Short-Term Rental Rules in B.C. (2026): Registration, the Principal Residence Rule and Vancouver Licences
If you own a condo in Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey or any of the 78 communities on B.C.'s list, and you don't live in it, you can't rent it out by the night. That has been provincial law since May 1, 2024. Since May 1, 2025 every short-term rental host in B.C. also needs a provincial registration number, and from June 2025 the platforms started pulling listings that don't have one.
Two groups have the most riding on this: condo owners who bought with Airbnb income in the spreadsheet, and buyers looking at a presale tower that's being called "Airbnb-friendly." The answer for both starts with the same rule. Below is that rule, where it applies (and where it doesn't), what registration and a Vancouver licence cost, what your strata can still do on top, the penalties, and what I'd do with a unit that no longer pencils as a nightly rental.
Source: Government of B.C., principal residence requirement page (updated Sept 21, 2026); B.C. host registration page; City of Vancouver STR licence page; City of Vancouver open data, business licences (type “Short-term Rental Operator”, status Issued as of Oct 17, 2026, the day the data was pulled). 2026 count is year to date.
The rule: principal residence plus one suite
B.C.'s Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act was introduced on October 16, 2023 and received Royal Assent on October 26, 2023. A "short-term rental" under the Act is accommodation offered to the public for less than 90 consecutive days. A booking of 90 days or more is outside the Act and doesn't need registration.
In communities where the principal residence requirement applies, a host can short-term rent only:
- their principal residence, meaning the usual place where they make their home day to day, and
- one secondary suite or one accessory dwelling unit (laneway home, carriage house, garden suite) on the same property.
You get one principal residence at a time. The renewal page puts it plainly: you can't designate several properties as your principal residence.
The Province's own examples on its host registration page make the edges clear. A homeowner who lives on the main floor and has both a basement suite and a laneway house can short-term rent the main floor while away, bedrooms any time, and either the suite or the laneway house, but not both. Someone who owns his home plus five condos in the same city can short-term rent the home and none of the condos. In a community where the requirement doesn't apply, a person who owns three apartments and lives in one can rent any of them by the night.
The provincial rule is a floor, not a ceiling. Cities can be stricter, and Vancouver is (more on that below). Two other changes that took effect on May 1, 2024 matter here: legal non-conforming use protection no longer covers short-term rentals, so "we've always done it" doesn't save a unit that breaks a local bylaw, and hosts must show their local business licence number on listings where a licence is required.
Where it applies and where it doesn't
The requirement applies in municipalities with 10,000 or more people and in smaller municipalities within 15 km of one of them. Communities can also opt in. As of June 1, 2026 the Province's list has 78 entries, including several regional district electoral areas. All Metro Vancouver municipalities except Lions Bay (20 of 21) are on it, plus the UBC and University Endowment Lands electoral area.
| Area | Principal residence rule |
|---|---|
| Metro Vancouver (20 municipalities) | Applies: Anmore, Belcarra, Bowen Island, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Delta, Langley (City), Langley (Township), Maple Ridge, New Westminster, North Vancouver (City), North Vancouver (District), Pitt Meadows, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Richmond, Surrey, Vancouver, West Vancouver, White Rock |
| UBC and University Endowment Lands | Applies (Metro Vancouver electoral area) |
| Lions Bay | Exempt (under 10,000 people) |
| Fraser Valley and Sea to Sky | Applies: Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission, Kent, Squamish, Pemberton |
| Whistler, Tofino, Ucluelet, Revelstoke, Fernie | Exempt (Tofino opted out Nov 1, 2025) |
| Kelowna, West Kelowna | Exempt (Kelowna opted out June 1, 2026; city plans its own limits) |
| Ski resort areas | Exempt, incl. Cypress Mountain, Grouse Mountain, Mount Seymour |
| Farm land (BC Assessment Class 9) | Exempt (ALR designation alone is not enough) |
Source: Government of B.C., principal residence requirement page (updated Sept 21, 2026); B.C. news release, April 30, 2025 (Tofino opt-out); B.C. news release, April 17, 2026 (Kelowna). Exempt areas still need provincial registration and must follow local bylaws.
