Vacant Home Taxes in Canada (2026): Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Hamilton, Compared

Vacant Home Taxes in Canada (2026): Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Hamilton, Compared

Short answer: four cities tax empty homes directly, at rates ranging from 1 percent to as much as 5 percent. Toronto's Vacant Home Tax is 3 percent of the property's current value assessment, a rate that took effect for the 2024 taxation year and stayed at 3 percent for 2025. Vancouver's Empty Homes Tax is also 3 percent, charged on the property's assessed taxable value. Ottawa's Vacant Unit Tax starts at 1 percent of the residential portion of the assessed value in the first vacant year, then rises by one percentage point for each additional consecutive vacant year, to a maximum of 5 percent. It resets to 1 percent after a year of occupancy. Hamilton's Vacant Unit Tax is 1 percent of the property's current assessed value. In Toronto, Vancouver and Hamilton, every residential property owner must file an occupancy declaration every year, even if the home is their principal residence and they live in it all year. Ottawa owners declare by the interim tax due date, typically the third Thursday in March. In all four cities, a missing declaration is treated the same as a vacant home: the property is deemed vacant and the full tax is billed. The declaration is the tax. The vacancy is only the backstop.

This is education only, not tax or legal advice. Each tax is a municipal bylaw with its own definitions, forms and deadlines, and the city's page for your property controls your case. Check the deadline for the current cycle on the city site before you rely on any date in this guide, because councils move these dates.

Where these taxes sit in the stack

Canada now has three layers of empty-home taxation, and they do not replace each other.

The federal layer is mostly history. The underused housing tax applied at 1 percent for the 2022 to 2024 calendar years and was ended for 2025 onward, a change our underused housing tax guide works through in full. Nothing about that repeal touches a municipal tax.

The provincial layer is British Columbia's speculation and vacancy tax, charged at 1 percent for Canadian citizens and permanent residents and 3 percent for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners in 2026, in designated taxable areas only. Our BC speculation and vacancy tax guide covers its areas, credits and March 31 declaration.

The municipal layer is this guide. Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Hamilton each run their own tax, with their own declaration, on top of whatever the senior governments do. Vancouver states the separation plainly on its own site: the City's Empty Homes Tax is separate from the provincial speculation and vacancy tax. A vacant Vancouver home can owe both in the same year, to two different governments, on two different declarations. The worked example in the next section prices that stack.

One more boundary matters. These are taxes on homes inside four city limits. A vacant home in Mississauga, Burnaby, Gatineau or Burlington owes none of the four taxes in this guide, whatever its owners assume. City boundaries, not metro areas, decide coverage.

The four taxes, side by side

Feature	Toronto: Vacant Home Tax	Vancouver: Empty Homes Tax	Ottawa: Vacant Unit Tax	Hamilton: Vacant Unit Tax
Rate	3%	3%	1% in the first vacant year, rising by 1 point per additional consecutive vacant year to 5%	1%
Charged on	Current Value Assessment set by MPAC	Assessed taxable value	Residential portion of the property's assessed value	Current assessed value set by MPAC
Vacancy test	Vacant for six months or more in the taxation year (the city defines six months as 183 days)	Declared or deemed empty for the reference year; principal residences and homes rented at least six months are outside the tax	Unoccupied for more than 184 days in the calendar year and not a principal residence	Unoccupied for more than 183 days in the previous calendar year
Who must declare	Every residential property owner, every year, even if they live there	Every homeowner, every year; one declaration per property	Eligible residential property owners, for the previous calendar year; properties with six units or less	All residential property owners
Deadline for the 2025 year	April 30, 2026	February 3, 2026	March 19, 2026 (the interim tax due date, the third Thursday in March); late declarations to April 30 for a $250 fee	April 15, 2026, extended to May 15, 2026 for that cycle
If you do not declare	Property deemed vacant, Notice of Assessment issued	Property deemed vacant, plus a $250 by-law ticket	Property deemed vacant and taxed	Unit considered vacant and taxed
Paying the 2025 tax	Three equal instalments: September 15, October 15 and November 16, 2026	Payment date April 16, 2026	Added to the final tax bill, due the third Thursday in June	Vacant Unit Tax bill issued in early June 2026
Dispute route	Notice of Complaint; for the 2025 bill, dispute by December 31, 2026; audit complaints within 90 days	Notice of Complaint and review process; declarations can be audited	Notice of Complaint within 90 days of an audit determination; audits can reach back two years	Appeal; an appeal does not pause the payment deadline
Started	2022 taxation year at 1%; rate rose to 3% from the 2024 taxation year	2017	2023, on the 2022 occupancy year	First declarations for the 2024 year, billed in 2025

