British Columbia Short Term Rental Restrictions, Effective May 1st 2024
In an effort to increase the supply of long-term residential housing, the BC Government has introduced the Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act) which will have substantive effects on many B.C. residents.
In brief, the legislative changes include:
- Limiting short-term rentals to the host’s principal residence plus one secondary suite or accessory dwelling unit (ADU) in most major BC communities (populations of 10,000 or more or adjacent communities) effective on May 1, 2024.
- Empowering regional districts to license short-term rentals located outside municipalities.
- Data sharing from short-term rental platforms is required to monitor and enforce the rules.
- Removal of legal non-conforming use or grandfathering of historical short-term rental use.
- Creation of a provincial registry for short-term rentals and a compliance and enforcement unit.
These rules exclude hotels, motels, strata hotels, timeshares, fishing lodges, First Nations reserve lands, and modern treaty lands (unless those First Nations opt in).
Importantly, the new rules serve as a baseline for the province, but they do not supplant stricter municipal restrictions; for example, the City of Kelowna has recently removed short-term rentals as a secondary use for all zones.
The new legislation will affect real estate across British Columbia.