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Vacant Home Tax Calculator — Toronto, Vancouver and the Federal Tax That No Longer Applies
Up to three levels of government have taxed the same empty Canadian home. They do not share a rate, a declaration, a deadline or a definition of vacancy, and one of them was repealed this spring. Which of them reaches your property depends on the city it sits in, and the difference between one layer and two is the whole answer.
Educational calculators — always consult a licensed professional before making financial decisions.
Your property
Every vacancy tax is charged on assessment, not market price: in Toronto the MPAC Current Value Assessment on your tax bill, in Vancouver BC Assessment's taxable value.
Toronto carries one layer, the city's 3%, because Ontario has no provincial vacancy tax. Vancouver carries two: the city's 3% Empty Homes Tax and BC's speculation and vacancy tax.
3% Empty Homes Tax plus BC's provincial tax. Two layers.
Vacant broadly means more than six months without a principal resident or qualifying tenant. Miss the annual declaration and the city deems the home vacant, occupied or not.
Broadly: unoccupied for more than six months, with no qualifying exemption.
Miss it and the city assumes the property was vacant — even if you were living in it.
Sets BC's speculation and vacancy tax rate for 2026: 1% for Canadian citizens and permanent residents, 3% for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners. Neither city's rate changes.
Repealed from 2025 onward, but returns for 2022, 2023 and 2024 are still required. The minimum penalty per unfiled return is C$1,000 for an individual, C$2,000 for a corporation.
The federal tax is gone from 2025 onward — but those three years are not.
Sets the federal minimum penalty per unfiled UHT return.
Annual vacancy tax · City of Vancouver
C$80,000.00
4.00% of assessed value, every year · all figures in Canadian dollars (CAD)
Two governments, two declarations, one empty home
Empty Homes Tax
City of Vancouver · 3% · declare by February 3
Speculation and Vacancy Tax
Province of British Columbia · 1% · declare by March 31
These two are levied by different governments, on separate declarations, with different deadlines. Filing one does not file the other, and claiming an exemption from one does not claim it from the other. Together they take 4.00% of the assessed value every year the property stays empty.
Federal Underused Housing Tax
Nothing owed. The federal tax was eliminated from the 2025 calendar year, and you have indicated no unfiled returns for 2022, 2023 or 2024.
The Underused Housing Tax adds C$0.00 to a 2026 holding. Bill C-15 received Royal Assent on 26 March 2026 and eliminated the tax for the 2025 and subsequent calendar years; the Canada Revenue Agency states that affected owners do not need to file a return or pay the tax for those years. It also states, in the same breath, that the requirement still applies to 2022, 2023 and 2024 — which is why the back-year figure above exists at all.
These two layers are levied by different governments on different declarations with different deadlines, and both apply to the same empty property in the same year. Filing one does not file the other.
All figures in Canadian dollars (CAD). Toronto's Vacant Home Tax is 3% of Current Value Assessment beginning with the 2024 taxation year, declared by April 30, with the property deemed vacant if no declaration is filed and a fine of up to C$10,000 for a false declaration — read at toronto.ca on 2 September 2026, page date modified 22 July 2026. Vancouver's Empty Homes Tax is 3% of assessed taxable value for the 2025 reference year under Vacancy Tax By-law No. 11674, declared by 3 February 2026 — read at vancouver.ca on 2 September 2026. British Columbia's speculation and vacancy tax for the 2026 tax year is 3% for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners and 1% for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who are not, declared by March 31 — read at gov.bc.ca on 2 September 2026, rates page last updated 3 July 2026. The federal Underused Housing Tax figures come from the Canada Revenue Agency's own pages, read the same day. Not modelled: the vacancy taxes of Ottawa, Hamilton and other municipalities, and the BC designated taxable areas beyond Vancouver. This is not legal or tax advice.
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The layers, and which ones stack
A vacancy tax is charged for the year you owned the property and left it empty, and it is charged again the next year, and the year after that. Unlike a land transfer tax it does not go away after closing. That is why the number of layers matters more than any single rate.