Read the deadline row twice, because it is the row that costs people money. The four cities run four different calendars for the same tax year. Vancouver closes first, in early February. Ottawa follows in March. Toronto and Hamilton close in April, with Hamilton extending its 2025 deadline to May 15, 2026. An owner with homes in two of these cities has two unrelated deadlines, two portals and two confirmation numbers to keep.

What a vacant home actually pays: four priced examples

The math is a single multiplication in each city. The inputs are the assessed values the cities publish, and the examples below use round assessed values so the arithmetic is easy to check. These are illustrations, not assessments of real properties.

Toronto, assessed at $900,000. 3 percent of $900,000 is $27,000 for one vacant year, paid in three instalments of $9,000. At Toronto's original 1 percent rate, the same home owed $9,000. The 2024 rate increase tripled the bill without changing anything about the home.

Vancouver, assessed at $1,500,000, vacant all year, owned by a BC resident who is a Canadian citizen. The Empty Homes Tax is 3 percent of $1,500,000, which is $45,000. The same home sits inside a speculation and vacancy tax area, and a vacant second home is not exempt from that provincial tax either: at the 2026 rate of 1 percent for this owner class, the provincial tax is $15,000 before the $4,000 BC resident tax credit, or $11,000 after it if the owner qualifies for the full credit. Combined bill for one empty year: $56,000, split between two governments and two declarations. Change the owner to a foreign owner and the provincial slice rises to the 3 percent rate, and the combined figure rises with it.

Ottawa, assessed at $600,000. The first vacant year costs 1 percent, or $6,000, charged on the residential portion of the assessed value. If the home remains vacant and taxable, the bill rises to $12,000 in the second consecutive year, $18,000 in the third, $24,000 in the fourth and $30,000 in the fifth, when the 5 percent ceiling is reached. Five consecutive vacant years therefore cost $90,000 in total. A year of occupancy resets the rate to 1 percent. Ottawa's test counts days precisely: unoccupied for more than 184 days in the calendar year, and not used as a principal residence, puts the unit inside the tax.

Hamilton, assessed at $500,000. 1 percent is $5,000. The city publishes the same arithmetic in its own material: a home assessed at $385,000 carries a $3,850 tax, and one assessed at $381,000 carries $3,810.

Two lessons sit inside these four multiplications. First, the rate gap is the story: a $900,000 vacant home pays $27,000 in Toronto and would pay $9,000 at Hamilton's rate or in Ottawa's first vacant year. By Ottawa's fourth consecutive vacant year, its 4 percent rate would produce a $36,000 bill, higher than Toronto's. Second, in Vancouver the municipal rate is only part of the exposure, because the provincial tax stacks on the same empty rooms. Anyone pricing a vacant holding in Vancouver off the city rate alone understates the year by the size of the provincial bill.

Toronto: the declaration is annual, and the record duty runs three years

Toronto's program is the broadest of the four in one respect: the declaration duty covers every residential property owner, and the city is explicit that most owners will not pay the tax as long as the declaration arrives by the deadline. Occupied is a status you have to file, not a status the city assumes.

The occupancy categories on the city's page are narrower than owners expect. A principal residence counts as occupied only if it is the owner's principal residence for at least six months of the taxation year, but the city also confirms that snowbirds and owners away for work or medical care can still declare a principal residence as occupied: the test is what the home is, not where the owner slept every night. A tenanted home counts as occupied when the tenant holds a written agreement for a term of at least 30 days and a total of at least six months in the year. Family or friends count when they occupy the home as their principal residence for at least six months. Short stays that add up to six months in fragments do not meet the city's own description.

