Municipal licensing

Short term rental licence cost in Ontario, by city

Renting your home for short stays is licensed by your city, and the city decides whether you register once a year or hold a licence that costs more to get than to keep. Here is what each one charges the host.

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What does a short term rental licence cost in Ontario?

Running the same short term rental costs $150 a year in Brampton and $953.80 in Hamilton. That is roughly 6 times more for an identical business, and the gap is almost entirely a licensing decision rather than a cost of doing business.

First year short term rental licensing cost by Ontario municipality
Municipality	What the by-law calls it	First year	Each year after
Brampton	Short Term Rental Host licence	$150	$150
Burlington	Short-Term Accomodation Owner/Operator licence	$300	$300
Toronto	Short-Term Rental Operator registration	$390	$390
London	Short-Term Accommodation Provider licence	$547	$196
Hamilton	Short-Term Rental Operator licence, entire dwelling	$953.80	Not published
Oakville	Short Term Accommodation Operator licence	Fees are not published on the licensing page

Every figure is traced to the municipality below, with the by-law it came from and the date it was checked.

Why does the same business cost so much more in one city?

Because they are charging for different things. Toronto runs a registration, not a licence, and charges the same $390.00 to register as to renew, so the cost never changes. London runs a licence and prices entry far above continuation, $547.00 to start and $196.00 to keep, which works out cheaper than Toronto from year two onward. London also licenses the platform separately at $1,121.00, roughly twice what it charges the host.

The number that matters most here is not the fee, it is the date. Short term rental rules in Ontario have been rewritten repeatedly and are still being amended, so a figure checked six months ago is not evidence of anything today. Every record on this page carries the date a person last read it, and following the source link before you budget matters more in this category than in any other.

What does your municipality actually call it?

Toronto registers a Short-Term Rental Operator. London licenses a Short-Term Accommodation Provider and, separately, a Short-Term Accommodation Broker. Oakville names a Short Term Accommodation Company and a Short Term Accommodation Operator. Nobody calls it a short term rental licence except the people searching for one.

Toronto: Short-Term Rental Operator registration
London: Short-Term Accommodation Provider licence
Brampton: Short Term Rental Host licence
Hamilton: Short-Term Rental Operator licence, entire dwelling
Burlington: Short-Term Accomodation Owner/Operator licence
Oakville: Short Term Accommodation Operator licence

Do you need a corporation to get licensed?

No. Every municipality here accepts a sole proprietorship registration. None of them require you to incorporate.

This is the one category on the site where incorporating is usually beside the point. Municipalities licence short term rentals against a principal residence rather than against a business, so the application asks who lives there and for how long, not how the business is structured. Toronto asks for government issued identification tied to the address.

That principal residence test is worth understanding before you incorporate anything. Where it applies, holding the property inside a corporation does not create a second eligible residence, and structuring around it is the kind of thing that ends a registration rather than protecting it. If you are buying a property specifically to rent short term, check whether your municipality permits it at all before you worry about how to own it.

If you want the comparison without the sales pitch, our sole proprietorship versus incorporation guide lays out both sides.

City by city, with sources

Each entry below shows what the municipality charges, what it calls the licence, what it will not tell you, and where the figures came from.

Toronto

Greater Toronto Area

Short-Term Rental Operator registration. Toronto registers rather than licenses, and charges the same $390.00 to register as to renew, so unlike almost every other licence on this site the cost never falls after the first year. What it does instead is escalate on the way out: miss the renewal date and the late fees climb in three steps, and after ninety days the registration is not late but gone.

Short-term rental registrationNon refundable, and the renewal is the same $390.00. The city states the fee is subject to an annual increase.	$390
First year total	$390

What this municipality does not publish

Late renewal is priced in cumulative steps the city publishes as $11.27 for one to thirty days, $83.18 for thirty one to sixty and $160.69 for sixty one to ninety. After ninety days the registration is lost entirely and the page does not price reapplying.
Registration runs for a year from approval rather than to a fixed date, so renewal timing differs from operator to operator and cannot be read off a calendar.
The city states the fee is subject to an annual increase without publishing the mechanism, so there is no way to anticipate next year's figure from this page.
The page describes $390.00 as the renewal fee for 2026 but states no effective date, so none is given here rather than assuming it took force on 1 January.

