BC's Three-Tier Vacancy Tax Stack — Vancouver EHT, BC SVT, and the End of the Federal UHT

Until late 2025, BC residential property owners faced three overlapping vacancy and underused-housing taxes — Vancouver’s Empty Homes Tax (EHT) at the city level, the BC Speculation and Vacancy Tax (SVT) at the provincial level, and the federal Underused Housing Tax (UHT) at the federal level. The federal layer was eliminated in Budget 2025, with Bill C-15 tabled in November 2025 confirming that no UHT is payable and no return is required for the 2025 calendar year and beyond. The provincial and municipal taxes remain. This guide walks through the 2026 declaration cycle for the two BC taxes, what changed federally, and what the picture looks like compared with Toronto’s VHT for owners with property in both jurisdictions.

The federal UHT repeal — what actually changed

The federal Underused Housing Tax was introduced in 2022 and applied to non-resident, non-Canadian owners (and certain Canadian entities) holding underused housing. It produced disproportionate compliance burden relative to revenue, attracted broad criticism from professional accountants and the real estate industry, and was scaled back through exemptions before ultimately being eliminated.

Budget 2025, tabled November 4, 2025, proposed amendments eliminating the UHT for the 2025 calendar year and subsequent years. Bill C-15, tabled November 18, 2025, confirms that no UHT is payable and no UHT return is required to be filed for 2025 or any later calendar year. The repeal does not affect the application of the UHT for the 2022, 2023, and 2024 calendar years — owners who were required to file for those years remain required to do so, and CRA enforcement of past-year filings continues. The 2024 filing (due April 30, 2025) was the last year for which UHT obligations exist.

For BC owners, the repeal removes a federal layer that primarily affected those with non-Canadian beneficial ownership structures, foreign citizenship, or certain corporate or trust holdings. It does not affect the provincial or municipal vacancy taxes, which remain in full force.

BC Speculation and Vacancy Tax (SVT) — 2026 cycle

The SVT applies to residential property owners in designated taxable regions of BC, which include Metro Vancouver, the Capital Regional District (Greater Victoria), Kelowna and West Kelowna, Nanaimo and Lantzville, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission, Squamish, and several smaller communities added in recent expansions. Every owner of taxable residential property in these regions must declare annually, even when the property is the principal residence and exempt from tax.

For the 2025 tax year (declared in 2026), the rate structure is 0.5% for Canadian citizens and permanent residents who do not live in their property as a principal residence and do not rent it out for at least six months of the year, with the rate rising for foreign owners and untaxed worldwide-income owners. For the 2026 tax year forward, rates increase to 1% for Canadian citizens and permanent residents and 3% for foreign owners and certain untaxed worldwide-income holders.

Declaration letters are mailed in January 2026 to all owners in taxable regions. Declarations must be completed by March 31, 2026. Owners who fail to declare are deemed to owe the maximum applicable rate on the property’s assessed value — a default that can run into tens of thousands of dollars on a typical Metro Vancouver detached home. Declarations are made online via the provincial tax portal or by phone using the credentials in the mailed letter.

Common exemptions include principal residence (the most common), occupied by a tenant for at least six months of the year (with leases in place for at least one month), and various life-event exemptions (renovation, divorce, medical care, work-related absence). Each exemption requires specific evidence — leases for tenant-occupancy, building permits and contractor invoices for renovation, etc. — and the supporting evidence is what gets requested on audit, not at declaration.

Vancouver Empty Homes Tax (EHT) — 2026 cycle

The Vancouver EHT applies only to residential properties within the City of Vancouver (not other Metro Vancouver municipalities — Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, etc., have no equivalent municipal tax). Every owner of residential property in Vancouver must declare annually, even when the property is the principal residence and exempt from tax.