The exemption list is specific, and each exemption carries its own documents:

• Death of a registered owner, claimable for up to three consecutive taxation years, with a death certificate.
• Principal resident in care, where the resident is in a hospital or long-term or supportive care facility for at least six months, claimable for up to two consecutive years, with a facility letter and proof the home was the principal residence first.
• Repairs or renovations that prevent occupation and normal use for at least six months, with all necessary permits issued and the work actively carried out without unnecessary delay.
• Transfer of legal ownership, where closing happened in the taxation year and 100 percent of the property transferred. Name changes and adding or removing an owner do not count.
• Occupancy for full-time employment, where the unit is required because the owner or spouse works full-time in Toronto for at least six months and the principal residence is outside the Greater Toronto Area.
• Court order prohibiting occupancy for at least six months.
• Vacant new inventory, for developers, up to two consecutive years, where the unit was never occupied since construction and was actively offered for sale.
• Secondary residence for medical reasons, a newer exemption from 2024, with a principal residence outside the Greater Toronto Area and a medical treatment certificate form. The city specifically asks people not to send personal medical documents.

Toronto also sets the enforcement terms in plain language. Declarations can be audited. Records supporting an occupancy or exemption claim must be kept for at least three years, and the city's list of audit documents runs from vehicle registration and insurance to leases, pay records and tax notices of assessment showing the address. A false declaration can draw a fine of up to $10,000 on top of the tax. Owners who were billed can file a Notice of Complaint; for the 2025 bill the dispute deadline is December 31, 2026, and an audit bill can be disputed within 90 days. An appeal of a complaint decision goes to the Deputy Treasurer in writing and that decision is final.

For buyers and sellers, Toronto attaches the tax to the property. The Vacant Home Tax forms a lien, a purchaser can be held responsible for paying it, and buying through a power of sale is not an exemption. Vendors are expected to hand the purchaser a copy of the filed declaration. Our power of sale guide covers why that as-is warning matters in a distressed purchase, and our Ontario closing costs guide covers the rest of the Toronto closing stack, including the city's second land transfer tax.

Vancouver: the oldest tax, the earliest deadline

Vancouver started its Empty Homes Tax in 2017, years before the other three cities, and its calendar is the tightest. For the 2025 reference year the declaration deadline was February 3, 2026. Every homeowner declares every year, including owners who live in the home and owners who rent it out. Co-owners file one declaration per property, and the city puts the completion time at about five minutes, which makes a missed deadline hard to excuse and easy to prove careless.

The failure terms are the sharpest of the four cities. Miss February 3 and the property is deemed vacant, taxed at 3 percent of its assessed taxable value, and the owner also receives a $250 by-law ticket for the late declaration itself. A late declaration is still possible through the city's complaint process, and if a late declaration of occupied or exempt status is verified, the tax does not apply. That rescue path has its own long-stop dates, which the city publishes per tax year, so a missed year should be fixed in weeks, not seasons. Payment for the 2025 tax year fell on April 16, 2026.

The tax does not apply to principal residences, to properties rented for at least six months of the year, or to properties that fit an exemption. The city's exemption and evidence pages work through scenarios rather than a single list: principal residence, second home, homes under construction or redevelopment, vacant land, properties being bought and sold, homes rented or listed for sale, properties with multiple dwellings, and hazardous or damaged homes each get their own treatment, with the evidence the city expects for each. The pattern across scenarios is consistent: the status has to be true on the day you declare, and the paperwork has to exist before the city asks for it in an audit.

Vancouver owners also carry the provincial layer described in the stack section and in our BC speculation and vacancy tax guide, plus the provincial declaration that comes with it, due March 31. A Vancouver owner who files the city declaration in February and forgets the provincial one in March has still missed a filing, for a different government, on the same home. Our BC closing costs guide covers the purchase-side taxes that sit next to these annual ones.

