Newmarket Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Newmarket and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that the town licenses short-term rentals rather than banning them, and that route has been open since June 2020. The catch turns up fast, though, because Newmarket, a town inside the Regional Municipality of York in Ontario, will only license a rental where somebody genuinely lives on the property.

That one condition reshapes everything else. A permanent resident has to be on the lot, has to stay in town for the whole booking, and has to answer a complaint within two hours. You can rent at most three bedrooms to at most six overnight guests, all of it inside a single dwelling unit, with an off-street parking space for every rented bedroom plus one more for the resident. So the whole-home absentee Airbnb, which is the model most investors picture, isn't on offer here at any price.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly: what the by-law permits in 2026, what a licence costs, the two taxes you'll be collecting, how the demerit system quietly ends a licence, and who to call when something goes sideways. Everything below comes from Newmarket's own by-laws, fee schedules and tax pages, checked in July 2026. Before you commit to any of it, run the property through BNBCalc and see whether a three-bedroom room share covers what you're carrying.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in Newmarket, Ontario?

Two documents do most of the work here, and separating them explains nearly everything that confuses new hosts.

The first is Business Licence By-law 2020-31, enacted on June 29, 2020, which defines a short term rental as all or part of a dwelling unit used to provide temporary sleeping accommodations for any rental period of less than 28 consecutive days in exchange for payment. Note the 28 rather than the 30 you may be used to from other markets. The same definition sweeps in bed and breakfasts, while leaving out hotels, motels and any stay where no money changes hands.

The second is the town's Zoning By-law 2010-40, and what matters about it is what isn't in it. Going through the August 2025 consolidation, the phrase "short term rental" doesn't appear anywhere.

The closest zoned use is the bed and breakfast establishment, which the by-law caps at three bedrooms for the travelling public. Its residential permitted-use table then hangs a footnote on that use, saying such an establishment "shall only be permitted in a detached dwelling" and "is not permitted in an accessory dwelling unit". Since section 3(2) of the licence by-law requires every licensed business to comply with all municipal by-laws, zoning isn't a parallel track. It's a precondition.

Then there's the provision that catches more applicants than any other, and it's worth giving it a name, so call it the one dwelling unit rule. Section 8.2(2) says a short term rental "shall only be operated within one (1) Dwelling Unit on a Lot", and section 8.2(1) permits no more than one short term rental per lot. A finished basement apartment with its own kitchen, bathroom and private entrance is a second dwelling unit under the by-law's own definition, so listing it while you live upstairs puts two units in play and the application fails.

Beyond that, the operator rules in section 8.2 set hard ceilings that no amount of paperwork will move:

• Three bedrooms, maximum, and each one has to be drawn on a floor plan filed with the application. Adding or moving a bedroom later takes a licence amendment before guests use it.
• Six overnight guests at one time, maximum. Not six adults plus children, mind you. Six.
• No sleeping in a vehicle, a tent, or an accessory building. The trailer in the driveway isn't a workaround.
• One off-street parking space per rented bedroom, plus one for the permanent resident. A three-bedroom listing therefore needs four spaces, which is what quietly disqualifies most condominium and townhouse situations.
• A permanent resident present and available within the Town at all times while guests are staying, able to respond to guests, neighbours or the Licensing Officer within two hours, with that phone number given to every guest and to the Town.
• Your licence number on every advertisement, and a sign posted at the property identifying it as a licensed short term rental.

One more rule sits slightly apart from the rest and deserves a sentence of its own. Section 8.2(14) says an operator may only market on a licensed short term rental company platform, so if the booking site you're planning to use hasn't taken out its own Newmarket company licence, advertising there is your offence rather than theirs. Do check with Licensing which platforms currently hold one before you publish a listing.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Newmarket

Those ceilings decide who has a business in Newmarket and who doesn't, so it's better to sort that out now than after a refused application.

Unfortunately for most people arriving at this page with an investment thesis, there isn't a business here. Buying a house in Newmarket, furnishing it, and renting it whole to weekend guests simply isn't licensable. Section 8.2(8) asks for proof that the applicant is a permanent resident on the property, or else the resident's name plus a tenancy agreement showing an existing and ongoing principal residential use, and no corporate structure gets around either version of that. The town's business licensing page publishes both application streams, and neither one describes an absentee model.

What's left is a genuine room share inside your own home, and it can work. Three bedrooms is a real ceiling rather than a token one, six guests is a family, and the 28-day threshold means anything you let for a month or longer falls outside the regime entirely and back under ordinary Ontario landlord and tenant law.

The awkward middle case is the basement suite, and it comes up constantly in Newmarket. Resident Pat McLean told council in May 2024 that he'd been running exactly that setup before 2020 and was turned down for a licence because his basement suite was segregated from the rest of the home. The zoning footnote points the same way, since a bed and breakfast establishment can't sit in an accessory dwelling unit. Assuming your best-earning space is a self-contained suite, then, expect the answer to be no, and take it to Planning before you spend the application fee.

