You’ve sold the house, or you’re about to. The tiny home on wheels is parked in the driveway, or the fifth wheel is packed to the rafters, and somewhere around 2 a.m. a very Canadian question hits you: what do I put on the form where it says “home address”?Â
It’s the question nobody warns you about. Towing, hookups and where to put the winter tires all get plenty of attention. The paperwork gets exactly none, right up until your driver’s licence needs renewing and the clerk is staring at you. So let’s walk through it like we would over coffee: what to update, who to tell, and how to keep your mail, health coverage and licence in order when your home has wheels or a hitch.
Plenty of full-time RVers and THOW owners in BC use a long-term pad as their home base, and that’s exactly what a year-round pad is for. But there’s a catch worth stating plainly: every organization that asks for your address (ICBC, Health Insurance BC, your bank, the CRA) decides for itself what it will accept. A park can give you a pad. It can’t tell the government what counts as a valid address.
So rather than hand you a list of “rules” from memory, this guide sticks to what the official sources actually say, and points you to them so you can confirm the current wording before you commit. Policies shift, and the last thing you want is to build your move around a rumour from a forum.
If you’re still at the “where would I even live?” stage, our guide to living in an RV year-round in BC covers the day-to-day, and the moving to the Sunshine Coast guide covers the bigger picture of the move itself.
Your driver’s licence is the document most people deal with first, and ICBC is clear about timing. According to ICBC’s moving page, you are “required to update ICBC with the address of your new home (or other residence) within 10 days.” Ten days. That’s shorter than most ferry-line sulks.
Note the wording: “home (or other residence).” That tells you ICBC is asking where you actually live, not simply where you receive mail. If your home is a THOW or RV on a pad, that pad’s civic address is the sort of thing to have ready.
If you’re arriving from another province, ICBC also says you have 90 days to switch your licence over after moving to BC. Don’t leave it to day 89; clerks have long memories and lineups have longer ones.
Here’s the good news. The province runs a combined online address change service at addresschange.gov.bc.ca. If you have a BC driver’s licence or BC Services Card, one submission can update your address with both ICBC and Health Insurance BC at the same time. If your card has a photo, the province’s BC Services Card page says you’ll receive an address sticker to attach to it.
That’s the lowest-effort 15 minutes of your whole move. Do it the week you land and tick two boxes at once.
Medical Services Plan coverage follows you, but only if Health Insurance BC knows where you are. The Government of BC’s MSP page on moving within BC says the Medicare Protection Act requires you to update your address within 10 days of the move, and that you’ll need to provide both your former and your new address.
A few practical points from that same page:
Moving to BC from elsewhere? The province says new residents may be eligible for MSP after a wait period: the rest of the month you establish residence, plus two more months. Plan your travel insurance around that gap rather than discovering it at a walk-in clinic.
Mail is the piece that feels hardest when your home is a rig, and it’s usually the easiest once you pick a system. Canada Post’s receiving mail support page lists the main options for getting mail without a standard house mailbox:
Canada Post sets the prices, durations and terms for each of those, and they change, so check the linked articles for current details before you buy anything. What we can say from experience is that people who settle in long-term usually end up with one of two setups: a post office box as the permanent “mailbox,” or direct delivery arrangements for their pad. Which one fits depends on the location, so when you get in touch with us, ask what mail and parcel arrangements work for residents. It’s far better to hear it before you move in than after your first missed parcel.
Online orders are a bigger deal when you live in a small space, because everything you buy either fits or gets returned. A post office box or a parcel locker can keep deliveries from bouncing around. If you work remotely, pair this thinking with reliable connectivity; our post on internet for RV living on the Sunshine Coast covers that side of things.
After ICBC, Health Insurance BC and Canada Post, the rest is mostly a matter of working down a list. Banks and credit unions, your credit cards, insurance policies, the CRA, your employer or pension provider, and any subscriptions you actually care about all need your new address. Do the big ones first: anything that sends a statement or a government notice. Missing a letter from the tax office is a much worse surprise than missing a flyer from the garden centre.
Two small habits help. Keep one document (even a note on your phone) listing every account you’ve updated and the date. And update your mail setup first, so anything you forgot still finds you.
Elections BC handles voter registration, and its register to vote page explains how to register or update your information, including options that change around election periods. That page doesn’t spell out how to handle an RV or THOW address, so if your situation is unusual, contact Elections BC directly rather than guessing.
If you only take one thing from this post, make it this order of operations:
One more thing. Keep your vehicle licence, registration and insurance current after any address change, which ICBC specifically reminds drivers to do. Your tow vehicle and your home on wheels both need to stay on the right side of the paperwork.
If your home is a tiny home on wheels rather than a standard RV, add one more conversation to your to-do list: insurance. Insurers will ask how the home is used, and “I live in it full-time on a long-term pad” is a different answer from “it’s a weekend trailer.” Make sure whoever insures your home knows exactly where and how you live, and keep your documents for the build and the certification handy. We cover that side in more depth in our THOW insurance and certification guide.
All the forms in the world come easier when you have a stable spot to call home. A year-round pad gives you a consistent place to receive your life: your mail setup, your appointments, your routines. The administrative side stops being a puzzle once the physical home is sorted. If you haven’t seen what’s out there yet, our page on year-round RV lots in BC is a good place to start comparing.
We’re a small, friendly resort on the Sunshine Coast, and we get these questions all the time from people making the leap from a house to a home on wheels. Nobody here will make you feel silly for asking how mail works. We’ve all stood in a queue wondering the same thing, usually in the rain.
Ready to find your spot? Browse the available pads or send us a request and tell us your rig, your timing and your questions. We’ll help you sort out the address side too, one cup of coffee at a time.
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