Can You Airbnb a Humber Bay Condo? The Toronto Rules, and One Trap

This question comes up on nearly every Humber Bay investor conversation, usually with an assumption baked in that turns out to be wrong. Here are the rules currently in force.

Every figure below comes from the City of Toronto page that publishes it, fetched 26 August 2026, with that page’s own last-modified date noted. This is general information, not legal advice.

What counts as a short-term rental

The City defines it as all or part of a dwelling unit rented out for less than 28 consecutive days in exchange for payment. Anything 28 days or longer is a tenancy, governed by entirely different rules.

The four rules that decide it

• Registration is mandatory. Operators must register with the City in order to operate. The 2026 registration fee is $390, non-refundable and subject to annual increases.
• Principal residence only. The City defines your principal residence as where you live and the address you use for bills, identification, taxes and insurance — and you can only have one at a time.
• 180 nights a year, for an entire home. That is a hard annual cap.
• Partial-unit rentals are treated differently. You may rent up to three bedrooms with no annual night limit, and you can only advertise one fewer than the number of bedrooms available.

The Municipal Accommodation Tax — and the trap

Short-term rental operators must collect and remit the Municipal Accommodation Tax, currently 6 per cent. Short-term rental companies may sign voluntary collection agreements to collect it on operators’ behalf.

Here is the trap, and it is live right now. A temporary increase from 6 per cent to 8.5 per cent ran from 1 June 2025. That increase ended, and the rate returned to 6 per cent effective 1 August 2026.

But the City’s own short-term rentals overview page — last modified 4 June 2026 — still showed the 8.5 per cent figure when I checked on 26 August 2026. The dedicated Municipal Accommodation Tax page, last modified 11 August 2026, and the operators page, last modified 12 August 2026, both say 6 per cent.

Two City pages disagree with each other. If you are budgeting, or if someone quotes you 8.5 per cent, check the Municipal Accommodation Tax page rather than the overview page. Both links are in the sources below.

What it costs to get this wrong

The City publishes the fines:

• Failing to register — $1,000
• Operating an unregistered short-term rental — $1,000
• Renting a non-principal residence — $1,000
• Exceeding the 180-night limit — $700
• Missing emergency contact information — $400
• Conviction in court — up to $100,000, or $10,000 per day

The second rulebook people forget

Complying with the City by-law is necessary but not sufficient. A condominium corporation’s declaration, by-laws and rules can restrict or prohibit short-term rentals independently of the City, and they vary building to building. Some corporations impose minimum lease terms that make short-term rental impossible regardless of what the City permits.

I have not verified any specific Humber Bay building’s declaration, and I am not going to guess at one. The answer for your building is in the status certificate — which a corporation must produce within ten days for a maximum of $100 including tax. Have your lawyer read the rules before you buy on a short-term rental thesis.

The practical answer for a Humber Bay buyer

A Humber Bay condominium can be short-term rented only if all of the following are true:

1. it is your principal residence;
2. you are registered with the City;
3. for whole-unit rentals, you stay under 180 nights a year;
4. you collect and remit the accommodation tax; and
5. your corporation’s own rules permit it.

If you are buying a unit to rent out and living somewhere else, the first condition fails and nothing after it matters. That is the whole answer, and it is worth knowing before you build a return on the assumption.

None of which makes Humber Bay a poor rental market — a standard tenancy of 28 days or longer sits outside this by-law entirely. It just is not the market some buyers think they are entering.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• City of Toronto — Short-term rental operators and hosts. The under-28-day definition, the mandatory registration requirement, the $390 fee for 2026, the principal residence rule, the 180-night cap on entire homes, the three-bedroom partial-unit rule, and the schedule of fines. Page last modified 12 August 2026. Accessed 26 August 2026.
• City of Toronto — Municipal Accommodation Tax. The current 6 per cent rate and the end of the temporary increase effective 1 August 2026. Page last modified 11 August 2026. Accessed 26 August 2026.
• City of Toronto — Short-term rentals overview. Cited only to record that this page still displayed the superseded 8.5 per cent accommodation tax figure when checked on 26 August 2026. Page last modified 4 June 2026. Accessed 26 August 2026.
• Condominium Authority of Ontario — Status certificates. The ten-day production requirement and $100 maximum fee including all applicable taxes, and the requirement that the package include the corporation’s declaration, by-laws and rules. Accessed 26 August 2026.

Related reading

• What a status certificate actually tells you before you buy
• Humber Bay Shores condo buildings: a guide to every tower
• Humber Bay Shores condos over 2,000 square feet
• Is Etobicoke still a city? What amalgamation means for your tax bill