The list moves every year. A municipality on it can ask to opt out if its rental vacancy rate has been 3% or more for two consecutive years; the resolution is due February 28 and the change takes effect June 1. Exempt communities can opt in by the same February 28 date, effective November 1. In 2025 Creston, Salt Spring Island and a Columbia Shuswap electoral area asked to opt in, and Tofino plus two Cowichan Valley electoral areas opted out.
The 2026 change worth knowing is Kelowna. It was the only local government to ask to opt out this year, and a one-time regulation made that effective June 1, 2026. The city says it intends to limit primary-use (non-principal-residence) short-term rentals to buildings in tourism-zoned areas, so "Kelowna is exempt" doesn't mean any Kelowna condo can go on Airbnb. Hosts there still upload a local business licence when they register.
Two practical points. "Exempt" means exempt from the principal residence rule, not from registration: hosts there still register. And no Metro Vancouver city has opted out. Greater Vancouver's purpose-built vacancy rate hit 3.7% in CMHC's October 2025 survey, but the test is two consecutive years and each city has to ask.
Provincial registration: fees, renewal, platforms
The provincial short-term rental registry opened in January 2025. Since May 1, 2025 every host, platform and strata hotel platform operating in B.C. has to be registered, including hosts in areas where the principal residence rule doesn't apply. The number goes on every listing, and the platform checks it.
| Who | Annual fee | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Host, unit you live in | $100 + $1.50 | Your home while you're away, or rooms in it |
| Host, unit you don't live in | $450 + $1.50 | Suite or laneway home on your property; a second property in an exempt area; a strata hotel unit listed on a third-party site |
| Major platform (1,000+ listings) | $5,000 + $1.50 | 1,000 or more listings |
| Medium or minor platform | $600 + $1.50 | Under 1,000 listings |
| City of Vancouver licence | $1,108 + $77 application | Required on top of provincial registration; $111 late fee on renewal |
Source: B.C. host registration, renewal page (Sept 9, 2026), platform registration; City of Vancouver. Provincial fees are not refunded if an application is denied.
A few details that trip people up:
- It's per unit, not per property. A house with a main-floor rental and a laneway home needs two registrations, and a bedroom with no kitchen still counts.
- You hand over real information. The application asks for the parcel identifier (PID), the owner's name, date of birth and Social Insurance Number, and, in principal residence areas, documents proving you live there. Changes have to be reported within 14 days.
- It expires every year. Registrations last one year. Hosts can renew from 40 days before expiry, and the registry sends reminders at 40, 14 and 1 day out. The early-registration discounts from 2025 are gone; renewal is $101.50 or $451.50 including the service fee. Renewals began in January 2026.
- Typos get you delisted. Platforms match the registration number, its status and the address, down to the unit number and postal code. If they don't match exactly, the listing comes down and future bookings can be cancelled.
- The 90-day line beats the local one. If your city's licence only covers stays of 30 days or less, a 31-to-89-night rental can need provincial registration without a city licence.
| Date | What changed |
|---|---|
| Oct 16, 2023 | Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act introduced |
| Oct 26, 2023 | Act receives Royal Assent |
| Dec 8, 2023 | Reference date for the strata hotel exemption |
| May 1, 2024 | Principal residence requirement in effect; business licence numbers required on listings; non-conforming use protection ends |
| June 2024 | Multinational platforms start reporting listing data to the Province monthly |
| Jan 2025 | Provincial registry opens |
| May 1, 2025 | Registration number required on every listing |
| June 2 and 23, 2025 | Platforms must stop advertising, then cancel bookings for, unregistered listings |
| Jan 2026 | First annual renewals |
| June 1, 2026 | Kelowna opt-out takes effect |
| 2027 | Opt-out requests due Feb 28, effective June 1; opt-in effective Nov 1 |
Source: Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act; Short-Term Rental Accommodations Regulation; B.C. news releases of Apr 18, 2024, Jan 20, 2025, Apr 30, 2025, Dec 17, 2025 and Apr 17, 2026.