Vancouver carries two. Toronto carries one.
The City of Vancouver's 3% Empty Homes Tax and British Columbia's provincial speculation and vacancy tax both land on the same empty property, in the same year, on separate declarations with different deadlines. Ontario levies no provincial equivalent, so the City of Toronto's 3% Vacant Home Tax stands alone. Two identically assessed empty homes, one in each city, do not carry the same bill — and no table of rates can show you that, because the answer depends on which combination applies to you.
Every one of these is charged on an assessed value — Toronto's Current Value Assessment from MPAC, Vancouver's taxable value from BC Assessment — rather than on a market price or on what the owner paid. In a market where assessments trail sales, entering a listing price will overstate the bill by a wide margin.
The same C$2,000,000 assessed value, empty all year
| Property and owner | Municipal (CAD) | Provincial (CAD) | Federal 2026 (CAD) | Per year (CAD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vancouver · foreign owner | C$60,000.00 | C$60,000.00 | C$0.00 | C$120,000.00 |
| Vancouver · Canadian citizen | C$60,000.00 | C$20,000.00 | C$0.00 | C$80,000.00 |
| Toronto · foreign owner | C$60,000.00 | C$0.00 | C$0.00 | C$60,000.00 |
| Toronto · Canadian citizen | C$60,000.00 | C$0.00 | C$0.00 | C$60,000.00 |
| Most of Canada | C$0.00 | C$0.00 | C$0.00 | C$0.00 |
All figures in Canadian dollars, 2026 tax year. The two Toronto rows are identical because a municipal vacancy tax does not care who owns the property; the two Vancouver rows differ by C$40,000.00 because the provincial layer does — 3% for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners against 1% for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who are not. British Columbia's foreign rate rises again to 4% for the 2027 tax year. The federal column is zero throughout for the reason set out below, and it was not zero a year ago. Rates read 2 September 2026.
The federal tax was repealed — forwards, not backwards
The federal Underused Housing Tax charged 1% of a property's taxable value and required an annual return from every affected owner, whether tax was payable or not. It is gone. Bill C-15 received Royal Assent on 26 March 2026, and the Canada Revenue Agency states that affected owners do not need to file a return or pay the tax for the 2025 and subsequent calendar years.
The half that is still live, and it is expensive
The CRA says in the same breath that the requirement to file and pay still applies to the 2022, 2023 and 2024 calendar years. An affected owner who never filed for those three years, holding a property with a C$2,000,000 taxable value, owes C$60,000.00 of tax plus a minimum penalty of C$1,000.00 per unfiled return as an individual, or C$2,000.00 as a corporation. The minimums are per return, and a separate return is required for each property and each capacity in which it is owned.
Both halves of that are worth stating plainly because both are commonly got wrong. Advice written before the spring still adds 1% to a current year that owes nothing; advice written after it often drops the tax entirely and tells an owner with three unfiled returns that they are clear. This calculator models the current year at zero and the back years at what they actually cost.
The declaration is the expensive part
Neither city waits to find out whether your home was empty. Both ask you, annually, and both treat silence as a confession. Toronto's deadline is April 30, and where no declaration is submitted the City assumes the property was vacant and issues a Notice of Assessment. Vancouver's Vacancy Tax By-law works the same way; the 2025 reference year declaration was due 3 February 2026, with payment due 16 April 2026. British Columbia's provincial declaration is separate again and due March 31 each year.
What a missed form costs in Toronto
A family living in their own C$1,200,000-assessed Toronto home all year, who does not declare by April 30, is billed C$36,000.00. Toronto can add a fine of up to C$10,000 for a false declaration or for failing to provide information when requested, on top of the tax itself. The declaration is free. Nothing else on this page is anywhere near as cheap to avoid.
British Columbia charges an owner who does not declare at the maximum rate. Two provincial pages currently disagree on what that maximum is for 2026 — the rates page (updated 3 July 2026) puts it at 3%, while the how-the-tax-works page (updated 31 December 2025) still says 2% — so confirm the figure with the province before relying on it.