Ottawa: the day count is 184, and the net stops at six units

Ottawa's Vacant Unit Tax began in 2023. It starts at 1 percent of the residential portion of a property's assessed value and rises by one percentage point for each additional consecutive year the property remains vacant and taxable, to a maximum of 5 percent. After a year of occupancy, the rate resets to 1 percent. Two design choices separate it from Toronto's tax. The vacancy threshold is more than 184 days unoccupied in the calendar year, a day longer than Toronto's 183-day framing of six months. And eligibility stops at properties in the residential tax class with six units or less and an eligible Municipal Property Assessment Corporation property code. A vacant unit in a larger Ottawa rental building is outside this tax entirely.

Ottawa sorts declarations into three occupancy types. The home is the owner's principal residence. Or it is the principal residence of a permitted occupant: a family member, friend or other resident who treats it as their principal residence. Or it is tenanted, which Ottawa defines as occupied by tenants for at least 184 days, in increments of at least 30 days. That tenanted definition is the detail landlords miss. Five separate month-long stays clear 150 days and still fall short of 184. Six month-long stays can still fall short if their actual dates total less than 184 days. A tenancy, or a set of tenancies, has to reach the full 184-day count.

For the 2025 occupancy year, the declaration deadline was March 19, 2026, the interim tax due date and the third Thursday in March. Late declarations are accepted until April 30 and carry a $250 fee. Properties that are declared vacant, determined vacant through the compliance process, or deemed vacant because no declaration was made are taxed at the rate for that year in the property's run of consecutive vacant years, starting at 1 percent and rising to the 5 percent ceiling.

Ottawa's audit window is published and it is long. Declarations can be audited for up to two years after the declaration date, the city can require evidence under section 4 of its Vacant Unit Tax By-law 2022-135, and an owner who disagrees with an audit determination can file a Notice of Complaint within 90 days of the determination date. The tax itself is added to the final tax bill, due on the third Thursday in June. On a sale, the tax forms a lien and unpaid tax becomes the buyer's responsibility. The city tells purchasers closing between January 1 and April 30 that the vendor completes the declaration for that cycle, and it suggests buyers ask for the confirmation email, a statutory declaration that the filed occupancy declaration is true, a representation that the home was not vacant for more than 184 days in the current or prior year, and a holdback where the city has not yet decided the file. That four-item list is the most practical paragraph any of the four cities publishes, and the checklist near the end of this guide adopts it for all four cities.

Hamilton: the newest tax, with an appeal that does not stop the clock

Hamilton is the most recent of the four. All residential property owners must declare, including owners who live in the home, owners of secondary properties and landlords. A property is vacant if it was unoccupied for more than 183 days in the previous calendar year. The rate is 1 percent of the property's current assessed value as determined by MPAC, and the bill follows in early June of the billing year.

The 2025 cycle shows how young the program still is. Declarations were due April 15, 2026, and the city then extended the mandatory deadline to May 15, 2026 after about 92 percent of homeowners had filed, stating that no penalty applied to filings inside the extension. Late declarations in the standard cycle run from April 16 to May 15 and normally carry a $250 late fee, which the 2026 extension waived. Owners who did not declare at all, or who declared the property vacant, are charged the tax. Revenues, after administrative costs, are reinvested in affordable housing initiatives, which is also where Toronto directs its Vacant Home Tax revenue.

Hamilton's published exemption list overlaps Toronto's but is not identical: principal residences, death of an owner, major renovations with a valid building permit, sale of the property, a principal resident in care or in hospital, court orders, non-profit housing, uninhabitable or hazardous properties, and model homes and unsold new inventory. Two Hamilton rules deserve emphasis. An appeal does not delay or pause payment: the full amount stays due by the bill's deadline, penalties and interest are added monthly on unpaid amounts, and a successful appeal refunds the tax and the penalties. And the appeal window for the 2025 cycle ran to October 7, 2026, or within 120 days of the bill date. Pay first, argue second, inside a fixed window.

Six ways an occupied home gets taxed anyway

Most vacant home tax bills that get disputed were not issued on truly empty homes. They were issued on paperwork failures. These are the recurring ones, each grounded in a rule above.

