The Province is providing an update on short-term rental registration (STR) numbers and deadlines ahead of the one-year anniversary of new restrictions to crack down on illegal listings and open up more long-term homes for people.

By May 1, 2025, all short-term rental hosts in B.C. should have registered their listings and received a provincial registration number. To date, more than 20,000 listings have been registered. When the STR legislation was introduced in 2023, there were an estimated 28,000 individual STR listings in B.C., indicating more of these units are being converted to long-term homes that people need.

In response to requests from STR platforms to allow for additional time to complete technical work on platforms’ validation systems, the minister of housing and municipal affairs is moving to have the timeline extended for when platforms are legally required to validate provincial registration numbers and automatically remove illegal listings as follows:

• As of June 2, 2025, if a short-term rental listing does not have a valid registration number, platforms must stop advertising the listing and prevent new bookings from that host or face a possible investigation and potential monetary penalty. This date was previously May 1.   
• As of June 23, 2025, platforms must cancel all future bookings from hosts without a valid provincial registration number or face a possible investigation and potential monetary penalty. This date was previously June 1. 

During this period, the Province will continue working with platforms to ensure any technical challenges or concerns are addressed. Hosts are still expected to register their listings by May 1.

Action on short-term rentals is part of the provincial government’s $19-billion investment through the Homes for People Plan. Since 2017, the Province has more than 92,000 homes delivered or underway, with actions underway to help deliver thousands more over the next 10 years.

Since the legislation was introduced to restrict short-term rentals, asking rates for long-term rentals are down 6.1% throughout B.C., including a 11.4% decrease in Vancouver, according to Rentals.ca. In addition, annual CMHC data shows provincewide vacancy rates are up from 1.2% in 2023 to 1.9% in 2024.  

Learn More:

To learn more about the principal-residence requirement, visit: https://gov.bc.ca/ShortTermRentals 

A backgrounder follows.