What this calculator does not model, and why
Ottawa and Hamilton levy municipal vacant unit taxes of their own, and British Columbia's provincial tax reaches designated taxable areas well beyond the City of Vancouver — the Capital Regional District, Kelowna, Nanaimo and others. Each of those is a separate by-law or a separate designation, and modelling them from memory rather than from each government's own current page is how a calculator ends up confidently wrong. Toronto and Vancouver are modelled because each publishes its rate and its by-law, and because between them they show the one structural thing a reader needs: that the number of layers is not the same everywhere. If your city is not here, treat the result as a floor.
Also not modelled: the exemption lists. Both cities publish long ones — renovation, the owner's death, medical care, court orders, a change of ownership during the year — and every one of them is a status test rather than an arithmetic one. An exemption is something you claim on the declaration, not something that applies by itself, so the honest thing a calculator can do is tell you the deadline rather than guess at your eligibility.
One-off taxes on buying a Canadian property are a different subject and have their own tools: the foreign buyer tax calculator prices Ontario's NRST and BC's additional property transfer tax, the land transfer tax calculator covers all ten provinces, and the Canadian property tax calculator handles the ordinary annual municipal tax that a vacancy tax sits on top of. If the property is a rental rather than an empty one, the rental property ROI calculator is the better starting point. All free, all browser-side, no signup on any of them.
Renting it out instead?
A tenant is usually cheaper than 6% a year
Both cities exempt a property occupied under a tenancy of a qualifying length. Six percent of assessed value buys a great deal of property management.
Methodology
Every rate, deadline and penalty on this page was read at the government that levies it, on 2 September 2026: toronto.ca for the Vacant Home Tax, vancouver.ca for the Empty Homes Tax, gov.bc.ca for the speculation and vacancy tax, and canada.ca for the Underused Housing Tax and its repeal. No aggregator and no US source was used. Five hand-worked examples in Canadian dollars, each naming its city and province, are written out in the header of src/lib/calculators/ca/vacant-home-tax.ts so they can be checked without running the code. Two of them are edge cases: the missed-declaration cliff, where an occupied home is taxed anyway, and the federal repeal boundary between the 2024 and 2025 calendar years.
Nothing here is estimated or averaged. The layers are modelled separately and summed, never blended into a single rate, because a blended rate cannot show that the municipal layer is blind to who owns the property while the provincial one is not. Where two government pages disagree we say so rather than pick: British Columbia's rates page and its how-the-tax-works page currently state different maximum rates for a failure to declare, and that discrepancy is printed above rather than resolved by guessing.
All figures are in Canadian dollars and labelled C$ or CAD throughout, including the table above and the structured data. The calculator runs entirely in your browser; nothing is collected, stored or emailed, and there is no signup. This is not legal or tax advice — your city's assessment and your own declaration decide what you actually owe.
Sources
- City of Toronto — Vacant Home Tax (3% of Current Value Assessment beginning with the 2024 taxation year; April 30 declaration deadline; property deemed vacant if no declaration; fine of up to C$10,000 for a false declaration, in addition to the tax). Page date modified July 22, 2026. — checked 2026-09-02
- City of Vancouver — Empty Homes Tax (3% of the property's assessed taxable value for the 2025 reference year; declaration due February 3, 2026; payment due April 16, 2026; imposed under Vacancy Tax By-law No. 11674). — checked 2026-09-02
- Government of British Columbia — Speculation and vacancy tax rates (2026 tax year: 3% for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners, 1% for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who are not untaxed worldwide earners). Page last updated July 3, 2026. — checked 2026-09-02
- Government of British Columbia — How the speculation and vacancy tax works (declaration due March 31 of each year; charged on assessed value; designated taxable areas only). Page last updated December 31, 2025. — checked 2026-09-02
- Canada Revenue Agency — What has changed, Underused Housing Tax (Bill C-15 received Royal Assent March 26, 2026; no return and no tax for 2025 and subsequent calendar years; the requirement still applies to 2022, 2023 and 2024). — checked 2026-09-02
- Canada Revenue Agency — Underused Housing Tax Notice UHTN3, Filing a Return and Paying the Underused Housing Tax (return due April 30 of the following calendar year; minimum penalty C$1,000 for individuals and C$2,000 for corporations per unfiled return). — checked 2026-09-02
- Canada Revenue Agency — Underused Housing Tax Notice UHTN1, Introduction to the Underused Housing Tax (1% federal tax; who is an affected owner; a separate return per property and per ownership capacity). — checked 2026-09-02
Frequently asked questions
Do the Canadian vacant home taxes stack on the same property?
