NEW Canmore Livability Tax | What Is It? And What You Need To Know!
The town of Canmore is bringing in a New Livability Tax Program, but what exactly is it?
As one of the steps to address the housing crisis in Canmore, The Town Of Canmore is limiting the growth of Tourist Homes in the community.
Effective 2025, owners can no longer declare Personal Use for their Tourist Home property; all Tourist Homes will now be taxed at the same rate.
In 2024, this rate was about three times that of residential properties in other subclasses.
Here is What's Staying the Same
Owners of Tourist Home properties can continue to rent the property out on a short-term or long-term basis, or to use the property for their own personal use.
Tourist Homes will continue to be taxed at a rate that is higher than the Residential rate.
Tourist Home owners are required to maintain a valid business license for short-term rentals.
Here is What's Changing
Effective 2025, owners can no longer declare Personal Use for their Tourist Home property. This means that all Tourist Homes are taxed at the same rate, even if they are lived in by an owner. The Tourist Home tax rate is about three times the rate of residential properties.
A new, streamlined Change of Use/Conversion process is available to allow owners of Tourist Homes to convert their property to Residential use. The fees for conversion from Tourist Home to Residential will be waived until December 31, 2026.
Additional Changes Coming Your Way
The Town is in the process of making changes to the Land Use Bylaw (LUB) to eliminate Tourist Homes as a permitted use for a property. Once these changes have been made to the LUB, existing Tourist Homes will remain as Tourist Homes, but –while there may be exceptions—the option to revert or convert a Residential Property to a Tourist Home, or the option to build new Tourist Homes, will be eliminated.
Additionally changes into the Business Registry Licensing Bylaw that direct every short-term rental unit to acquire and display a valid Town of Canmore business license, including in advertisements and in the property. Every unique property will require a separate business license. For example, a property owner with three individual units requires three individual licenses. Properties not displaying a valid license number would be subject to enforcement action, which can include fines.
Other Things to Consider
If your property was designated as Tourist Home – Personal Use (Assessment Code 21A) in 2024 and you will not be converting to Residential in 2025, you can expect to see a significant increase in your taxes in June 2025. We encourage you to factor this change into your financial planning now.
If your property is registered on the monthly Tax Installment Payment Plan (TIPP), your payments will drastically increase for July – December of 2025 based on your TIPP amounts being rebalanced to the new tax rate. You can proactively have your monthly payments adjusted to smooth out this increase. Contact taxes@canmore.ca to request this adjustment prior to December 31, 2024.
Program Details
Starting with the 2025 property tax year, there will be no option to declare existing Tourist Homes for personal use. They will all be taxed at the same non-residential rate.
The fee to convert a tourist home to residential will be waived for a two-year period.
All short-term rentals will be required to acquire and display a valid business license number in all advertising.
What You Need to Know
Residential property owners in Canmore will need to declare whether it was occupied full-time during the past year.
Failure to declare will automatically assign your property to the higher tax rate.
Only one declaration per tax roll is accepted.
Declarations are due by December 31, 2024.
Source: Town Of Canmore: https://www.canmore.ca/your-community/residential-services/taxes/tourist-homes
Questions about Canmore real estate? Thinking of Buying or Selling? Contact me today!
Richard Greaves
Broker/Owner RE/MAX Alpine Realty
403-688-7629
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