(Image Credit: Bayne Stanley/The Canadian Press)

By Victor Kaisar

Minimum Wage Increase

B.C. minimum wage to increase by 40 cents to $18.25 on June 1

Feb 26, 2026 | 3:27 PM

VICTORIA — Some of the province’s lowest-paid workers will be getting another 40-cent increase on June 1 when B.C.’s minimum wage goes up in an effort to keep pace with inflation.

The B.C. government says the general minimum wage will increase by 2.24 per cent from $17.85 to $18.25 per hour. On June 1, app-based ride-hailing and delivery drivers will also see a 46-cent or 4.84-per cent increase to their minimum wage from $21.43 to $21.89 per hour of engaged time.

The minimum wage for residential caretakers, live-in home-support workers and camp leaders will also increase by a similar percentage in June, while the minimum piece rates for hand-harvested crops will go up on Dec. 31 this year.

“Working people in our province are feeling the pressure of inflation,” B.C. Labour Minister Jennifer Whiteside said in a statement. “That’s why we acted to bring in annual minimum-wage increases, which have helped paycheques keep up with increasing costs of essentials like food and transportation.”

“This matters for everyone, and especially for minimum-wage workers, the people doing the jobs so many of us rely on every day.”

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According to the B.C. government, the annual minimum wage increase is based on the province’s average inflation rate from previous year. In 2025, B.C.’s average monthly inflation was just over 2.1 per cent.

B.C.’s current minimum wage is already the highest among all provinces, and it only trails Nunavut ($19.75) and Yukon ($17.94). The minimum wage in Yukon will also be increasing to $18.51 on April 1, while Nunavut’s is also set to increase on Sept. 1.

The increased minimum wage still falls short of the living wage in Kamloops, which according to Living Wage B.C., was $24.45 last year.