In Vancouver, yes. The City of Vancouver's Empty Homes Tax at 3% of assessed taxable value and British Columbia's provincial speculation and vacancy tax both apply to the same empty property in the same year, on separate declarations with different deadlines. For a foreign owner in the 2026 tax year that is 3% plus 3%, so C$120,000 CAD a year on a C$2,000,000 assessment. In Toronto only the municipal 3% applies, because Ontario levies no provincial vacancy tax — the same C$2,000,000 assessment costs C$60,000 CAD a year there.
Is the federal Underused Housing Tax still in effect in 2026?
No. Bill C-15 received Royal Assent on 26 March 2026, and the Canada Revenue Agency states that affected owners do not need to file a return or pay the tax for the 2025 and subsequent calendar years. It adds nothing to a 2026 holding. The CRA is equally explicit that the requirement to file and pay still applies to the 2022, 2023 and 2024 calendar years, so an affected owner who never filed for those years still owes 1% of the taxable value for each of them, plus a minimum penalty of C$1,000 CAD per unfiled return for an individual and C$2,000 CAD for a corporation.
What happens if I miss the vacant home tax declaration deadline?
The city assumes the property was vacant and bills you, whether it was or not. Toronto's declaration is due April 30 and states that where none is submitted the City will assume the property was vacant and send a Notice of Assessment; Vancouver's Vacancy Tax By-law works the same way, with the 2025 reference year declaration due 3 February 2026. On a C$1,200,000 Toronto Current Value Assessment that is a C$36,000 CAD bill on a home your family lived in all year. Toronto can add a fine of up to C$10,000 CAD for a false declaration or for failing to provide information when asked, in addition to the tax.
What value is the vacant home tax charged on?
The assessed value, not the market price and not what you paid. Toronto charges 3% of the Current Value Assessment set by MPAC, the figure that appears on your property tax bill. Vancouver charges 3% of the assessed taxable value from BC Assessment, and British Columbia's provincial tax is charged on assessed value as well. In a market where assessments trail sale prices, using a listing price will overstate the bill.
Does the BC speculation and vacancy tax rate depend on who owns the property?
Yes, and this is the one layer that does. For the 2026 tax year British Columbia charges 1% of assessed value for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who are not untaxed worldwide earners, and 3% for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide earners. The rate rises again to 4% for foreign owners from the 2027 tax year. Neither municipal tax draws this distinction: Toronto's 3% and Vancouver's 3% apply at the same rate to every owner.
Which Canadian cities charge a vacant home tax?
Most charge none at all. Toronto and Vancouver are the two modelled here because each publishes its own rate and by-law and because they differ in the way that matters — one layer against two. Ottawa and Hamilton also levy a municipal vacant unit tax, and British Columbia's provincial speculation and vacancy tax reaches designated taxable areas well beyond the City of Vancouver. If your municipality is not modelled, treat this calculator's result as a floor and check your own city's page.
Want to try different numbers?
Back to the calculator ↑Vacant Home Tax Calculator is built and maintained by the RealCostIQ editorial team. Cost ranges and rates are checked against published industry data and contractor quotes, and revised when the underlying figures move. Read our data methodology or more about who builds this. Every calculation runs in your browser — no account, and none of your inputs are stored.
Cost ranges and rates here are checked against contractor quotes and published industry data. If a number still looks off, email Support@RealCostIQ.com and we'll review and fix it.