You have moved into a place where at least one key is unaccounted for, or a tenant has handed back three keys when the file says four, or a relationship ended and a key never came back. The job in front of you is small. The price of it is unusually hard to look up. This page explains what you are actually buying, why the published figures disagree with each other, and what to ask on the phone. It does not explain how to get through a locked door, and it does not quote you a price.
If you are standing outside right now and the lock change is only the second half of your problem, start with what to do when you are locked out and come back to this page once you are inside.
In short. Changing the locks is not one purchase. The hardware is priced per item, the work is priced per door or folded into a visit, and rekeying is priced per cylinder, which is a different job on the same door. The three price pages we read for this guide publish their figures in three of those units, so no two of their numbers can be laid side by side. One of them puts a lock change at $80 to $160 a door and a standard rekey at $25 to $45 a cylinder (figures published by the business at safeandsecurelocksmith.ca, read 13 September 2026, not verified by us). The half of this bill you can settle before you call anybody is the hardware, because the hardware is the only part of the job with a public shelf price.
Before you phone anyone: count the doors you want changed, count the cylinders on those doors, and decide whether one key should open all of them. Those three answers move the price more than anything else on this page. Then look at what shops in your province put in writing on our provincial directory pages.
What you are actually buying when you change the locks
There are three separate things a shop can charge you for on this job, and each one is counted in a different unit.
The first is hardware. That is a physical object: a replacement cylinder, a deadbolt, or a complete lockset with the handle, the latch and the strike plate together. It is a retail item with a retail price, sold per item, and the price varies by grade and finish rather than by how hard your door is.
The second is labour. Somebody removes the old lock, fits the new one, and checks that the door still closes properly. Labour is charged either per door or as part of a call-out that covers the visit. Those two are not the same thing: a per-door price gets bigger when you have four doors, and a call-out generally does not.
The third is rekeying, and it needs separating out, because readers routinely ask for it under the words “change the locks”. Rekeying keeps the lock you already own and changes the pins inside it so the old keys stop working. It is priced per cylinder. Nothing is replaced.
So a figure you find for this job is only useful once you know which of the three it counts. The same split turns up in automotive work, where the fob itself is an item and the programming is labour, which is why a dealer quote and a locksmith quote for a key fob replacement can look irreconcilable while both are honest.
What three shops publish for the same job
We read three Vancouver price pages during this directory’s own price-page checks. All three describe residential lock work. All three publish something different, and none of the three publishes the same kind of number as another.
| Shop | What it publishes for this job | Unit of the figure | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safe & Secure Locksmith | A price to rekey a cylinder and a separate price to change a lock installed | Per cylinder and per door | 13 September 2026 |
| Locksmith in Vancouver | “$65 Service Call” listed against jobs including door repair, with the part not priced separately | Per visit | 15 September 2026 |
| The Lock Doc | No figure. The page asks you to describe the job first | None published | 15 September 2026 |
Figures and wording as published by each business on the date shown. We did not verify any of them. Company price pages change without notice, so read a dated figure as a record of what was published then, not as today’s quote.
Locksmith in Vancouver attaches a caveat to its number, word for word: “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 page also states round-the-clock availability and a 60 km service radius. That is a floor with the variables named, which is more than a bare figure tells you.
The Lock Doc publishes no rate at all and asks instead that you “call to describe the lock, key, door or vehicle and confirm the appropriate next step.” That model gives a reader the least to plan with. It is also the hardest of the three to be wrong about, because a number that was never published cannot go stale or mislead. Three shops, three defensible ways of answering the same question, and a reader who puts the three side by side learns nothing about who is cheaper.
The one ladder published per item, and what its spread means
Only one page in the sample prices this work as a list of items. That makes it the only one you can read as a ladder.
| What is being bought | Published range | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Rekey a standard cylinder, first two keys included | $25 to $45 | Per cylinder |
| Rekey a high-security cylinder | $60 to $120 | Per cylinder |
| Replace a mailbox lock | $40 to $140 | Per lock |
| Change a lock, installed | $80 to $160 | Per door |
Ranges as published on the Vancouver price pages of Safe & Secure Locksmith, read 13 September 2026. Published by the business and not verified by us. The pages carry no date of their own, so the reading date is the date that matters.
Read the bottom of that ladder against the top and the range runs from $25 to $160, a factor of roughly six. That multiplication is ours, not the shop’s. What drives it is not how difficult your door is. It is which unit you landed in: a cylinder is cheaper than a door because a cylinder is less of the job, and a high-security cylinder costs more than a standard one because the part inside it costs more.
Notice also that the cheapest line includes something the most expensive line does not mention. The standard rekey is published with the first two keys included. The installed lock change says nothing about how many keys come with it. That is the sort of gap that turns a good comparison into a wrong one, and it is question four on the list further down this page.
Use the unit test on any quote you get: ask whether the figure is per cylinder, per door or per visit before you write it down. A directory listing that states a fee range without stating its unit is telling you less than it appears to. Our province pages show what each business has chosen to put in writing.
Rekeying is not a lock change, and the published price says so
On the one page that prices both, a standard rekey sits at $25 to $45 a cylinder and an installed lock change at $80 to $160 a door (same source, read 13 September 2026). The gap is not a discount. It is the cost of a part plus the work of fitting it.
Rekeying is the right job when the lock itself is sound and your problem is only that the wrong people hold working keys. You keep the hardware, the finish still matches the other doors, and the old keys stop turning. Changing the lock is the right job when the hardware is worn, the wrong grade for the door, or the wrong keyway for what you want to fit later. The deciding question is whether you have a hardware problem or a key-holder problem, and only one of those needs new metal on the door. Our service categories keep the two listed separately for that reason.
