If you're a non-resident who owns property in Metro Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, or one of British Columbia's other designated taxable areas, your provincial speculation and vacancy tax bill just went up—regardless of anything that changed federally with the Underused Housing Tax. Starting with the 2026 tax year, foreign owners and satellite families pay 3% of a property's assessed value under BC's Speculation and Vacancy Tax (SVT), up from 2%. If your only defence against it is "I don't live there," that's not enough. The only thing that protects you is renting the property out properly, declaring every year, and understanding that this is a completely separate obligation from your NR6 filing.
This article is general information, not tax or legal advice. Provincial tax rules change independently of federal ones—confirm your specific situation with a cross-border tax professional.
What the Speculation and Vacancy Tax Is
The SVT is a BC provincial tax—separate from the federal government, separate from CRA, and separate from your NR6 or Section 216 obligations. It applies to residential property owners in about 59 specified communities across five regional districts: all of Metro Vancouver (Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, the North Shore municipalities, and more), the Capital Regional District around Victoria, the Kelowna/West Kelowna area, Nanaimo and nearby Vancouver Island communities, and parts of the Fraser Valley (Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission) and Kamloops. If your property isn't in one of these areas, the SVT doesn't apply to you at all—check BC's official taxable-areas map if you're unsure.
Every owner of residential property in a taxable area must submit an annual declaration by March 31, even if you're confident you qualify for an exemption. Skip the declaration and the province assesses you at the maximum rate automatically—there's no benefit-of-the-doubt for non-filers.
What Changed for 2026
Under changes tied to BC's most recent provincial budget, the rates for the 2026 tax year increased across the board:
| Owner Category | Old Rate | 2026 Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign owners and satellite families | 2% | 3% |
| Canadian citizens/permanent residents (vacant/underused homes) | 0.5% | 1% |
| BC resident tax credit (offsets tax owed in specified regions) | $2,000 | $4,000 (BC residents only) |
Non-resident landlords fall into the "foreign owner" category for SVT purposes—this has nothing to do with whether you're a Canadian citizen living abroad, a green-card holder, or a non-citizen; it's based on residency for tax purposes, similar to (but assessed completely independently of) how CRA treats you for NR6 and Section 216. The tax credit increase doesn't help you either: it's only available to BC resident owners, not foreign owners or satellite families, so there's no offsetting relief on the non-resident side of this increase.
The declaration you file by March 31, 2027 will report how you used the property during the 2026 calendar year—the year these higher rates apply to. In other words, what you do with the property for the rest of 2026 determines what you owe next spring.
The Exemption That Actually Matters: Renting It Out
The good news for landlords: if you're renting the property out—which, if you're reading a site about NR6 filing, you probably are—you can very likely avoid the SVT entirely through the tenancy exemption. To qualify:
- The property must be occupied by a tenant for at least six months of the calendar year (it doesn't need to be six consecutive months).
- Each individual tenancy must last at least one month.
- You can combine multiple tenancies—including a mix of arm's-length and non-arm's-length tenants (e.g., renting to a family member counts, subject to separate rules)—to reach the six-month total.
If your property was genuinely tenanted for six-plus months in 2026, you owe $0 in SVT for that year—but you still must file the March 2027 declaration to claim it. The exemption isn't automatic just because you rented it out; the paperwork is what protects you.
A Worked Example
Say you're a non-resident owner living in the US, holding a Vancouver condo assessed at $900,000 for SVT purposes:
- Scenario A — rented long-term, tenanted 8 months of 2026: You qualify for the tenancy exemption. SVT owed: $0. You still file the March 31, 2027 declaration to confirm this.
- Scenario B — left vacant, or only short-term-rented for stretches under a month at a time (no qualifying tenancy): No exemption applies. At the new 3% foreign-owner rate: $900,000 × 3% = $27,000 owed for 2026, on top of whatever you owe federally on rental income (or lack thereof) and any municipal empty-homes tax layered on top in cities like Vancouver.
- Scenario C — you forget to declare at all, regardless of actual use: Assessed at the maximum rate by default, same as Scenario B, because non-declaration removes your ability to claim any exemption.
The gap between A and B is the entire point of this tax: BC wants foreign-owned units either rented to actual tenants or paying a meaningful annual cost for sitting empty.
How This Fits With Your Federal Obligations
This is the same confusion we flagged when the federal government eliminated the Underused Housing Tax earlier this year: provincial and federal non-resident property taxes are entirely separate systems, and a change to one says nothing about the others.
| Obligation | Level | Status in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Speculation and Vacancy Tax (SVT) | Provincial (BC only, designated areas) | Rate increased to 3% for foreign owners |
| Underused Housing Tax (UHT) | Federal | Eliminated for 2025 and later |
| NR6 Form | Federal (CRA) | Unchanged—still required annually to reduce withholding from 25% of gross rent to 25% of net rent |
| Section 216 Return | Federal (CRA) | Unchanged—still due June 30 of the following year |
| Municipal empty-homes taxes (Vancouver, etc.) | Municipal | Unchanged, and can apply on top of the SVT |
Filing your NR6 and staying current with your Canadian agent has zero bearing on whether you owe SVT—they're assessed by different levels of government under different legislation, and you can be perfectly compliant on one while missing the other. If you own a BC property and haven't filed an SVT declaration before, don't assume your NR6 filing history covers it. See our guide on how the NR6 form works and what Section 216 does if you need the federal-side refresher, and read our previous post on the UHT elimination for the full federal picture.
What to Do Right Now
- Confirm whether your property is in a designated taxable area. Most of Metro Vancouver, Greater Victoria, Kelowna, and Nanaimo are included; many smaller BC communities are not.
- Check your 2026 tenancy record. If you're not already at six-plus months of qualifying tenancy for the year, you have time before December 31 to get there and avoid the higher rate.
- Mark March 31, 2027 for your SVT declaration—separate from any CRA deadlines you're tracking, and required even if you're fully exempt.
- Don't conflate this with your NR6 renewal or Section 216 return. Keep both compliance tracks running independently. Our deadlines guide and tax savings calculator can help you stay on top of the federal side while you handle this provincial one separately.
If you're a non-resident landlord juggling CRA withholding, an annual NR6 renewal, and now a provincial tax that just got more expensive, our NR6 filing service handles the federal paperwork—the NR6 form itself, your Canadian agent requirement, and renewal tracking—for a flat $999 CAD, so you can focus on the parts of compliance that are actually specific to your province.
