Toronto’s vacant home tax: the first instalment is due 15 September

Payments for Toronto’s 2025 Vacant Home Tax fall due in three equal instalments, on 15 September, 15 October and 16 November 2026. The rate is three per cent of the property’s current value assessment, which on a home assessed at $1,000,000 is $30,000 for a single year.

The part that catches people

The tax is not assessed on the city’s finding that a home was empty. It is assessed on the owner’s failure to say otherwise. Every residential property owner in Toronto has to file an annual declaration, and where no declaration arrives by the deadline the city treats the property as vacant and issues a bill.

That is the mechanism behind most of the bills that surprise people. An owner who lived in their home all year, and who would have owed nothing, owes the full three per cent because a form was not filed. The declaration period for the 2025 year opened on 1 November 2025 and closed on 30 April 2026.

If you have been assessed and should not have been

There is a complaint process, and it has its own deadlines. An owner who believes the assessment is wrong should start it rather than simply not paying — the tax continues to accrue against the property either way, and it is collected the way property tax is collected.

Exemptions exist and are specific rather than general: they cover circumstances such as the death of the owner, a property undergoing major renovation, an owner in residential care, a court order, and a transfer of legal ownership during the year. Each has its own evidence requirements.

False declarations carry fines of up to $10,000 on top of the tax. This is not a form to guess at, and it is separate from the federal Underused Housing Tax, which has its own filing.