The half of this bill you can price yourself before you call
Hardware is a retail item. A deadbolt on a shelf has a price on it, and that price is public in a way that labour never is. Nothing stops you from deciding the grade and the finish you want, finding what that item sells for at a Canadian retailer, and arriving at the phone call already knowing half of the arithmetic.
We are not publishing a hardware figure here. We did not open a Canadian retailer’s price page while writing this guide, and we do not republish numbers we have not read. The point survives without one: that half of the job has a price you can check in a few minutes, which leaves the labour and the call-out as the only genuinely unknown parts of the bill.
What you need to settle before that price means anything is which object you are buying. A deadbolt on its own is not the same purchase as a handle set with a deadbolt above it. A cylinder keyed on one side costs differently from one keyed on both. Finish matters, because matching what is already on your other doors is usually cheaper than replacing all of them to match one new lock. And the answer to whether you want a single key to open every door is the choice that reaches furthest, because it decides both which hardware fits and how much of the work is one job rather than four. Take those four answers to the shelf and the retail price stops being a range and becomes a number.
Doing that reading first also lets you ask the question that no page in our sample answers. None of the three states whether hardware is inside an installed price or billed on top of it. We are naming that gap rather than guessing at it, because the difference between those two readings of the installed per-door range in the table above is most of the bill. Ask whether the labour price changes if you supply the lock yourself, and you will find out which model you are dealing with in one sentence.
What a shop will ask you to prove before it changes a lock
Expect to be asked for something showing you are entitled to the change. On residential work that generally means a lease, a business card matching the signage, a strata council letter, or a property manager who will confirm it by phone.
This is not an obstacle put in your way. A lock change is permanent for everyone else who holds a working key, which makes it a heavier thing than cutting a spare. A shop that asks the question is doing the part of its job you would want done if your name were the one on the door. Work out what you can produce before you book, because the alternative is a van arriving and leaving again.
Whether a tenant may change a lock without the owner’s agreement is a tenancy question, and those rules differ by province and territory. We are not going to summarise them for you from memory, and any page that does so without pointing at an official source is guessing. Settle that in writing with whoever holds the other interest in the door, then book the work. How we check what a business tells us, and what we refuse to check, is set out on our methodology page.
What we could not establish for this page
The sample is three price pages in one city, read on two days in September 2026. Three shops in Vancouver are not a national picture, and we are not going to present them as one. A shop in Winnipeg or Halifax may price this work in a fourth unit we have not seen.
Nothing here is a verified price. Our listings carry fee ranges entered by the business with the date attached, and we say plainly on our how-we-check page that we do not verify prices. A published range is a guide for the phone call, not a quote, and a range with a date on it is only a record of what was published on that date. If you find a fee range in our directory that no longer matches what a business charges, tell us about the listing and we will look at it.
Licensing is the other gap. What a locksmith must hold differs by province and territory, and we did not have an official provincial or federal source open while writing this page, so we are not listing requirements here. Ask the business to show you the licence or registration it holds, and ask when it was issued.
Six questions that turn a published figure into a number you can use
Ask these in this order. The first one alone resolves most of the confusion on this topic.
- Is that figure per cylinder, per door, or per visit?
- Does it include the hardware, or am I buying the lock separately?
- If I supply the lock myself, does the labour price change?
- How many keys come with the job, and what does each extra key cost?
- Is there a call-out or trip charge on top, and is it still charged if I go ahead with the work?
- Can I have the total in writing before you start, including tax?
The last one is the one people skip. A figure that grows on the doorstep was never the price of the job, and asking for the total in advance costs you nothing except the thirty seconds it takes to say the sentence.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to change locks in Canada?
There is no single national figure and this guide does not publish one. One Vancouver shop published $80 to $160 per door to change a lock installed, and $25 to $45 per cylinder to rekey a standard one (safeandsecurelocksmith.ca, read 13 September 2026, published by the business and not verified by us). Another published a “$65 Service Call” against the job with the part not priced separately. Establish whether a figure is per door, per cylinder or per visit before you compare it with anything else.
Is it cheaper to rekey or to change the locks?
On the one page in our sample that priced both, rekeying a standard cylinder was published at $25 to $45 and changing a lock installed at $80 to $160 per door (same source and reading date). Rekeying keeps the hardware you already own, so it is the cheaper route whenever the lock is sound and your only problem is who holds a working key.
Does a lock change price include the lock itself?
Not necessarily, and no page in our three-shop sample stated it either way. Ask directly whether the hardware sits inside the figure, and ask whether the labour price changes if you supply the lock yourself. Those two answers tell you which pricing model you are dealing with.
Do I need a licensed locksmith to change a lock?
What a locksmith must hold differs by province and territory, and we are not restating those requirements here without an official source in hand. Ask to see the licence or registration the business holds and when it was issued. Our methodology page sets out which registrations we look up ourselves and how often we recheck them.
Can a locksmith change a lock if I am renting?
Shops routinely ask for something showing you are entitled to the change, such as a lease, a strata council letter, or a property manager who will confirm by phone. Whether a tenant may change a lock without the owner’s agreement is a tenancy question that differs by province and territory. Settle that before you book, so the visit is not wasted.
What to do next
Count your doors, count the cylinders on them, and decide whether one key should open all of them. Then get the answer to question one before you compare a single figure, because until you know whether a number is per cylinder, per door or per visit, you are not comparing prices at all. You are comparing different questions.
When you are ready to phone someone, see what businesses in your area have chosen to state in writing on our provincial listings, and read the rest of our cost guides if you want the same treatment applied to a different job.