A spare house key can cost less than a coffee. The same errand, done by a van at your door, can be quoted at ten times that, and neither shop is cheating you. What changes is almost never the cutting. It is the blank, the machine behind the counter, and whether somebody had to drive to you. This page sets out what key cutting costs in Canada using rates that three Vancouver shops publish on their own websites, all read on the same day, 15 September 2026. It does not explain how to copy a key you are not entitled to copy. It does not need to. Every shop below asks about entitlement before the machine starts.
The short version. A house or office key copy is published at $5 to $15 in Vancouver. A restricted high-security key runs $30 to $80. A car key sits between $180 and $420, depending on whether it holds a transponder chip or a proximity fob. That spread is not a markup. It tracks what the key physically contains. The real trap in comparing shops is not the price at all. One shop prices the key, one prices the visit, and a third prices neither until you call. Those are three different questions wearing the same dollar sign.
Need someone to cut a key near you? Start with the locksmith listings by province, then read how we check every listing before you phone anyone.
What you are paying for is the blank, not the cut
Duplicating an ordinary door key is a five to ten minute job at a counter, and the labour inside that price is small. What moves the number is the piece of brass going into the machine and how much information the finished key has to carry. Safe & Secure Locksmith in Vancouver publishes a full ladder for this, from a bare blank to a smart car key, which is more than either of the other two shops on this page puts in writing.
| What is being cut | Published range | Stated turnaround |
|---|---|---|
| Uncut key blank, no cutting | $4.75 | not stated |
| House or office key copy | $5 to $15 each | 5 to 10 minutes at the counter |
| Specialty or commercial blank | $8 to $30 | not stated |
| Restricted high-security key, cut to registered code | $30 to $80 | not stated |
| Transponder car key spare, cut and programmed | $180 to $240 | 30 to 45 minutes |
| Smart proximity key spare | $300 to $420 | 45 to 60 minutes |
Source: Safe & Secure Locksmith, Vancouver, published key cutting rates, read 15 September 2026. The page carries no date of its own, so the retrieval date is the only date available. These are prices the business advertises. We do not verify prices, which is set out in our methodology and is the single most useful thing to know before you start comparing figures from different shops.
Read as a ladder rather than a list, it tells you something a single average never could. The cheapest and dearest items on it differ by a factor of about ninety, an arithmetic we are doing on their two published figures. Every step up the ladder buys a different kind of thing: a longer blank, a rarer profile, a registered code, a chip, a radio. The cutting itself barely moves. A quote you cannot place on this ladder is a quote you cannot sanity-check. So the first question on the phone is what kind of key you have, not what it costs.
Three Vancouver shops, one day, three different answers
Same city, same day, and the comparison still does not work, because the three shops are not answering the same question. This matters more than any individual figure, so it is worth laying out plainly.
| Shop | What it publishes for getting a key made | What that figure actually is |
|---|---|---|
| Safe & Secure Locksmith | $5 to $15 for a house or office copy | a price per key, at the counter |
| Locksmith in Vancouver | “Car Key Made” listed against a $65 service call | a call-out rate, with the key not priced on its own |
| The Lock Doc | no figure on its Vancouver rates page | a number agreed on the phone, per job |
Sources, all read 15 September 2026: Safe & Secure key cutting rates, Locksmith in Vancouver rates, and The Lock Doc Vancouver rates.
A reader who puts $5 next to $65 is comparing a key against a visit. Those are not competing prices. They are different units, and adding or ranking them produces nonsense. The second shop is explicit about the limits of its own figure, stating: “This cost is a minimum estimate for the respective job. The final cost will vary. It will depend on the security level of the lock-system plus labor charges.” The third does not publish a rate at all and asks you to “Call to describe the lock, key, door or vehicle and confirm the appropriate next step.”
