Toronto Vacant Home Tax Rules, and What Missing April 30 Costs You

If you own a home or a condo in Toronto, you have to tell the City once a year whether anyone lives in it. That is the Vacant Home Tax declaration, a short form about who was living in the home last year. You file it even when the home is your own and you never left it. The window has opened in early November and closes on the last business day of April. Miss it and the City treats your home as vacant. The bill is 3 per cent of the value the province has put on the home.

Who has to declare, and who does not

"Residential property owners are required to declare the occupancy status of their property every year, even if they live there or qualify for an exemption," says the Vacant Home Tax page. Occupancy status just means whether anyone lived there. So living in the home yourself does not get you out of the form.

The City asks for "a separate declaration ... for each property." Each condo unit is filed by the person who owns that unit. Somebody else can file for you if you authorise them, such as your lawyer.

Three kinds of property are outside the rule. You skip the form if the land is assessed fully as multi-residential, commercial or industrial. You skip it for empty land with no building on it. You skip it for a parking space or a condo locker. Separately, you file only if the home is on the yearly assessment roll from MPAC, the provincial body that puts a value on every property in Ontario, so a brand new build MPAC has not assessed yet has nothing to declare.

The dates for the cycle you are in

As of August 27, 2026, two cycles are live. The 2025 form is closed and its bill is being paid now. The 2026 form had not opened on that date.

The 2026 form will follow the same shape. By-law 1065-2024 sets the due date as "the last business day of April of the year following the Taxation Year," which is April 30, 2027. That due date is not an official's to move: only Council can change it, by by-law, and it has done so more than once. As of August 27, 2026 the City's Vacant Home Tax page carried no opening date for the 2026 window. The last two opened on November 1, 2024 and November 3, 2025. Check the City page in the fall rather than a date from last year.

What the tax costs

The rate is 3 per cent of your current value assessment. That is a mouthful for the dollar value MPAC has recorded for your home. By-law 979-2023 sets it out. One per cent applied to the 2022 and 2023 years. Three per cent applies "for the 2024 Taxation Year and for each Taxation Year thereafter." (The consolidated chapter posted online still prints the old 1 per cent, so read the by-law.)

That value is old. The City says your assessment for the 2026 tax year "will continue to be based on the fully phased-in January 1, 2016 value."

The City's own property tax page works an example on a home assessed at $692,140. At the 2026 residential rate of 0.767311%, the yearly property tax on that home is $5,311, a figure the City rounds. Run the Vacant Home Tax on the same number: 692,140 x 0.03 = $20,764.20 a year. Divide that by the property tax and you get 20,764.20 / 5,311 = 3.9, so the vacancy bill is close to four times the regular one. The City chose $692,140 for its example. It does not call it an average.

What Toronto counts as vacant

A home is vacant if it went more than six months of the year with nobody using it as a principal residence. A tenant living there at least six months also keeps it from being vacant. A principal residence is the one home where you live, get your mail and pay your bills.

By-law 979-2023 added a definition: "SIX MONTHS - the period of 183 days." A tenant is also defined tightly. It is "a person or business who occupies a Residential Unit pursuant to a written lease or sublease" for a run of at least 30 days. A friend staying rent free is not a tenant. The home still counts as lived in if that friend uses it as their principal residence for six months.

Long trips do not make a home vacant. The City says owners may be away "for extended periods of time due to employment outside the city or country" and still declare the home occupied. The same holds for snowbirds and for an owner away getting medical care as an outpatient.

The eight exemptions

A vacant home still has to be declared. It may then be exempt. There are eight grounds, each with its own paperwork.

Adding a second owner, removing one or changing a name does not count as a transfer. The City says the sale must be "a 100 per cent transfer of the property." Section 778-3.3A(4) adds a condition its page omits: the buyer must be "an arm's length transferee."

What happens if you miss the deadline

No bill arrives to warn you. The City only has to make a declaration form available by December 31 each year. It runs an email reminder list you can join from its Vacant Home Tax page. Miss the deadline and the City assumes the worst. "A property will be deemed vacant if the owner fails to make a declaration of occupancy status by the deadline." Bills go out in June, so the first sign is a demand for thousands of dollars.

There used to be a fee on top for filing late. Council set it at $21.24 a year in By-law 979-2023. That is gone. By-law 1064-2024 deleted the entry, and the change took effect on January 1, 2025. The current fee schedule, Chapter 441 Appendix C Schedule 5, carries no vacant home tax entry, and the City's 2026 property tax fee list does not carry one either. So the cost of a late form today is the tax itself.

Leave the bill unpaid and interest runs at 1.25 per cent on the first day you are late, then again on the first of every month. The by-law calls the same thing "15 percent per annum." Unpaid amounts get added to your property tax account and are chased the same way property taxes are.

The City warns that a wrong statement, or a refusal to hand over information, "may result in a fine of up to $10,000, in addition to payment of the tax." Chapter 778 puts the range at a minimum of $250 and a maximum of $10,000 for each offence, on conviction in court. Failing to file at all is on the same list of offences. Section 778-11.2 lets a court add a special fine on top, in any amount that strips out the money saved by breaking the rule, with no ceiling stated.

Disputing a bill, appealing and audits

Got a bill you think is wrong? File a Notice of Complaint. The deadline is the last business day of the year the tax was payable, so for a 2025 bill it is December 31, 2026. If the bill came out of an audit, you get 90 days from the date on it.

Lose the complaint and you can appeal within 90 days. The appeal is heard in writing by the City's Deputy Treasurer. The City schedules it within 90 days of getting your request and sends a decision letter within 30 days of the decision. That decision is final.

In an audit the City writes to you, and you have 60 days from the date of the letter to send documents. It may ask for leases, a driver's licence, an income tax notice of assessment, an employment record or an insurance certificate. The by-law makes you hold records about who lived in the home for at least three years. It lets the City ask for them for three years after the year in question.

One more limit. If you paid an amount that was not payable, Chapter 778 gives you 24 months from the instalment due date to ask for it back. It does not cover an argument about whether the home was vacant, which is what the complaint and appeal are for.

Buying, selling or settling an estate

"The Vacant Home Tax forms a lien on the property, and the purchaser will be held responsible for the payment of the tax," the City says. Buying under power of sale changes nothing: it "does not constitute an exemption."

If the home sold during the year being declared, either side can file the form, and the sale qualifies for the transfer of legal ownership exemption. If the home sold after that year, only the seller can file, because only the seller knows who lived there.

How to declare

You need two things: your customer number, and either the address or the 21-digit assessment roll number. Both sit on your property tax bill or your Vacant Home Tax notice. File online through the City's portal, or by phone on 311 inside Toronto and 416-392-2489 from outside it. You can also file in person at a Tax and Utility counter at City Hall or a civic centre. Phone support runs in more than 180 languages.

File online and you get a confirmation number on screen, plus an emailed copy if you ask for one. The City reported that 99 per cent of owners completed a declaration for the 2024 calendar year.