Three permissions have to line up before you list a unit for nightly stays: provincial, municipal, and the building's own rules. Any one of them says no and the answer is no.

Landlords lose money by checking one and assuming the others follow. A city licence does not override a strata bylaw. A strata's blessing does not cure a provincial registration failure.

Here is the current state of all three layers.

British Columbia has the strictest provincial regime

The principal residence requirement took effect May 1, 2024. A host may offer only their principal residence plus one secondary suite or accessory dwelling unit on the same property — non-principal-residence short-term rentals are out.

Where it applies: municipalities over 10,000 population, adjacent smaller communities, and communities opting in. The list reached more than 80 communities as of June 1, 2026, including Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops and Prince George.

Exemptions: strata hotels and motels, timeshare and fractional ownership, home exchanges, student and employee housing, seasonal accommodation unsuitable year-round, and strata guest suites. Ski resort areas, farm land, Islands Trust areas and smaller isolated municipalities sit outside the requirement.

The provincial registry launched May 1, 2025. Every host, platform and strata-hotel platform must register. The provincial registration number, plus the municipal business licence number where one is required, must appear on every listing. Platforms validate numbers against the registry and remove listings failing validation. Registration renews annually.

Enforcement: the provincial Compliance and Enforcement Unit issues compliance orders and administrative penalties reported up to $50,000 per host. Regional district prosecution maximums rose to $50,000 from $2,000. Municipal tickets reach $3,000 per infraction per day.

Opt-outs are now moving. Communities with a rental vacancy rate of 3% or higher for two consecutive years apply by February 28 for a June 1 effective date. Kelowna received a one-time opt-out effective June 1, 2026, keeping the principal residence rule in residential neighbourhoods while allowing non-principal short-term rentals in tourism-zoned downtown buildings.

Legal challenges: a property owners' petition alleging expropriation was dismissed in February 2025 as premature and an abuse of process, expressly without prejudice to future proceedings.

Ontario and Alberta leave it to cities

Neither province has a province-wide short-term rental licensing regime. Ontario municipalities regulate under the Municipal Act and the City of Toronto Act. Alberta regulation is municipal, layered over a provincial tourism levy applying to stays under 28 days.

The practical effect: the rules change at a city boundary, and they change often.

The municipal layer

• Toronto — city registration with the number in every listing, principal residence required, 180-night cap on entire-home rentals (rooms uncapped, max 3), $390 a year, 6% municipal accommodation tax, fines $300 to $1,000 and up to $100,000 on conviction.
• Ottawa — host permit with a serial number in ads and $1M liability insurance, principal residence required (plus one rural cottage rental permit where zoning allows), no stated night cap, $57 admin plus $54 permit per two years, fines from $500.
• Vancouver — business licence plus provincial registration, paper copy posted in the unit, principal residence required, no cap but one booking at a time, $1,108 licence plus $77 application, fines to $1,000 per offence.
• Victoria — business licence required even to advertise, principal residence required, 160-night cap on the whole unit (max 2 bedrooms while home), $150 a year, strata consent required.
• Calgary — business licence split into primary and non-primary since April 2025, platform licence $3,000 a year, principal residence not required, no cap, $1,000 per offence, fire safety plan, $2M liability, guest records, licence number in ads.
• Edmonton — Residential Rental Accommodation short-term licence under Bylaw 20002, number in ads, principal residence not required as at August 2026, no cap (if the host is on site, max 2 sleeping units and 2 guests each), $101 new, $91 renewal.

Calgary and Edmonton are the outliers. Both permit non-primary-residence short-term rentals, which is why Alberta short-term rental investment has held up while BC's contracted. Calgary's moratorium on new non-primary licences triggers only if vacancy falls below 2.5%, and it has not.

Edmonton has amendments under discussion. Check the bylaw before you buy anything on the assumption the current rules hold.

The building layer

Municipal permission is not a right to operate.

• BC strata — Section 173.1 of the Strata Property Act lets a strata fine up to $1,000 per day for short-term rental bylaw contraventions, and unpaid fines become a lien on the unit. Provincial and strata enforcement run independently, so you risk being penalized twice for the same listing.
• Ontario condominiums — declarations, bylaws and rules under the Condominium Act prohibit short-term rentals. Single-family-use clauses and minimum-lease-term clauses have been enforced repeatedly by the courts and the Condominium Authority Tribunal. Toronto does not require landlord consent for a tenant to register, so a tenant registers legally while breaching both the lease and the condo rules.
• Alberta condominiums — bylaws under the Condominium Property Act commonly ban short-term rentals, and many Edmonton and Calgary corporations do so expressly.

Read the declaration and the bylaws before the listing goes up, not after the first complaint.

Insurance, the layer everyone forgets

A standard homeowner policy or a long-term landlord policy does not cover short-term rental use. The change of use voids the policy entirely, which means an unrelated fire or water claim gets denied too.

The risk is non-disclosure — insurers deny on the basis the property was in a commercial use they never underwrote.

Platform protection is a supplement, not a substitute. AirCover covers up to US$3M in host damage protection and US$1M in third-party liability, and excludes wear and tear, lost rental income and non-guest-caused structural loss.

Canadian carriers including Aviva, Square One, Wawanesa and April offer short-term rental endorsements or standalone policies, typically adding $20 to $40 a month. Also confirm your mortgage terms, the condo corporation's coverage, and the municipal minimum, which is $1M in Ottawa and $2M in Calgary.

The sequence to follow

Check the provincial rule. Check the municipal bylaw and licence. Read the strata or condo documents. Call your insurer and get the endorsement in writing. Then list.

Doing it in this order takes a week. Doing it in the wrong order has cost BC hosts entire businesses since May 2024.

LuxOasisOS keeps licence numbers, renewal dates and unit-level compliance records in one place, so a lapsed registration surfaces as a reminder rather than a fine.