Vancouver's licence is stricter
The City of Vancouver short-term rental licence sits on top of the provincial registration, and the city's rule is tighter than the Province's:
- The unit must be your principal residence: where you live, pay bills and get mail. One licence per person.
- You can rent the whole home or a room, for less than 90 consecutive days.
- A laneway house, basement suite or secondary suite can be licensed only if you live in that unit. You can't live upstairs and run the suite as a nightly rental, and you can't rent both. Garages and studios are out.
- Before applying you need written approval from your strata corporation, or from your landlord if you rent.
- The fee is $1,108 a year plus a $77 application fee, renewed by December 31. Fines run up to $1,000 per offence.
So in Vancouver specifically, the provincial "plus one suite" allowance doesn't help a homeowner who lives in the main house. If you're buying a house with a suite in Vancouver and the seller mentions nightly rental income from that suite, ask how it's licensed.
The city publishes every licence in its open data. For 2026 it shows 3,904 short-term rental operator licences with status Issued so far this year, against 3,075 for 2025 and 2,989 for 2024. Another 449 2026 licences are marked gone out of business and 186 cancelled.
One caution on comparing years: the status is each licence's status today, so older years have had more time to be cancelled or closed. Counting licences of any status, the totals are 4,568 for 2024, 4,201 for 2025 and 4,795 for 2026, so 2026 is still the highest, but by less than the Issued counts suggest.
Source: City of Vancouver open data, business licences (type “Short-term Rental Operator”, status Issued as of Oct 17, 2026, the day the data was pulled)
Show the numbers
| Licences issued | |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 2,989 |
| 2025 | 3,075 |
| 2026 (to Oct 17) | 3,904 |
Source: City of Vancouver open data, business licences (type “Short-term Rental Operator”, status Issued as of Oct 17, 2026, the day the data was pulled). Local area as recorded in the dataset.
Show the numbers
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Downtown | 920 |
| Kensington-Cedar Cottage | 305 |
| Kitsilano | 303 |
| Hastings-Sunrise | 237 |
| Renfrew-Collingwood | 224 |
| Riley Park | 224 |
| Dunbar-Southlands | 188 |
| Grandview-Woodland | 185 |
| Mount Pleasant | 181 |
| Sunset | 165 |
Downtown has 920 of them, close to a quarter. After that the licences spread across house neighbourhoods on the east side and Kitsilano, which fits a rule that only works for people renting the home they live in. Each licence requires the unit to be the operator's principal residence. These are licence counts, not nights booked, so they tell you how many people are set up to host, not how much hosting happens.
Your strata can still say no
None of the provincial rules overrides a strata bylaw. The Province's strata guidance says strata corporations can still have bylaws that limit or ban short-term rentals, passed by a 3/4 vote of owners, and those bylaws can be stricter than the Act. Since November 30, 2018 a strata can fine up to $1,000 a day for breaking a short-term rental bylaw (the old cap was $200 a week).
The contrast with long-term rentals matters. Since November 24, 2022 a strata can't ban or restrict long-term tenancies. So a building can allow you to rent your unit to a tenant on a one-year lease and still ban the same unit on Airbnb, even if you live there. And Vancouver won't issue the licence without the strata's written approval.
The Province doesn't share its platform data with strata councils, so enforcement in a building still mostly comes from neighbours and the council. If you're buying, read the bylaws and the last two years of minutes for short-term rental complaints and fines. It's the same document review I'd do for the depreciation report before removing subjects.
