Wise Property Management · Canada
Short Term Rental Rules,
City By City.
Wise Property Management runs short term rentals across Canada for owners converting the home they live in. Every market below carries the rules that decide whether that is possible, read off the municipality’s own site and cited.
Most Canadian cities now permit short term rental only in a principal residence. That closed the door on investors and left it open for homeowners. Each market page below states the registration cost, the night cap, the accommodation tax and the penalties for that city, with a link to the source for every figure.
The Markets
One page per city. Every figure on every page is read off that municipality’s own site and linked back to it.
Calgary, AlbertaNo Residency Rule
Calgary does not require you to live in the property. It licenses a Non-Primary Residence short term rental outright, which makes it one of the few major Canadian cities an investor can still enter. It is also the city I live in, and the only market where the cleaning and maintenance crews are my own companies rather than a vendor I coordinate.
Edmonton, AlbertaNo Residency Rule
Edmonton publishes no principal residence requirement. A property you do not live in can be licensed and run as a short term rental, the same as in Calgary. I already operate here, and this page states what the City publishes and stops where the City stops.
Radium Hot Springs, British ColumbiaExempt From The B.C. Rule
British Columbia closed almost every urban market to anyone who does not live in the unit. Radium Hot Springs is named in the regulation as exempt. A property you do not live in can be registered and run here, legally, and I already run one.
Toronto, Ontario180 Nights
Toronto permits short term rentals in a principal residence and nowhere else. That makes this a homeowner market rather than an investor market. If you live in the unit, it can be registered, listed and run properly, and I run it.
Vancouver, British Columbia$1,108 A Year
Vancouver licenses short term rentals in a principal residence only, one licence per person, at the highest annual fee in the country. It is a homeowner market by design. If you live in the unit, it can be licensed, registered and run, and I run it.
Victoria, British Columbia160 Nights
Victoria licenses short term rentals in your principal dwelling only, and caps a whole home at 160 nights a year. The licence is cheap. The cap is the whole business case, and it is what the calendar gets managed against.
Ottawa, Ontario5% Tax
Ottawa issues a host permit for your principal residence, and a separate cottage rental permit in the rural area. It is one of the few Canadian markets with a lawful route for a property you do not live in, and the limits on both are published clearly.
Whistler, British ColumbiaZoning Decides
Whistler is the exception. There is no principal residence test here, so an investment property is lawful. What decides it instead is zoning, and residential zoning cannot be used for tourist accommodation at any price. Check the zoning before you buy, not after.
Squamish, British Columbia$400 A Year
Squamish licenses short term rentals in a principal residence only, held by an individual rather than a company, and it is stricter than the provincial rule it sits under. The non principal residence route is closed: all thirty permits have been issued.
The Blue Mountains, OntarioException Area
The Blue Mountains does not ask where you live. It asks where the property is. Inside the designated Exception Area a licence is available. Outside it, new licences have been frozen since 2023, and eighty dollars will tell you which one you own.
Prince Edward County, Ontario45 Nights Off Site
Prince Edward County has one rule that decides everything. If you are on site for the full calendar year there is no night limit. If you are off site, the property may be rented for forty five days a year. Everything else is process.
Regina, Saskatchewan$100 A Year
Regina licenses short term accommodation in your principal residence for a hundred dollars a year, and it counts a suite inside that residence as part of it. New secondary property licences are frozen until the city vacancy rate recovers.
What Every Market Page Carries
The same four things, so two cities can be compared without reading two different documents.
The Rules That Gate It
Whether the city allows it at all, whether you have to live there, what registration costs and what the night cap is. The facts that decide whether there is a business before anything else matters.
The Tax On Top
Municipal, regional and provincial accommodation tax, stated as a rate. It is collected on the stay and remitted. It is not revenue and it never lands in your net.
The Penalty For Getting It Wrong
First offence amounts where the municipality publishes them, and a plain note where it does not. Penalties in this country now run from $500 to $10,000 for a first offence depending on the city.
A Link To The Source
Every figure traces to the city or the province’s own page, listed at the bottom of each market page and marked up as a citation. Check the work rather than trust it.
Short Term Rentals As A Share Of Housing
Every market on one measure, from one source, for one reference year. This is what each city is regulating against.
| Market | Dwellings | Short Term Rentals | Share Of Stock |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calgary Calgary census metropolitan area | 565,286 | 1,846 | 0.33% |
| Toronto Toronto census metropolitan area | 2,270,741 | 8,266 | 0.36% |
| Vancouver Vancouver census metropolitan area | 1,048,029 | 4,714 | 0.45% |
| Victoria Victoria census metropolitan area | 178,367 | 1,597 | 0.90% |
| Ottawa Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area | 605,768 | 1,565 | 0.26% |
| Whistler Resort Municipality of Whistler | 8,611 | 3,016 | 35.0% |
| The Blue Mountains Town of The Blue Mountains | 5,007 | 662 | 13.2% |
| Prince Edward County Prince Edward County | 11,909 | 579 | 4.9% |
| Regina Regina census metropolitan area | 100,430 | 215 | 0.21% |
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Short-term rentals in the Canadian housing market, Catalogue no. 11-621-M2024010, 2024. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. Reference year 2021. Squamish, Edmonton and Radium Hot Springs are not listed here: Squamish is not broken out in that study, and the Edmonton and Radium figures have not been read.
What Is Not On These Pages
Naming the gaps is what makes the rest of it believable.
No Revenue Estimate
Not one occupancy figure, nightly rate or annual revenue number appears on any market page, because none of them would trace back to a source I can show you. What a property earns comes out of underwriting once the address is known.
No Figure A City Contradicts
Ottawa publishes two different permit fees on its own website. That page therefore publishes neither. A figure that cannot be confirmed does not ship with a hedge attached, it does not ship.
No City I Have Not Read
Markets are added one at a time, after the municipality’s own rules have been read end to end. An empty spot on this list means the reading has not been done, not that the market is closed.
What I Run In Every Market
One team instead of three vendors pointing at each other. Twenty percent of net revenue, month to month, no onboarding fee and no monthly minimum.
Guest Communication
Fast responses, pre arrival messaging, check in support and full stay coverage, on the same clock as every property under management. You never have to answer a guest.
Turnover Management
Scheduling, quality control, laundry and staging on every reset, with photo proof filed against the property. Outside Calgary the crew is local, vetted and run to the CleanStays standard.
Issue Coordination
Maintenance, access problems and urgent requests routed to a vetted local trade and quoted before any work happens. Nothing gets done and then billed.
Listing And Rate Strategy
Photography direction, title, description and amenity strategy, plus pricing and review management. In a capped market the calendar is managed for rate, not for occupancy.
Registration And Tax Admin
Registration, annual renewal, the licence number displayed on the listing, and accommodation tax tracked and remitted. The part owners forget until the city writes to them.
Registration, night caps and accommodation tax are set by each municipality and change. Confirm the current rules, and your own condominium declaration or lease, before you list. Nothing here is legal advice.
Find Your Market.
Then Send Me The Address.
Read the rules for your city, confirm your condo declaration or your lease allows it, then tell me the building and the bedroom count.