BC Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon has tabled legislation to help return thousands of homes to the market over the next few years.

The goal of the Short-term Rental Accommodations Act, according to Kahlon, is to deter the operators of approximately 28,000 daily active short-term rentals and more than 16,000 entire homes being rented on platforms such as Airbnb, VRBO, Expedia and FlipKey.

To get short-term rentals back into the full-time rental market, the new rules build on existing municipal bylaws and equip municipalities with more enforcement tools. Approximately 30 municipalities, including Vancouver, have introduced short-term rental bylaws and licence fees to regulate short-term rentals.

The new rules focus on three key areas in a phased-in approach.

• Local governments will have the authority to levy fines of $3,000 per infraction, per day (currently $1,000).
• Regional districts will have the authority to issue business licences to regulate short-term rentals in rural areas and the authority to levy fines of up to $50,000.
• Short-term rental platforms will be required to share data with the municipalities and include business licence numbers on listings. (No private information about hosts will be released).

• In municipalities with a population of 10,000+, short-term rentals will be permitted only in the principal residence of a host, which includes one secondary suite and one laneway home. 
• All owners of short-term rental units must live on a property as a principal residence. The new rules remove a grandfathering clause in the Local Government Act which allowed short-term units to continue operating under a legal non-conforming status because that was their previous use. This significant change will take away a legal non-conforming status.
• Forthcoming regulations will specify areas exempt from the principal residence requirement, including municipalities under 10,000 population, 14 resort regions, mountain resort areas, (except those within 15 km to larger municipalities), and regional district electoral areas). 

The province will:

• establish a host and platform registry by late 2024; and
• launch a short-term rental compliance and enforcement unit.

The proposed legislation will NOT apply to:

• municipalities with a vacancy rate of more than three per cent. These municipalities can apply for an exemption;
• resort regions such as Whistler. Resort regions will be exempt from the principal residence requirement but can opt in if local governments choose to;
• hotels and motels;
• communities on First Nations reserve land and modern Treaty Nations will be exempt from the legislation but will be able to opt into the legislation, if desired. The Tsawwassen First Nation prohibits short-term rentals; and
• other types of properties such as timeshares and fishing lodges.

• Anmore
• Belcarra
• Burnaby
• Coquitlam
• Delta
• Richmond
• Maple Ridge
• New Westminster
• North Vancouver City
• North Vancouver District
• Pitt Meadows
• Port Coquitlam
• Port Moody
• Sechelt
• Squamish
• Vancouver
• West Vancouver

Now through late 2024 new rules will come into force in stages.

May 1, 2024, coming into force:

• the principal resident requirement;
• the requirement for business licences to be displayed on platforms; and
• changes closing loopholes that allowed short-term rental hosts to operate under pre-existing municipal rules.

Summer 2024

• Short-term rental platforms will be required to share data with the province and municipalities.

Late 2024

• A provincial registry for platforms will be mandatory.

• 30 BC municipalities have introduced bylaws and licence fees to manage short-term rentals.
• In Vancouver, more than 30 per cent of short-term rental hosts are operating illegally.
• In the District of Squamish, short-term rental units increased 38 per cent from 2021 to 2022 and less than half of operating short-term rentals are compliant with regulations.
• Based on business licence counts from a sample of 15 municipalities, the BC Government estimates the percentage of non-compliant short-term rental listings in 2023 is 40 to 50 per cent.

Read the provincial news release about the new short-term rental legislation.

View the technical briefing presentation on the Short-term Rental Accommodations Act.

Read detail about short-term rental rules in BC.

View the Progress of Bills (see Bill 35 Short-term Rental Accommodation Act).