Who may buy your veterinary clinic, and at what multiple

Veterinary clinics in Canada typically sell for 4.0 to 7.0 times adjusted earnings, rising to 4.3 to 7.3 times once earnings pass $1 million. A buyer deducts the cost of replacing the owner’s clinical days, which can drop a clinic into a lower size band. The province decides who may own the shares and who answers for the facility.

The healthcare range at each clinic size

If you plan to sell a veterinary practice in Canada, the starting range is 4.0 to 7.0 times adjusted earnings. That is the healthcare row of the table of multiples by industry, the row that also covers dental practices and pharmacies, and our own valuation runs on it.

Adjusted earnings are the clinic’s profit with your own salary and personal costs added back, the figure explained in SDE or EBITDA. The range then moves with size, because each step in earnings brings in a different group of buyers.

Most single clinics sit in the first two rows. An owner with two or three hospitals under one company can reach the third. These are indicative ranges, and a formal opinion of value is a paid engagement of its own with a qualified valuator.

Accreditation, and the veterinarian who answers for it

Veterinary medicine is regulated by each province, and a buyer reads two sets of rules: who may own the clinic, and who must stand behind the facility. Ontario and British Columbia answer both questions differently.

In Ontario, a clinic operates under a certificate of accreditation from the College of Veterinarians of Ontario. The College’s guide for facility directors, published in August 2025, says every accredited facility is overseen by a licensed veterinarian called the facility director. That person may be one of the owners or a licensed veterinarian the owners designate. A certificate issued after a full pass at inspection runs for five years.

The College’s facility director policy says the facility director holds the certificate and must practise at the facility at least four days a month. The College has to be told in writing at once when the facility director changes. Where you hold the role, the buyer needs a successor named before closing day.

If your clinic runs through a veterinary professional corporation, the College’s professional corporation page requires every shareholder to hold a College licence. A shareholder may hold shares through a holding company whose own shares all belong to licensed veterinarians. A group owned by investors that offers to buy your shares should explain how its structure fits that rule, and your lawyer should check the answer.

British Columbia leaves the ownership structure to the owners. The College of Veterinarians of British Columbia says on its designated registrant and ownership page that a non-registrant can own a majority of a practice. Every practice must have a designated registrant, a veterinarian the owner appoints, and the owner is responsible for keeping one in place at all times.

Under bylaw 3.6(9) the designated registrant notifies the College of an ownership change, and the change itself is reported to the BC Registry. Clinics there practise from facilities the College has accredited, according to its practice facilities page. Our guides to selling a business in Ontario and selling a business in British Columbia cover the rest of each province’s process.

Other provinces set their own rules, and your provincial regulator is the place to confirm them. Whether you sell shares or assets changes your tax, which share sale or asset sale explains, and qualifying shares can use the lifetime capital gains exemption of $1,275,000 in 2026.

When the owner is also the busiest veterinarian

In most clinics the owner still works a full appointment book. Clients ask for you by name, and part of the revenue is surgery and consults you perform yourself. For a buyer those hours are the owner dependence, and replacing them costs a veterinarian’s salary.

Buyers ask for revenue by doctor for the last three years. A clinic where associates already produce most of it changes hands with its earnings intact. Where your own production leads the list, offers usually ask you to keep working for a period, sometimes with part of the price paid through an earnout. Selling a business that depends on you covers the general case.

A clinic that drops a size band when you step back

Take, as an illustration, a companion animal hospital with two veterinarians and $1.2 million of adjusted earnings once the owner’s salary is added back. The owner works four clinical days a week. A buyer prices in a full time associate to cover those days, assumed here at $250,000 a year.

The gap between the first two rows is $1.36 million at the low end. About $1.08 million of it is the salary at 4.3 times, and the rest comes from losing the 0.3 the clinic earned above $1 million.

The last two rows price the same earnings at higher multiples. Moving your clinical days to associates before the sale costs the salary in either case, and it wins back part of the multiple once a buyer can see the clinic running on its staff. The dental practice guide works through the same question with a dentist’s chair time.

Drug logs and medical records on closing day

Two sets of records pass with a clinic, and each carries its own rules. The CVBC’s controlled drugs page expects a log that tracks each product entering the facility and being dispensed, with routine audits that match the log to the stock on hand.

A practitioner reports a loss or theft of controlled substances to Health Canada within 10 calendar days of discovery, the period set out in Health Canada’s reporting guidance. A count on closing day, signed by both sides against the log, fixes the point where your responsibility for the stock ends and the buyer’s begins.

In Ontario, the College’s medical records standard requires records to be kept for five years after the last entry. It also requires a response within two business days when a client or another veterinarian asks for a complete record. The purchase agreement should name who keeps the records after closing and give you access to them for a complaint or claim.

Client and patient detail belongs late in due diligence, once an offer is signed.

Corporate groups and the veterinarian down the road

Veterinarians buying a first clinic usually borrow from a bank, often with a vendor note from the seller. The owner of a nearby clinic buys to add clients in an area the practice already serves.

Corporate groups are the other active buyer. They own many clinics through one central company, usually backed by private equity or an international group. VetStrategy announced on September 9, 2021 that it had joined IVC Evidensia, and its release described it at the time as operating more than 270 hospitals across nine Canadian provinces.

An offer from a group often keeps you working for a set period and ties part of the price to results. Compare offers on the cash paid at closing as well as on the headline figure. Who buys Canadian businesses compares the buyer groups in general, and the cost to sell a business sets out the fees that come off each offer.

The two years before a clinic goes to market

1. 01Report revenue by veterinarian for three years, so your own share of production is a number a buyer can check.
2. 02Move part of your clinical book to associates, and let a full year of statements show their cost.
3. 03Name the veterinarian who will take over as facility director or designated registrant, and confirm the steps with your College.
4. 04Reconcile the controlled drug log against the stock, and keep the audits on file.
5. 05Check your corporation’s shareholders against your College’s rules, since that decides whether a buyer can take your shares.
6. 06Move personal and family costs onto their own lines, so each of the add backs buyers accept is documented.

Changes to your clinical role take about a year to show in the statements a buyer reads. To see which row of the size table your own clinic sits in today, the Quick AI valuation gives a first range in a few minutes, before you give anyone your name.

The buyers, due diligence priorities and sector requirements are set out on InvestDeal’s healthcare practice M&A advisory page.

Questions owners ask

What is a veterinary clinic worth in Canada?

Typically 4.0 to 7.0 times adjusted earnings, which is profit with the owner’s salary and personal costs added back. A clinic with $950,000 of adjusted earnings would fall between $3.8 million and $6.65 million. Once earnings pass $1 million the range rises to 4.3 to 7.3 times.

Can a non-veterinarian own a veterinary clinic in Canada?

That depends on the province. The College of Veterinarians of British Columbia says a non-registrant can own a majority of a practice, provided a designated registrant is appointed. In Ontario every shareholder of a veterinary professional corporation must hold a College licence, and each accredited facility needs a licensed facility director.

What happens to the accreditation when a vet clinic is sold?

In Ontario the facility director holds the certificate of accreditation, and the College must be told in writing when that person changes. In British Columbia the designated registrant notifies the College of an ownership change. In both provinces the buyer needs a licensed veterinarian named for the role by closing day.

Who buys veterinary clinics in Canada?

Individual veterinarians buy many smaller clinics, often with a bank loan and a vendor note. Corporate groups are the other active buyer. VetStrategy, part of IVC Evidensia since 2021, described itself in its release that year as operating more than 270 hospitals across nine Canadian provinces.