For the 2025 reference year (declared in 2026), the EHT rate is 3% of the property’s 2025 assessed taxable value — meaningfully above the BC SVT base rate. Declarations are due February 3, 2026, and tax payment is due April 16, 2026. Late declarations attract a $250 by-law fine; declarations not filed by the late deadline result in a 5% penalty applied to the resulting tax levy. False declarations are subject to fines of up to $10,000 per day of continuing offence, in addition to the tax itself.

The City conducts audits of declarations for up to two calendar years after the date of declaration. Audited owners are typically asked to provide evidence supporting the exemption claimed — utility bills showing residential consumption, lease agreements, government-issued ID showing the address, vehicle insurance documentation, and similar evidence. The audit response timeline is short and the burden of proof is on the owner; declarations made without supporting documentation in hand are vulnerable to reassessment.

Common EHT exemptions parallel the SVT exemptions but with different specific tests — principal residence, tenant-occupied for at least six months, life-event exemptions, and exemptions for property under active redevelopment. Owners who occupy a Vancouver property as a principal residence for part of the year and another BC property as a principal residence for another part of the year cannot claim principal-residence exemption on both — the tests are mutually exclusive across all jurisdictions.

The two BC declarations are separate — both must be filed

Vancouver EHT and BC SVT are administered by different governments under different statutes with different deadlines and different exemption tests. A Vancouver owner whose property is exempt from one tax may or may not be exempt from the other, and declaring on one portal does not satisfy the other. Common confusions include:

• Owners who declare for SVT (the more recent of the two) and assume the EHT declaration is no longer required — it is
• Owners who claim a tenant-occupancy exemption with different supporting evidence for each tax, only to find one set of evidence is insufficient on audit
• Owners who acquired a Vancouver property partway through the year and assume the prior owner’s declaration covers them — it does not (the obligation runs with current ownership at the declaration deadline)

The practical workflow for Vancouver owners is to complete EHT first (early February deadline forces it), then complete SVT in February or March using the same supporting evidence package. Maintaining a single tax-year evidence file (leases, utility bills, ID, residence statements) covering both is the simplest defensible approach.

Toronto VHT — for comparison

Toronto operates its own Vacant Home Tax (VHT) — a single municipal tax with no provincial or federal layer (Ontario has not introduced a province-wide vacancy tax, and the federal UHT repeal removes the only federal layer). The 2025 VHT rate is 3% of the property’s Current Value Assessment (CVA), with the declaration due April 30, 2026. Payments are split into three equal instalments due September 15, October 15, and November 16, 2026.

Toronto’s VHT carries similar structure to Vancouver’s EHT — annual declaration required for all residential property owners, principal-residence exemption, tenant-occupancy exemption (with at least six months of occupation by a permitted occupant), life-event exemptions, false-declaration penalties up to $10,000. The procedural differences are meaningful for owners with property in both jurisdictions: different deadlines, different declaration portals, different exemption documentation standards, and different audit windows. Owning property in both Vancouver and Toronto means filing two municipal declarations plus one BC SVT declaration annually.

Toronto’s VHT history illustrates a pattern BC owners should note. The City of Toronto extended the 2024 VHT declaration deadline twice in response to system issues and owner confusion, suggesting the underlying administrative infrastructure for these taxes is still maturing. BC owners should not assume deadline flexibility — the BC and Vancouver deadlines have been consistently enforced — but the Toronto experience reinforces the value of declaring early and not depending on extensions.

Bottom line

BC residential property owners now face two vacancy taxes rather than three. The federal UHT is repealed for 2025 and onward; final UHT obligations apply only to 2022–2024 returns. The Vancouver EHT (3%, declare by February 3, 2026, pay by April 16) and the BC SVT (1% for citizens/PRs and 3% for foreign owners on the 2026 tax year, declare by March 31, 2026) remain. The two BC taxes are separate filings with separate evidence requirements and separate audit risk — declaring on one does not satisfy the other. Maintaining a single tax-year evidence file and declaring early on both is the lowest-risk approach. For BC owners with Toronto exposure, the VHT (3%, declare by April 30, 2026) adds a third filing with similar mechanics but different deadlines and portals.