Source: Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 547, Licensing and Registration of Short-term Rentals. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source

London

Southwestern Ontario

Short-Term Accommodation Provider licence. London separates the person renting the property from whoever lists it, and prices the platform at roughly twice the host. A provider pays $547.00 to start and $196.00 to continue, so from year two London is markedly cheaper than Toronto. A broker pays $1,121.00, the single largest short term rental figure found here.

Short-Term Accommodation Provider, new applicationIncludes a one time fee for property standards and fire safety inspections. Renewal is $196.00, due 31 March.	$547
First year total	$547

Proof of registration: Business Licensing By-law L.-131-16, s. 6.1(b) asks for articles of incorporation or a corporation profile report no more than fifteen days old only where the applicant is a corporation.

What this municipality does not publish

A Short-Term Accommodation Broker licence is a separate instrument at $1,121.00. Whether a host listing through a large platform is caught by it, or whether the platform holds it, is not stated in the fee schedule.
The new application fee is marked as including a one time property standards and fire safety inspection, so the gap between $547.00 and the $196.00 renewal is partly inspection rather than pure licensing.
A 2027 schedule is already published as Schedule 2 of the same by-law, so this figure has a known expiry date.

Source: Fees and Charges By-law A-62, Schedule 1 (2026); Business Licensing By-law L.-131-16. Effective 2026-01-01. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source

Brampton

Peel Region / Greater Toronto Area

Short Term Rental Host licence. The cheapest short term rental licence here at $150.00, and the one with the sharpest consequence for incorporating. Brampton requires a Level 2 criminal record search for all officers, directors or partners, so a host operating through a corporation must produce one for every person on the register rather than one for themselves. The fee also rises automatically each January without a council vote.

Short term rental host licence, application or renewalSame fee either way. Expires 30 September annually. A late renewal adds $50.00.	$150
First year total	$150

What this municipality does not publish

A Level 2 criminal record search is required for all officers, directors or partners. For a corporate host that is one search per director rather than one per property, and the police service rather than the city sets that price.
The by-law provides that these rates increase automatically each 1 January, rounded up to the nearest dollar, against an index measured over the twelve months ending 30 September. The figure is therefore designed to move without a council decision, and $150.00 is what the schedule as published states.
Withdrawing an application refunds the fee except for $50.00, and once the licence has issued there is no refund at all.
Commercial general liability insurance of at least $2,000,000 is required and is priced by an insurer.

Source: Short Term Rental By-law 165-2021, Schedule A. Checked 2026-09-16. View the source

Hamilton

Golden Horseshoe

Short-Term Rental Operator licence, entire dwelling. By a wide margin the most expensive short term rental licence found anywhere, and the only one that reaches four figures once zoning is involved. Hamilton charges a processing fee, a licence fee, a fire administration fee and a certificate of compliance, and the compliance certificate alone costs more than a whole year of Toronto registration.

Processing fee$81.42 plus $10.58 HST.	$92
Licence feeNo HST applied to this line.	$419
Fire administration fee$44.96 plus $5.84 HST.	$50.80
Certificate of compliance$346.90 plus $45.10 HST. On its own this exceeds a full year of Toronto registration.	$392
First year total	$953.80

What this municipality does not publish

A Zoning Verification or Addendum adds $135.00, taking the total to $1,088.80. The city publishes both totals because the certificate is not always required, so the real first year cost depends on the property rather than on a rate card.
These figures are for an entire dwelling. Hamilton licenses a secondary dwelling separately and the guide does not price that alongside, so a host renting part of a home cannot read their cost from this.
The guide states new application fees and does not publish a renewal figure, so the ongoing annual cost cannot be given.
Hamilton licenses a Short-Term Rental Broker separately, as London does, and the guide does not price it on the operator page.