Penalties
The Province has a Compliance and Enforcement Unit that investigates tips, issues compliance orders (which can be filed in B.C. Supreme Court), and imposes administrative penalties. The maximums are set in Schedule 4 of the regulation, and the Act lets the director impose a separate penalty for each day a contravention continues.
| Contravention | 1st | 2nd | 3rd+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breaking the principal residence rule | $5,000 | $7,500 | $10,000 |
| Host failing to register | $5,000 | $7,500 | $10,000 |
| False info on registration | $5,000 | $7,500 | $10,000 |
| No registration number on listing | $500 | $750 | $1,000 |
| No business licence number on listing | $500 | $750 | $1,000 |
| Platform not validating numbers | $10,000 | $15,000 | $20,000 |
Source: Short-Term Rental Accommodations Regulation, Schedule 4; daily penalties under section 27 of the Act. Local governments can add bylaw tickets of up to $3,000 per infraction per day (gov.bc.ca).
The one decision the unit has published shows how the daily math works. In March 2025 a host who ran short-term rentals in three Victoria properties that weren't his principal residence was ordered to pay $34,400, set at $400 per property for each day of contravention in September 2024, 86 property-days in all (per the decision summary and full decision). He had taken the listings down after the unit contacted him, then put them back up. Add your strata's $1,000 a day and a city ticket, and the downside of guessing wrong is much bigger than a season of bookings.
If you own a condo you don't live in
In any of the 78 listed communities the nightly option is gone for an investor unit, full stop. The realistic choices are a long-term tenancy, a furnished rental of 90 days or more per booking (outside the Act, though it may still be a tenancy under the Residential Tenancy Act, so get advice on which), or selling.
Here's what the long-term numbers look like on a typical listing. This is a hypothetical, not a quote for your unit.
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Median condo asking price, Vancouver | $798,986 |
| CMHC average 2-bed rent | $2,363/mo |
| Gross yearly rent / price | 3.55% |
| Same, 1-bed ($1,806) | 2.71% |
| 2027 cap (2.2%) on 2-bed rent | ~$52/mo |
Source: EstateBlock.com live listings, snapshot Oct 17, 2026 (2,298 active Vancouver condo listings; asking prices of active listings, not sale prices); CMHC Rental Market Survey, Vancouver data tables, Oct 2025 (purpose-built apartments, Vancouver CMA); B.C. 2027 rent cap release. Gross figures before strata fees, property tax, insurance and mortgage interest.
About 3.5% gross before strata fees, tax and interest isn't exciting, and I won't pretend it is. But it's legal, it's predictable, and it stacks with the annual increase: the cap for 2027 is 2.2%, which I break down in dollars in my BC rent increase 2027 post. CMHC's 2-bedroom figure is a purpose-built average; a newer condo in a good location may rent for more, an older one for less, so price your own unit against current comparable listings.
Three things I'd check before you decide:
- Don't just leave it empty. A vacant unit can have its own tax consequences, so check the speculation and vacancy tax and, in Vancouver, the Empty Homes Tax. Run the numbers with my speculation and vacancy tax calculator and the Vancouver Empty Homes Tax calculator.
- Selling is a real option, not a failure. If the purchase only made sense at nightly rates, compare the after-tax result of selling now with holding as a long-term rental; my post on capital gains tax on a property sale shows how that tax is worked out. My investor guide walks through holding costs.
- Exempt areas aren't a loophole for Metro Vancouver owners. A cabin in Whistler or a condo in a Kelowna tourism-zoned building may still be able to run nightly, subject to local bylaws, the strata and registration. Your condo in Burnaby can't borrow that status.
Presales sold as "Airbnb-friendly"
When a marketing brochure says a building is "Airbnb-friendly", it usually means the developer's proposed strata bylaws don't ban short-term rentals. That's all. It doesn't override the principal residence rule. In Metro Vancouver, an investor who buys that unit and doesn't live in it still can't rent it by the night, and in Vancouver even an owner-occupant needs the strata's written approval and a city licence.
