The Vacant Home Tax in Etobicoke: Who Has to Declare, What the Exemptions Cover, and What It Actually Costs

Buyer Advice Dave Dubbin September 20, 2026

Every residential property owner in Etobicoke has to tell the City of Toronto whether their home was occupied or vacant last year. Every one, every year, including people who have lived in the same house on the same street for thirty years. If the declaration does not arrive by the April 30 deadline, the City deems the property vacant and bills you three per cent of its assessed value, whether anyone was living there or not. That is the whole program in two sentences, and the part that costs people money is almost never the tax itself. It is forgetting to file.

Thinking about what your Etobicoke property is worth before you make a decision about renting it, selling it or leaving it empty? Get a valuation here.

Who has to declare

Anyone who owns a residential property in Toronto, which for our purposes means everything from a semi in Mimico to a detached house in The Kingsway to a one bedroom at Humber Bay Shores. Condo units are declared individually by the unit owner. If you own more than one property you file a separate declaration for each one.

You do not have to declare if the property is assessed fully as multi-residential, commercial or industrial, if it is vacant land with no structure on it, or if it is a parking space or a condominium locker on its own roll number.

What counts as occupied

Status	What it means	Taxed?
Your principal residence	Where you live, get your mail, pay your bills. It has to be your principal residence for at least six months of the year. You can only have one.	No
Occupied by someone else	A tenant or business tenant with a written agreement of at least 30 days, totalling at least six months in the year. Family or friends count only if it is their principal residence for six months or more.	No
Vacant with an eligible exemption	Empty, but for one of the reasons the by-law recognizes. Supporting documents required.	No
Vacant	Empty six months or more in the year, or no declaration filed by the deadline.	Yes

Two situations come up constantly in Etobicoke and both are fine. Snowbirds who spend the winter somewhere warmer still have a principal residence here and declare it occupied. So does someone working outside the city or the country for a stretch, or away receiving outpatient care, as long as the home remains their principal residence. Running a business out of your house also counts as occupied, because the definition of tenant includes a business tenant.

What it costs

The rate is three per cent of the property's Current Value Assessment. It launched at one per cent in 2022 and went to three per cent starting with the 2024 taxation year.

Annual Vacant Home Tax at 3 per cent of Current Value Assessment

CVA $400,000: $12,000 a year

CVA $600,000: $18,000 a year

CVA $800,000: $24,000 a year

CVA $1,200,000: $36,000 a year

Source: City of Toronto Vacant Home Tax program, rate of 3 per cent of CVA effective the 2024 taxation year. Figures as of September 20, 2026.

One detail changes the real burden. Current Value Assessment is not market value. Ontario's province-wide reassessment has been postponed repeatedly, so assessments for the 2026 tax year are still based on a January 1, 2016 valuation date. A house in Sunnylea worth well over a million dollars today may carry a CVA a good deal below that. The headline rate is three per cent, but measured against what the place would actually sell for, the effective rate is lower. Find your own CVA on your property tax bill rather than guessing from a sale price.

The exemptions, and the paperwork each one needs

An exemption is never automatic. You still file the declaration, you select the exemption, and you keep the documents. The City can audit and has three years of record retention built into the rules.

Exemption	The test	What you file
Death of a registered owner	Vacant six months or more because an owner died. Claimable up to three consecutive years.	Death certificate
Principal resident is in care	In hospital or a long term or supportive care facility at least six months. Up to two consecutive years.	Letter from the facility on letterhead, plus proof of prior residence
Repairs or renovations	Work prevents occupancy for at least six months, all permits issued, and the City is satisfied the work is proceeding without unnecessary delay.	Project description, contractor records, building permits
Transfer of legal ownership	A 100 per cent transfer closed in the year being declared. Adding or removing a second owner does not count.	Land transfer deed
Occupancy for full-time employment	Owner or spouse works full-time in Toronto at least six months and has a principal residence outside the GTA.	Proof of residency outside the GTA, employer letter or contract
Court order	An order in force prohibiting occupancy for at least six months.	Copy of the order
Secondary residence for medical reasons	Unit needed by the owner, spouse or dependent for medical reasons, with a principal residence outside the GTA. Added for 2024.	Proof of residency outside the GTA, City medical certificate form

The renovation exemption is the one that trips up Etobicoke owners most often, because the permit requirement is strict. A gut job you are doing slowly, without permits, over two years is not exempt. A permitted project that genuinely prevents occupancy is.

