Toronto's Vacant Home Tax Bill Is Due September 15: What Non-Resident Landlords Need to Know

If you own a rental property in Toronto and live outside Canada, a bill may already be sitting in your inbox or mailbox: the first installment of the 2025 Vacant Home Tax (VHT) is due September 15, 2026, with two more installments following on October 15 and November 16. This tax has nothing to do with the federal Underused Housing Tax that Ottawa eliminated earlier this year, and it has nothing to do with your NR6 filing or Section 216 return. It's a separate municipal requirement, and every year non-resident landlords get caught out by assuming their federal paperwork covers it.

This article is general information, not tax or legal advice. Municipal tax rules and deadlines change independently of federal ones—confirm your specific situation with a cross-border tax professional or the City of Toronto directly.

What the Vacant Home Tax Actually Is

Toronto's Vacant Home Tax is a municipal tax—set by the City, not the CRA or the federal government—charged on residential properties that are vacant for more than six months of the year, or that simply aren't declared at all. Since the 2024 tax year, the rate has been 3% of a property's current value assessment, up from the 1% it launched at in 2022.

It's billed a year in arrears: the 2025 Vacant Home Tax is based on how a property was used during the 2025 calendar year, declared by the owner in early 2026, and then billed and paid later in 2026. That's why September's payment is labeled "2025 VHT" even though we're well into September 2026.

This is a completely separate system from three other things it's easy to confuse it with:

• The federal Underused Housing Tax (UHT) — eliminated for 2025 and later under Bill C-15. We covered that in a previous post. The VHT was never affected by that change.
• BC's Speculation and Vacancy Tax — a provincial tax that only applies to property in designated BC regions. We covered its 2026 rate increase separately. If your property is in Toronto, BC's SVT doesn't apply to you at all.
• Your NR6 form and Section 216 return — federal CRA obligations tied to your rental income, not your property's occupancy status. Filing NR6 and staying current with your Canadian agent has zero bearing on whether you owe VHT.

The September 2026 Payment Schedule

Here's how the 2025 VHT cycle has actually played out:

1. April 30, 2026 — Declaration deadline. Every residential property owner in Toronto had to declare their property's 2025 occupancy status, regardless of whether they expected to owe anything.
2. June 2026 — Owners who owe VHT (or who failed to declare and were deemed vacant by default) received a Vacant Home Tax Notice by mail, with a 21-digit assessment roll number.
3. September 15, October 15, and November 16, 2026 — The three equal installment due dates for the 2025 VHT bill.

Payment can be made through your bank's online or telephone banking, at an ATM, in person at a bank, or by other methods listed on your notice—using the assessment roll number from your VHT Notice, not your regular property tax roll number. If you're managing this from overseas, confirm with your Canadian agent or property manager now, since a missed installment doesn't cancel the tax—it just accrues penalties and interest on top of it.

The Exemption Most Rental Property Owners Should Qualify For

If you're reading a site about NR6 filing, there's a good chance your Toronto property is genuinely tenanted—and if so, you likely qualify for the tenanted property exemption, which reduces what you owe to $0. To claim it:

• The property must be occupied by a tenant (residential or business) under a written agreement of at least 30 days.
• The aggregate occupancy must total at least six months during the calendar year—the six months don't need to be consecutive, and you can combine multiple tenancies to reach the total.
• You need to keep the lease agreement and related records for at least three years, since the City can request them for an audit.

The critical catch: this exemption is not automatic. You still had to file the April 30, 2026 declaration and select the tenanted-property exemption to claim it. Owning a rented-out property doesn't protect you if you never told the City it was rented out.

What Happens If You Missed the Declaration

If you didn't file a declaration by April 30, 2026, your property was automatically deemed vacant—regardless of whether it actually had a tenant living in it all year—and billed at the full 3% rate. This is one of the most common ways non-resident owners end up with an unexpected multi-thousand-dollar bill on a property they've dutifully rented out and reported on their Section 216 return the entire time.

If this happened to you, you're not without options:

• You can still file a Notice of Complaint to dispute the assessment, generally within the deadline printed on your notice, and provide the lease documentation that should have accompanied your original declaration.
• Submitting false information, or failing to respond to a City request for supporting documents, can trigger a fine of up to $10,000 on top of the tax itself—so don't guess on the complaint form if you're not sure of your actual 2025 occupancy record.
• Going forward, mark April 30, 2027 for your 2026 declaration now, so this doesn't repeat next year.

A Worked Example

Say you're a non-resident owner living in Singapore with a Toronto condo assessed at $700,000, continuously rented to a tenant on a one-year lease throughout 2025.

• You filed the April 30, 2026 declaration and claimed the tenanted-property exemption: VHT owed for 2025 is $0. No September payment due, assuming your declaration was accepted.
• You forgot to file the declaration (a common outcome when you're managing a property from another country and no one flagged it): the City deemed the unit vacant and billed 3% of $700,000 = $21,000, split into three installments of $7,000 due September 15, October 15, and November 16, 2026—despite the unit being fully tenanted the whole time.
• The fix: file a Notice of Complaint with your lease agreement and tenancy records attached. If accepted, the assessment is corrected and the amount owed drops to $0—but you still need to act before the complaint deadline, and interest may apply to any amount that isn't paid while the dispute is pending.

If Your Property Isn't in Toronto

Toronto isn't the only Canadian city doing this. Ottawa's Vacant Unit Tax uses a graduated rate starting at 1% and climbing with each consecutive vacant year (up to 5%), with its own declaration deadline in March. Vancouver's Empty Homes Tax charges 3% of assessed value on top of BC's provincial Speculation and Vacancy Tax, with its own declaration deadline in early February. If your Canadian rental property is in any of these cities—or another municipality that has since adopted a similar bylaw—check that city's website directly; don't assume Toronto's dates or exemption rules apply.

How This Fits With Your Other Obligations

Obligation	Level	Status
Toronto Vacant Home Tax	Municipal	3% of assessed value; 2025 bill due in 3 installments Sept 15–Nov 16, 2026
Underused Housing Tax (UHT)	Federal	Eliminated for 2025 and later
BC Speculation and Vacancy Tax	Provincial (BC only)	Unrelated to Toronto property; 3% for foreign owners in designated BC areas
NR6 Form	Federal (CRA)	Unchanged—reduces withholding to 25% of net rent instead of gross
Section 216 Return	Federal (CRA)	Unchanged—still due June 30 of the following year

Being fully compliant on the federal side—current NR6, an active Canadian agent, a filed Section 216 return—says nothing about whether your municipal vacant home tax declaration was filed correctly. They're tracked by entirely different levels of government, on entirely different calendars.

What to Do Right Now

1. Check whether you have an outstanding VHT Notice. If your Toronto property owes for 2025, the first installment is due September 15, 2026.
2. Confirm your April 30, 2026 declaration was actually filed, and that you claimed the tenanted-property exemption if your property qualifies.
3. If you were deemed vacant in error, file a Notice of Complaint with your lease documentation before the deadline on your notice—don't just pay a bill you don't actually owe.
4. Mark April 30, 2027 for next year's declaration, and check your calendar for equivalent deadlines if you own property in Ottawa, Vancouver, or another municipality with its own vacancy tax.

None of this changes what you owe federally. If your NR6 renewal is also coming up, our NR6 filing service handles the form, your Canadian agent requirement, and annual renewal tracking for a flat $999 CAD—see our NR6 form guide, Section 216 guide, and deadlines guide for the federal side of your compliance calendar while you sort out this municipal one separately.