Short-term rental regulations are one of the many initiatives to help increase and preserve rental housing supply across Toronto. The goals of the Licensing and Registration of Short-Term Rentals Bylaw are to limit short-term rental activity in Toronto to principal residences and to protect critical rental stock by maintaining access for tenants to long-term accommodation.
The City is evaluating the implementation of the short-term rental bylaw to examine its progress and identify areas for improvement. Key focus areas include:
The City is also examining complaints, compliance and enforcement data, along with information on the revenue received from operators and companies, to identify any other bylaw updates required. While rentals that are 28 days or longer are not covered under the short-term rental bylaw, the issue is being explored during the consultations and in the staff report.
Residents were invited to provide feedback on the bylaw and share their experience with the implementation at three virtual and in-person public consultations from October 17 – 26. Download the consultation presentation.
Feedback was also collected through an online survey and via email until October 30.
The City also met with short-term rental operators and companies to collect their feedback. Feedback from these meetings, public consultations, online survey and email submissions will inform a staff report to the Planning & Housing Committee early in 2024.
On December 7, 2017 and January 31, 2018, City Council approved new regulations for short-term rentals in Toronto. The rules were set to come into effect on June 1, 2018; however, the City’s zoning bylaw amendments to permit short-term rentals as a use were appealed to the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT).
On November 18, 2019, the LPAT issued a ruling that upheld City Council’s adopted zoning bylaw amendments for short-term rentals. With the LPAT decision, the Licensing and Registration Of Short-Term Rentals Bylaw came into effect. Learn more about the rules for companies and operators.
The City launched its online registration system in September 2020; bylaw implementation timelines were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as resources were redirected to the City’s emergency response efforts. Short-term rental operators were provided several months of education and opportunities to register their short-term rental and come into compliance with the bylaw.
Initially, the City’s enforcement approach was focused on educating short-term rental operators on the bylaw requirements, as well as investigating complaints made to 311. Beginning in 2021, the City’s complaint-based enforcement has been augmented by a data-driven approach.
As part of ongoing compliance audits, the City’s compliance team uses data discovery techniques to pull information from websites where operators post their listings to validate short-term rental activity in Toronto and identify cases of non-compliance. This is in addition to the enforcement team investigating complaints made to 311. The City also works closely with companies to identify and remove any listings that do not have a valid registration number or are not in compliance with the bylaw.
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