If you are weighing what to do with a property you are not living in, start here:

The math on holding out for a higher rent

This is where the tax actually changes behaviour, and it is worth running the numbers rather than going on instinct. Say you own a one bedroom in Humber Bay Shores with a CVA of $480,000. You want $2,800 a month. The market is telling you $2,550. Here is the cost of waiting for your number.

Scenario	Rent collected	Vacant Home Tax	Net
Rent it now at $2,550 for 12 months	$30,600	$0	$30,600
Hold out, sit empty seven months, then get $2,800 for five	$14,000	($14,400)	($400)

The gap is about $31,000, on a rent difference of $250 a month. That is what happens when a fixed holding cost lands on top of forgone income. Economists would say the tax raises the cost of maintaining a high reservation price, which is the lowest number you are willing to accept. Put plainly, the City has made stubbornness expensive, and it did that on purpose.

The counterpoint is that the six month test is a threshold, not a meter. A unit empty for five months pays nothing at all, so a normal turnover, a renovation between tenants, or a slow leasing season in a soft market carries no VHT exposure. The tax bites the owner who leaves a place empty for most of a year, not the one who takes ten weeks to find the right tenant. Toronto rents have been soft on small units through 2026, which makes longer vacancies more likely and the six month line more relevant than it used to be.

Dates that matter right now

Date	What happens
September 15, October 15 and November 16, 2026	Three equal instalments for the 2025 Vacant Home Tax. The first has already passed.
December 31, 2026	Deadline to dispute a 2025 bill by Notice of Complaint. The 2022, 2023 and 2024 windows have closed.
Late fall 2026	Declaration portal opens for the 2026 taxation year. It opened November 1 last year. The City has not yet posted this year's opening date, so check toronto.ca or subscribe to the City's reminder emails.
April 30, 2027	Deadline to declare 2026 occupancy. Miss it and the property is deemed vacant.

Interest runs at 1.25 per cent on the first day of default and on the first of each month after that. False declarations, or failing to provide information when the City asks, can bring a fine of up to $10,000 on top of the tax.

Buying or selling: the part that catches people

The Vacant Home Tax forms a lien on the property. It attaches to the real estate, not to the person who owned it when the liability arose. If a seller never declared and the property gets deemed vacant, the buyer can end up responsible for the bill.

Practical steps for both sides of a deal. Sellers should give the buyer a copy of the filed declaration. Buyers and their lawyers should ask for it, and should check the Vacant Home Tax section of the City's Property Tax Lookup for the property's current status before closing. If the sale happens during the year being declared, either party can file and the transfer of legal ownership exemption applies. If the sale happens after the year being declared, only the seller can file, because only the seller knows what happened in the house. Power of sale purchases carry the same exposure with none of the relief, since power of sale is not an exemption.

What would change this

Two things. The province could finally unfreeze assessments, which would reset every CVA in Etobicoke to something closer to current value and raise the dollar cost of the tax without the rate changing at all. And Council reviews the rate and the exemption list periodically, having already tripled the rate once. Neither is announced. Both are worth watching if you own something you are not living in.

If you own an Etobicoke property that sat empty for part of this year, or you are trying to decide between renting it, listing it or leaving it alone through the winter, the answer depends on your assessed value, your realistic rent and how long a lease-up actually takes in your building. Send us the address and we will put the three paths beside each other with real numbers, including the case where holding and doing nothing is the right call. Book a call here.

Program details and dates current as of September 20, 2026, from the City of Toronto Vacant Home Tax program pages, last modified July 22, 2026, and MPAC's published assessment cycle. Illustrative figures are examples, not appraisals. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.

Dave Dubbin
Etobicoke Real Estate Expert
Dave Dubbin & Associates
Real Estate Broker for Etobicoke and Toronto
Sotheby's International Realty, Canada