The third model is the one that frustrates readers most, and it may be the most defensible of the three. A counter price works because a walk-in copy is a known quantity. A call-out rate works because a visit has a fixed floor. For work whose cost depends on hardware nobody has seen yet, a conversation may be the only accurate answer. Three disclosure models, none of them wrong, and no way to rank them from a search results page. The test to carry into the call is simple: ask which of the three you are being quoted, and the rest of the comparison sorts itself out.
The restricted key changes the price and the rules
Between the $15 house key and the $180 car key sits a category most people meet only once, usually while being told no. A restricted or high-security key is published at $30 to $80 and, unlike everything below it on the ladder, the constraint is not the machine. It is permission.
Key blanks fall into groups that behave very differently. A 2010 Locksmith Ledger piece on key control separates two groups that are often confused. Of the first it says: “Patented key blanks are legally restricted to those individuals and companies that either own the patent or have made contractual agreements with the companies controlling the patent.” The second group, merely restricted keyways, rests on scarcity rather than law, and there is “no law making it illegal for other companies to manufacture or sell” the blank. The same piece deals with the stamp everyone recognises: “The stamping of ‘do not duplicate’ presents a challenge to most key cutters instead of a threat.”
That distinction has a practical edge. Safe & Secure’s page draws the line the same way. Where a stamped key uses a patented profile, “a copy is legally possible only through an authorized dealer holding the key card on file.” Where the profile is unpatented, the stamp is treated as a request rather than a barrier, and the published line is: “For an unpatented key carrying the stamp as a warning, we ask for proof you are entitled to the copy.” So the stamp on your key is doing one of two jobs. Either it marks a profile the shop physically cannot source, in which case your answer is the dealer holding the building’s key card. Or it is a request from whoever had the key cut, in which case a shop that honours it is exercising judgment rather than following a statute.
Which brings up the part of this trade worth being glad about. The published route to a restricted copy is: “Bring the key card and one existing key, or send a property manager with written authorization, and a restricted key is cut to registered code.” Being asked for documents is the system working. If your building’s keys can be copied by anyone holding one, they were never restricted keys, whatever the stamp says. Work out before you go whether you can produce a key card, a lease or a manager on the phone. That, not the $30 to $80, decides whether you leave with a key.
A car key is a different job wearing the same word
The word cutting does a lot of hidden work at the automotive end of the ladder. A transponder spare is published at $180 to $240 and a proximity smart key at $300 to $420, against $5 to $15 for a house key. The metal is not the expensive part. Cutting the blade is still minutes. The published turnarounds of 30 to 45 minutes for a transponder and 45 to 60 for a proximity key are mostly programming, equipment and the licence to talk to the vehicle.
So a three-figure quote for a car key is not the same species of number as a quote for a door key. Comparing the two tells you nothing. If your problem is an automotive key or a fob rather than a door key, the questions change enough to deserve separate treatment. Our breakdown of dealer and locksmith costs for a key fob covers where the money goes, and what a fob battery replacement costs handles the cheap case people often overpay for.
What a published price still does not tell you
Even the most transparent page on this list leaves a gap, and naming it is more useful than guessing at it. Safe & Secure says its shop “is fastest for a walk-in copy, and the vans carry the same equipment for work at your home, office or vehicle across Vancouver.” What the page does not say is whether having the van come to you changes the price. No mobile surcharge is published, and no minimum is published either. We are not going to invent one. The honest reading is that the counter prices are counter prices, and a mobile visit is a separate conversation you should have before anyone is dispatched.
That gap is exactly where a small job turns into a surprising invoice, and it is a recognised problem rather than bad luck. The Competition Bureau defines the pattern it worries about as “offering a product or service at a price that is unattainable because consumers must also pay additional charges or fees to buy the product or service.” It adds that “Drip pricing is considered to be false or misleading under the law, unless the additional charges or fees are imposed by the government, such as sales tax” (Competition Bureau Canada, drip pricing, page modified 24 August 2026). For a $10 errand, the protection you need is a single sentence on the phone: the total, including any call-out, before anyone starts.