The one real exception is a strata hotel. For buildings with an occupancy date on or after December 8, 2023, the regulation exempts a strata hotel from the principal residence rule only if it has all of: its own strata-hotel booking platform, an in-person staffed front desk, and housekeeping in the units, and at least two strata lots legally can't be used as anyone's principal residence because of a rental management agreement, a covenant or zoning. A regular residential tower with a lobby concierge doesn't qualify.
If you're being pitched nightly-rental income on a presale, I'd ask for three things in writing before you sign: the proposed bylaws, the zoning, and whether there's a rental management agreement or covenant that makes it a strata hotel. If the answer to the last one is no, value the unit as a long-term rental or a home. The broader trade-offs are in my presale vs resale comparison and my guide to buying a presale condo in B.C..
Did it put homes back on the market?
The Province estimated about 28,000 individual short-term rental listings in B.C. when the Act was introduced in 2023. By April 30, 2025, more than 20,000 listings had been registered. In April 2024 the Province cited AirDNA data showing more than 19,000 entire homes listed as short-term rentals for most of a year, and in January 2025 it reported a preliminary 10% drop in entire homes listed in principal residence areas since March 2024.
Over the same period, CMHC's vacancy rate for B.C. communities of 10,000 or more rose on average from 1.2% in 2023 to 3.5% in 2025. Greater Vancouver's went from 1.6% in 2024 to 3.7% in 2025. The Province credits the short-term rental rules for part of that. CMHC's own release on the 2025 survey points to record rental supply and weaker demand from lower population growth.
My read: the rules clearly moved some units, but the vacancy jump has several causes, and nobody has published a clean count of how many former short-term rentals became long-term homes. What's not in doubt is the effect on the investment case for a non-owner-occupied condo in Metro Vancouver. The nightly-rental premium is gone, and I wouldn't pay a price that assumes it comes back.
One note on timing. B.C. votes on October 24, 2026. The Act and regulation are law today and stay that way unless a future government changes them. I'll update this post if that happens.
Sources
- Government of B.C.: Short-term rentals (hub)
- Government of B.C.: Provincial principal residence requirement (updated Sept 21, 2026)
- Government of B.C.: Register as a host (updated July 23, 2026)
- Government of B.C.: Renew your short-term rental registration (updated Sept 9, 2026)
- Government of B.C.: Short-term rental registration
- Government of B.C.: Short-term rental listing removed
- Government of B.C.: Register as a platform
- Government of B.C.: B.C.'s short-term rental legislation
- Government of B.C.: Compliance and enforcement
- Government of B.C.: Compliance and enforcement decisions
- Government of B.C.: Summary of administrative penalty, March 26, 2025
- Government of B.C.: Administrative penalty decision, March 26, 2025 (redacted)
- Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act, SBC 2023, c. 32
- Short-Term Rental Accommodations Regulation, B.C. Reg. 268/2023
- Government of B.C.: Strata short-term rental bylaws
- B.C. news release: New short-term rental rules take effect May 1 (Apr 18, 2024)
- B.C. news release: Province launches short-term rental registry (Jan 20, 2025)
- B.C. news release: Short-term rental registration update and platform deadlines (Apr 30, 2025)
- B.C. minister's statement on CMHC 2025 Rental Market Report (Dec 17, 2025)
- B.C. news release: Earlier opt-out timeline; Kelowna opt-out (Apr 17, 2026)
- City of Vancouver: Short-term rental business licence requirements
- City of Vancouver open data: Business licences
- CMHC: Rental Market Survey data tables, Vancouver, 2025
- CMHC news release: Canada's vacancy rate rises amid historically high rental construction (Dec 11, 2025)
- B.C. news release: 2027 maximum allowable rent increase (Aug 27, 2026)
- EstateBlock.com: Vancouver condos for sale (snapshot Oct 17, 2026)
- Elections BC: 2026 provincial general election
Dan Marusin PREC, REALTOR® · Renanza Realty Inc., 777 Hornby St, Suite 600, Vancouver, BC. This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice.