Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Entrepreneurs an increasingly key segment of Surrey’s business community

Entrepreneurs dominate the business landscape in Surrey.

Entrepreneurs dominate the business landscape in Surrey.

According to the city’s latest business licence data, more than two-thirds of businesses were sole proprietorships.

A further 30% fall into the small and medium-sized category with fewer than 50 employees, and in line with the provincial average, about 2% of businesses in the city were large organizations with more than 50 staff.

While the public sector, including health care, education and municipal government, are among the largest single employers, some of B.C.’s top businesses call Surrey home, including Coast Capital Savings, Canada’s second-largest credit union.

Surrey is home to a broad cross-section of the largest companies in the province, from Sunrise Farms and the Teal Jones Group to the Super Save Group of Companies, all of which are on Business in Vancouver’s Top 100 Private Companies list.

While key sectors such as construction, retail, wholesale and professional services make up a meaningful portion of Surrey’s business community, the diverse types of services provided by the city’s entrepreneurs are the single largest business segment.

According to city data, most of the economic drivers are in the city’s southern regions, with the largest concentration of businesses in Newton (31.7%) and South Surrey (17%). A further 11% of businesses are in the Cloverdale area.

Despite persistent global economic uncertainty, Surrey entrepreneurs seem to be keeping their optimism as a growing number of new businesses have formed in the past few years. More than 2,300 new businesses were launched in 2011, a second consecutive year of gains, after annual new business growth dropped to below 2,000 in 2008 and 2009.

Two-thirds of the businesses were home-based, a proportion that has remained stable over the last six years.

Small-business growth would benefit the second-fastest growing city in B.C. According to BC Stats, small business growth has outpaced that of large businesses between 2007 and 2010.