Who is allowed to cut your key
Locksmith licensing is provincial, so the answer depends on where you are standing. Lists of provinces assembled from memory are how bad information spreads. Requirements differ by province and territory, and the specific checks we run on a listing before it goes live are set out in our verification methodology.
Alberta is worth naming because its rules are published and specific. A locksmith there must be licensed and must be a certified journeyperson. They must also be over 18, eligible to work in Canada and fluent in English, with no criminal record, no outstanding charges and no criminal investigation open against them. The province also states: “You must provide a photocopy of your licence card to your employer and carry the original with you while you are working” (Alberta locksmith licence, published 30 April 2026). Note what that does and does not give you. It supports asking to see the card, because the card is required to be on the person. It does not describe a public register you can search, so treat anyone who tells you to just look them up as mistaken rather than sinister.
One more Alberta detail is worth pausing on: selling the equipment is licensed separately from using it. The province states “You must be licensed to sell locksmith equipment and tools in Alberta.” That licence costs $100 and runs two years, and it cannot be held at the same time as a locksmith, security service worker or investigator licence (Alberta locksmith equipment sales worker licence, published 30 April 2026). The page does not say whether key blanks count as equipment, so we are not going to claim that it does. The split shows a province treating access to the means of copying keys as a controlled thing in its own right. That is the same instinct behind the key card sitting in your property manager’s file.
What to ask before you hand over the key
Everything above reduces to a short phone call. These are the questions that put a quote on the ladder, in the order worth asking them:
- What kind of key is it: a plain house or office key, a specialty or commercial blank, a restricted key, or a car key with a chip?
- Is the price you just gave me per key, or is it a call-out for the visit?
- If I come to the counter instead, does the price change?
- Is my key stamped or restricted, and if so what proof do you need from me before you cut it?
- What is the total I will pay, including any call-out and tax, before anyone starts?
- Do you test the copy before I leave, and what happens if it does not turn?
That last one is not filler. Safe & Secure publishes a commitment on it: “Every key is tested before it leaves the counter, and a copy that does not turn gets recut on the spot.” That is a cheap promise to make and a revealing one to ask for. A shop that will not say what happens to a key that does not work has told you something about the rest of the job.
If you are pricing this today, identify which rung of the ladder your key sits on before you call anybody. That single fact turns every quote you hear from a mystery into a comparison. When you are ready to call, start with the locksmith listings by province. Our other cost guides cover the jobs that tend to follow a key copy.
Common questions about key cutting prices
How much does it cost to get a key copied in Canada?
A house or office key copy is published at $5 to $15 each by Safe & Secure Locksmith in Vancouver, with specialty and commercial blanks at $8 to $30 and a bare uncut blank at $4.75 (read 15 September 2026). Those are advertised prices from one business in one city, not a national average, and prices are not verified by us.
Why does a car key cost so much more than a house key?
Because the cutting is the cheap part. The same published list puts a transponder car key spare at $180 to $240 and a smart proximity key at $300 to $420. The stated turnarounds are 30 to 45 and 45 to 60 minutes, most of it programming rather than cutting metal.
Can a locksmith copy a key stamped “Do Not Duplicate”?
It depends on the blank rather than the stamp. Locksmith Ledger describes the stamp as presenting “a challenge to most key cutters instead of a threat,” and patented blanks are contractually restricted to authorised dealers. Where a stamped key uses a patented profile, Safe & Secure states a copy “is legally possible only through an authorized dealer holding the key card on file.” Where it does not, the shop asks for proof you are entitled to the copy.
Will I be asked to prove the key is mine?
For a restricted key, yes. The published route is to bring the key card and one existing key, or to have a property manager supply written authorization. That requirement is what makes a restricted key restricted, so it is worth sorting out before you make the trip.
Does a locksmith need a licence to cut a key?
It varies by province and territory. Alberta requires a locksmith to be licensed and a certified journeyperson, and requires the licence card to be carried while working, which is why asking to see it is reasonable. The Alberta licence page describes no public register to search against, and we do not list provinces we have not checked against an official source.