Tattoo shops in Nanaimo

A tattoo is a permanent decision made in a room you'll spend hours in, so the studio matters as much as the artist. Nanaimo, BC has 12 tattoo shops mapped right now. All 12 are mapped as tattoo studios proper, and each one is worth a portfolio browse before you commit — style varies more between shops than towns.

This guide covers every tattoo shop we could verify in and around Nanaimo (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include Six Gill Tattoo and Parksville Tattoo, plus Old City Tattoo. If a studio's missing from Nanaimo's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet — the scene is bigger than any single dataset.

The Nanaimo tattoo lineup

12 mapped within about 40 km:

What the map tells us about tattoo shops in Nanaimo

5 of the 12 list their opening hours on the map, which is genuinely useful — tattoo studios often work by appointment, so posted hours can be more of a guideline than a promise.

6 have websites listed. Studios with websites usually show portfolios there — the fastest way to tell if a shop's style matches yours.

Most of the tattoo shops in Nanaimo list a phone number. Use it — a quick call tells you more about a studio's vibe than any review.

The Nanaimo tattoo shop tour

Making a day of it in Nanaimo? Work this order: Six Gill Tattoo, Parksville Tattoo, Old City Tattoo on 403 Fitzwilliam Street, Red Cat Studio on 2220 Bowen Road, Pretty Devils Tattoo Studio, Legacy Ink Tattoos on 85 Commercial Street, Black Flag Body Arts on 77 Commercial Street, and Siren’s Ink & Tattoo Co.. That's the tattoo shop tour in one sensible loop, no backtracking. 4 more are listed below.

Tattoo tips for Nanaimo

Picking a studio in Nanaimo? A little homework pays off:

• Don't haggle on price at Six Gill Tattoo. You're paying for hours of someone's skilled labour on your skin forever. Bargain hunting has no place in a tattoo shop.
• Wear the right clothes at Parksville Tattoo. Easy access to the spot being tattooed, and nothing you love — ink stains don't wash out.
• Eat before your session. A real meal, not a granola bar. Long sessions on an empty stomach are how people faint.
• Don't pick the scabs. Healing tattoos itch and flake. Picking pulls ink out with the scab and leaves patchy spots.

Good to know

We searched about 40 km around Nanaimo — that covers the town itself plus the surrounding communities you'd reasonably drive to. Listings come from OpenStreetMap, mapped by local volunteers, so a brand-new tattoo shop in Nanaimo can take a while to appear. Spotted a closure among the 12, or a tattoo shop we missed entirely? The map is the source of truth here — one OpenStreetMap edit corrects it for everyone.

We don't rate studios or artists, and we never list prices — those are between you and the shop. What we list is the where and the how-to-find, from places real mappers have verified.

If you run one of the 12 listed here and something's wrong — a closure, a move, new hours — the fix is the same: update the shop on OpenStreetMap and the correction flows through to this page on the next daily refresh.