1. Nobody filed. In Toronto, Vancouver and Hamilton the declaration is owed by owners who live in the home, not just landlords and investors. An owner-occupied home with no declaration is deemed vacant in all three cities, and in Vancouver it also draws the $250 ticket.
2. The tenancy was too fragmented. Toronto requires a written tenancy of at least 30 days at a time totalling at least six months. Ottawa requires 184 tenanted days in increments of at least 30 days. A winter of short stays can leave a genuinely rented home short of both tests.
3. The wrong owner filed, or nobody did, after a sale. One declaration per property is the rule in Vancouver, and Toronto and Ottawa both put the declaration duty on the parties to a transaction to arrange between themselves. A closing in January, inside Ottawa's declaration window, is the classic gap: the city says the vendor declares, but the buyer inherits the lien if nobody does.
4. The exemption was real and the documents were not. Toronto wants permits for the renovation exemption and a facility letter for the in-care exemption, kept for three years. Claiming the status without the paper converts an exempt home into an audited one.
5. The second government was forgotten. Vancouver owners owe a city declaration in February and a provincial speculation and vacancy tax declaration by March 31. Filing one and not the other still leaves a deemed-vacancy risk on the missed one.
6. The appeal window was treated like a payment holiday. Hamilton states that an appeal does not pause payment. Toronto's complaint process runs on its own deadlines, December 31, 2026 for the 2025 bill. Owners who wait for the argument to settle before paying collect penalties in the meantime.

A buyer's checklist for homes in the four cities

If you are buying in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa or Hamilton, the vacant home tax belongs on the same closing checklist as the property tax certificate. Ottawa publishes its own version of this list; the version below applies its logic to all four cities.

• Ask the vendor for a copy of the filed occupancy declaration for the current cycle and the confirmation number or confirmation email that came with it.
• Ask which status was declared, principal residence, tenanted, exempt or vacant, and what evidence sits behind that status.
• Get a statutory declaration or an express representation that the home was not vacant beyond the city's day threshold in the current and prior year: more than 183 days in Toronto and Hamilton, more than 184 days in Ottawa.
• Check whether a Notice of Assessment or a supplementary audit bill is outstanding. In Toronto and Ottawa the tax is a lien on the property, so an unpaid bill follows the home to the buyer.
• Where the city has not finished deciding a year, negotiate a holdback sized to the full possible tax: 3 percent of assessed value in Toronto and Vancouver, 1 percent in Hamilton, and in Ottawa the rate for the property's position in a run of consecutive vacant years, from 1 percent in the first year to 5 percent by the fifth. On a $900,000 Toronto assessment that holdback is $27,000, which is why this item cannot be waved away as a detail.
• Diarize your own first declaration. A buyer who closes in the fall inherits the next cycle's deadline, February in Vancouver, March in Ottawa, April in Toronto and Hamilton.

Our property tax guide explains the assessment figure these percentages are applied to, and our rent increase limits guide covers the tenancy rules that decide whether a rental home stays on the right side of the tenanted tests in this guide.

Which homes owe nothing, in one place

Across all four cities, three kinds of home are consistently outside the tax. A home used as a principal residence for the required part of the year. A home tenanted on terms that meet the city's day count and minimum-term rules. And a home that fits a listed exemption for the year in question, with documents to prove it. Everything else, including a second home kept for family visits that never reaches six months of qualifying occupancy, is taxable in Toronto and Vancouver at 3 percent, in Hamilton at 1 percent, and in Ottawa at a rate that starts at 1 percent and can rise to 5 percent over consecutive vacant years. Owners who split the year between two homes should work out, city by city, which home qualifies as their principal residence, because each city allows only one, and the other home's status then has to be earned through tenancy, an exemption, or the tax.

The direction of travel is also worth stating plainly. Toronto has already tripled its rate once, from 1 percent to 3 percent. Vancouver has charged 3 percent for years. Hamilton joined in 2025 and Ottawa in 2023. Nothing in the four programs is scheduled to shrink, and every one of the four cities ties the revenue, in its own wording, to housing supply or affordable housing programs. An owner holding an empty home in one of these cities should budget the tax as a recurring annual cost at the current rate, not as a one-year penalty that might be repealed before the next declaration.