the unit entitlement of their lot, so a large unit pays more than a studio in the same building. Building size barely moves the per-door total: the median lands between about $5,500 and $6,000 for buildings under 20 units and over 200 alike. Budgets with an elevator line come in higher, at about $6,100 per unit against about $5,100 for budgets without one.

Put another way: of each dollar, about 20 cents buys insurance, 19 cents utilities, 19 cents repairs and maintenance and 17 cents site services. About 14 cents goes into the contingency reserve fund, and about 10 cents runs the corporation itself: the property manager, accounting, legal and banking.

Insurance is the biggest single line

Almost every budget carries an insurance line, and the median is about $1,100 per unit per year, with the middle half between about $920 and $1,400. It takes a bigger share in small buildings: the median is about 23% of the budget in buildings under 20 units and about 18% at 200 units or more. Brokers' 2026 outlooks describe premiums falling and insurers competing for strata business, with relief expected through at least the first half of the year. [3]

The strata's policy is not the owner's policy. It does not cover an owner's contents, personal liability, living costs after a loss or the strata's deductible, which is why owners buy a condo policy of their own, outside the strata fee. [4]

Repairs, then the reserve

Repairs and maintenance is the second-largest bucket, a median of about $1,100 per unit. It holds everything from the plumber's call-outs to the elevator contract: about two budgets in three have an elevator line, at a median of about $170 per unit, and more than four in five have a fire and life safety line for inspections and alarm monitoring, at about $100 per unit.

The contingency reserve fund contribution is a median of about $790 per unit per year, with the middle half between about $560 and $1,200. Since November 2023, BC has required the yearly contribution to be at least 10% of the operating fund contribution, set after considering the building's latest depreciation report. [2] In the budgets that show the transfer as a line, the median contribution equals about 15% of everything else in the budget, and almost one in four put in 25% or more. That ratio is our own measure, close to the regulation's formula but not the same, so read it as a description of budgets rather than a compliance test.

Two lines that depend on where you live

Energy is where BC buildings split in two. About two budgets in three with an energy line also pay for gas, district energy or heating fuel, and in those the energy line has a median of about $710 per unit, roughly 12 cents of the dollar. In the rest, the line is mostly common-area electricity, a median of about $36 per unit a year, and heat is typically on each owner's own electricity account.

Water and sewer is the other. About two BC budgets in three carry a water and sewer line, at a median of about $530 per unit where it appears. Whether it appears depends mostly on the city. Nearly every budget in Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, New Westminster, Abbotsford and Nanaimo has one. In Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody and the Township of Langley, few do. Some municipalities charge water and sewer to each unit directly: Coquitlam sets a flat annual fee for each apartment or townhouse unit, $427 for water and $661 for sewer in 2026, and Port Coquitlam bills a flat water rate per apartment and townhouse unit. [5] [6] Where the city bills units directly, the cost is still there; it arrives on the owner's utility bill instead of in the strata fee. Either way the regional rates behind it keep moving: Metro Vancouver's 2026 budget puts the average household's regional costs at $897 a year, $208 of it for drinking water, up 2.5% overall. [7]

When a budget has no water line, the water bill has usually moved to the owners.

The rest is the site itself. Grounds, landscaping and snow average about 10 cents of the dollar, pulled up by buildings with large grounds; the median building spends about 7 cents. Cleaning is about 5 cents and garbage and recycling about 4 cents, or about $230 per unit. Fewer than half of budgets pay a caretaker or other site staff, at about $350 per unit where they do. Management and administration comes to a median of about $480 per unit.

What to do with this

• If you are buying: read the fee next to the budget, not next to another building's fee. Water, sewer or heat missing from the budget usually means a separate bill. Property tax is separate too, since each strata lot is assessed on its own, and special levies sit outside the budget altogether. [8]

• If you are on council: the per-unit chart gives the middle half for each line, which is the range most BC budgets fall in. It describes budgets; it does not say what any one building should spend.

• If you want your area: neighbourhood benchmarks are on StrataStats.

See it for one building. A StrataReports building report sets out one building's budget next to its reserve fund, insurance certificate and minutes. Look at a sample report.

How we counted. Based on 2,000+ samples drawn from our pool of BC strata reviews. Figures come from the approved operating budgets in those samples, mostly fiscal years 2025 and 2026. Each corporation's latest approved whole-building budget is used. Every expense line, including the transfer to the contingency reserve fund, is sorted into one set of categories; totals, subtotals and fund balances are left out. Per-unit values divide by the corporation's total unit count, so they are averages per door rather than any one owner's fee. The dollar split averages each building's own shares so every building counts equally; per-unit figures are medians and the middle half (p25 to p75) among budgets that carry the line, rounded to two significant figures. Cities with too few budgets to summarise are not named. No building is identified. If you use these figures, a link back to this post is appreciated.

Further reading

1. Budgeting and strata fees, Province of British Columbia

2. The contingency reserve fund in strata corporations, Province of British Columbia

3. 2026 Strata Insurance Outlook, HUB International, 19 February 2026

4. Strata owner and tenant insurance, Province of British Columbia

5. Utility Fee, City of Coquitlam

6. Utility Bills, City of Port Coquitlam

7. Metro Vancouver Board Approves 2026 Budget, Metro Vancouver, 31 October 2025

8. Valuation of residential strata properties, BC Assessment