Source: By-law 07-170, Schedule 32. Effective 2026-01-20. Checked 2026-09-16. View the source

Burlington

Halton Region / Golden Horseshoe

Short-Term Accomodation Owner/Operator licence. One licence covering the owner and the operator together, where London splits them and charges the platform twice the host. The local name is reproduced here exactly as the fee schedule prints it, including the misspelling of accommodation, because searching a city site for the correct spelling is how people conclude a licence does not exist.

Short term accommodation owner or operator licenceHeld flat at a 0.0 per cent increase for 2026, but moved from not taxable to taxable in the same schedule.	$300
First year total	$300

What this municipality does not publish

The 2026 schedule holds the rate at $300.00 with a 0.0 per cent increase while moving the line from not taxable to taxable, so the same posted figure now attracts tax it did not attract in 2025. The schedule publishes no tax inclusive total.
The schedule does not distinguish a new application from a renewal, so the figure is treated as the annual rate.
One licence covers both the owner and the operator, and the schedule does not say what happens where those are different people.

Source: 2026 Service Rates and Fees (By-law 92-2025). Effective 2026-01-01. Checked 2026-09-16. View the source

Oakville

Halton Region

Short Term Accommodation Operator licence. Oakville names two instruments, a Short Term Accommodation Company and a Short Term Accommodation Operator, which is the same host and platform split London makes. What it does not do is price either of them anywhere a reader can find.

Short term accommodation operator licence

Not published

What this municipality does not publish

Oakville's licence list names both short term accommodation categories and its municipal enforcement rates schedule, which prices every other licence the town issues, contains no short term accommodation line at all. The fee exists somewhere but is not published where an applicant would look, so none is shown here rather than guessing at one.
Because no fee could be read, Oakville is left out of the cost comparison instead of appearing at zero.

Source: Business Licensing By-law. Checked 2026-09-15. View the source

How to use this page

Treat it as a shortlist, not a quote, and treat this category as more perishable than the rest. Toronto states plainly that its fee is subject to an annual increase, and several Ontario municipalities are still amending their short term rental by-laws.

Follow the source link for your municipality before you budget, and note the date each figure was checked. We publish what the by-law says and what it does not say, and we do not fill a gap with an estimate. If a number here disagrees with your city, the city is right and we want to know about it.

Frequently asked questions

Is a short term rental licence the same as a business licence?

Not usually, and the difference shows up in what the city asks you. Toronto runs a registration rather than a licence, tied to your principal residence and your identification. London runs a genuine licence with separate instruments for the provider and the broker. In neither case is the city licensing a business in the way it licenses a food truck or a salon, which is why incorporating rarely helps here.

Why does London charge the platform more than the host?

Because it is regulating a different thing. A Short-Term Accommodation Provider licence costs $547.00 to obtain and $196.00 to renew, and it attaches to the person renting out the property. A Short-Term Accommodation Broker licence costs $1,121.00 and attaches to whoever is listing and booking on their behalf. If you list through a large platform the broker fee is the platform's problem, not yours.

What happens if I miss the renewal date?

In Toronto the penalties escalate and then the registration is gone. Late fees are cumulative at $11.27 for one to thirty days, $83.18 for thirty one to sixty and $160.69 for sixty one to ninety. After ninety days the registration is lost rather than merely late, which means reapplying from the beginning rather than paying a penalty.

Does my city licence short term rentals at all?

Many do not, and a municipality with no licence is not necessarily a municipality that permits the activity. Zoning and by-laws can prohibit short term renting entirely without any licensing regime existing to register it. The absence of a fee on this page means we have not read one from that city's own source, never that the activity is unregulated.

How current are these figures?

Every figure was read from the municipality's own published source and carries the date it was checked, most recently 2026-09-16. Ontario fee schedules reset in January, so treat anything here as a starting point for your own confirmation rather than a final quote, and follow the source link before you budget.

Before you apply

Get your registration sorted first.

Every municipality on this page wants proof your business is registered, and most want it dated within the last year. It is the step people leave until last and the one that costs them a season.

See your options