Toronto’s Vacant Home Tax - Don’t Forget February 28 Deadline

By now, everyone that owns a home in the City of Toronto will have received this yellow notification from Revenue Services:

It is important for homeowners to respond to this notification as soon as possible and ideally before the extended February 28, 2023 deadline. On the original deadline of February 2nd, 2023, 15% of homeowners in Toronto had yet to respond and were at risk of having their home declared vacant.

To avoid subjecting such a large number of homeowners to the Vacant Home Tax, the City of Toronto extended the declaration deadline to February 28, 2023. The City plans on sending reminder notices on February 13, 2023 to homeowners who have not yet made a declaration.

What is the Vacant Home Tax?

Introduced in 2022 and effective in 2023, the goal of the Vacant Home Tax (VHT) is to increase the supply of housing within the City of Toronto by discouraging homeowners from leaving their residential properties unoccupied.

As per the City of Toronto, a property is considered vacant if “it was not used as the principal residence by the owner(s) or any permitted occupant(s), or was unoccupied for a total of six months or more during the previous calendar year”.

Toronto homeowners that chose to keep their properties vacant will be subject to a tax of 1% of the home’s current value assessment (CVA) each year the home is unoccupied. That’s an annual tax of $10,000 on a home worth $1,000,000.

Why it is Important to Declare

To avoid having your home designated as vacant, homeowners are asked to declare the occupancy status annually. To make your property status declaration, click HERE and select “Submit Declaration”.

If you have any questions or concerns please reach out to one of our team at digitaltaxcpa, we’d be more than happy to help.