Vancouver is raising the tax it levies on owners of empty homes to get the homeowners to rent
their vacant properties and lower the city’s vacancy rate.
City councillors have unanimously backed a motion from Mayor Kennedy Stewart to hike the
empty homes tax to 5% of a property's assessed value beginning next year (2023).
Mayor Stewart said that liftin the tax to 5% from 3% is a “big blow to housing speculators.”
The motion also doubles the number of annual compliance audits to 20,000 and Stewart says it
includes measures to improve fairness, ensuring the tax is not assessed on homes that
legitimately qualify for an exemption.
The tax was introduced in 2017 as a 1% levy designed to return empty and underutilized
properties to the market as long-term rental homes in an effort to raise the city's barely one-per-
cent vacancy rate, the lowest level in all of Canada.
It was raised to 3% last year and Stewart has said the increase has brought in about $32 million
for affordable housing and “returned” more than 4,000 homes to local residents of Vancouver.
Vancouver homeowners are required to submit a declaration each year to determine if their
property is subject to the assessment.