Refusals are not rare, either. The staff report behind that same May 27, 2024 council meeting had licences on a rising trend, with more than 80 projected for that year, and about 27 licences denied since the by-law came in. That's a standing pile of applicants who assumed they qualified and found out otherwise, which is worth knowing before you count on the income.

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirements in Newmarket

Since a refusal costs you money as well as time, it's worth getting the sequence right the first time.

Newmarket prices the operator licence by bedroom, which is the single most misreported fact about this town. The 2026 user fee schedule for licensing, effective January 1, 2026, sets these amounts, none of which attract HST:

Licence	2026 fee	2025 fee
Operator, one bedroom	$113.13	$110.91
Operator, two bedrooms	$226.26	$221.82
Operator, three bedrooms	$339.38	$332.73
Company, one-time licence fee	$5,572.80	$5,463.53
Company booking fee, per night per bedroom	$1.05	$1.03

Every line rose 2.0% year over year, so treat the numbers as a moving schedule rather than a fixed price. On top of the licence itself, section 6(2) of the by-law adds a $50 non-refundable application processing fee, which gets credited against your licence fee if the application is approved and keeps your $50 if it isn't.

The term is a calendar year, running January 1 to December 31 no matter when you're approved, so a licence granted in October buys you three months. Renew late and section 5(2) adds an administrative penalty of 25% of the renewal fee after 31 days; leave it unpaid past that and the licence is revoked outright, which puts you back at a fresh application. And no fee comes back once a licence has been issued.

To be granted one at all, you must be at least 18 and a Canadian citizen, a landed immigrant, or the holder of a valid federal work permit. The Licensing Officer can also demand a driver's licence, a Vulnerable Sector Screening or criminal record search, your HST number, insurance certificates, and a York Regional Health Department inspection certificate, which surprises people who assumed a town licence involved only the town. When more information is requested, you get 30 days to supply it before the application may be refused.

A refusal isn't the end of the road, though it is a slow road. Section 7 requires the Manager to send written reasons within seven business days, and you can request a hearing before the Appeals Committee by writing in within 14 days. Miss the hearing and it proceeds without you, and the Committee's decision is final and binding.

Required Documents for Newmarket Short-Term Rentals

Because that $50 doesn't come back and the 14-day appeal window is short, the paperwork is where to be careful. The town's short term rental operator application form is a single page, and it asks for originals of the following:

• Proof of Canadian citizenship, landed immigrant status, or a valid work permit.
• Proof you're at least 18.
• Proof of a permanent resident on site, meaning photo ID showing the address, a tenancy agreement, or something else the Licensing Officer will accept.
• A sketch of the floor plan identifying the location and number of bedrooms to be used for the rental.
• A sketch of the proposed sign.
• A certificate of general liability insurance. Ordinary homeowner cover usually won't extend to paid guests, so call your broker early rather than discovering the gap at the counter.
• Partnership or incorporating documents, if you're applying as anything other than an individual.

That sign is a small requirement that trips people up, so treat it as a real deliverable. The town's short term rental sign fact sheet caps the sign at 0.2 square metres (2.15 square feet) and 1.5 metres (5 feet) tall, allows a ground, fascia or projecting sign, and forbids illumination. It has to carry the property's name or address, the current Town business licence sticker in the top right corner, and the line "For By-law concerns related to this property please call 905-895-5193". You are, in other words, required to post the complaint line for your own listing on your own lawn.

Keep in mind that the floor plan is doing more than decorating the file. Section 8.2(6)(d) makes it an offence to let guests use a bed or bedroom that isn't identified on the application, so the sketch you submit becomes the definition of what you're allowed to rent.

Newmarket Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get through all that and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to sort out, and two separate governments want their piece on different schedules.

Charge	Rate	Collected and remitted by
Municipal Accommodation Tax	4%	Operator, through ORHMA
HST	13%	Operator if registered, otherwise the platform
Income tax on net rental profit	Your marginal rate	Operator, to the CRA

Newmarket's Municipal Accommodation Tax took effect on January 1, 2025 under By-law 2024-68, at 4% of the room charge on stays under 28 consecutive days. It's charged on accommodation only, so separately itemized food and beverage, parking, internet and phone stay outside it. The Town has appointed the Ontario Restaurant Hotel Motel Association as its collection agent, and every short-term rental provider must file a remittance report quarterly, on April 15, July 15, October 15 and January 15. Fall behind and interest and penalties run at 1.25% a month, 15% a year, from the first day after the payment was due.

Airbnb won't collect that 4% for you here, and it catches Newmarket hosts out constantly. Airbnb's Canada tax page lists the Ontario municipalities where it collects and remits a municipal accommodation tax automatically, and as of July 2026 that list runs Barrie, Brockville, Cornwall, Greater Sudbury, Mississauga, Ottawa, Toronto, the Waterloo Regional Tourism District and Windsor. Newmarket isn't on it. So unlike a Toronto host, you register with ORHMA yourself, add the 4% yourself, and file it yourself four times a year. Make sure you build that into your nightly rate rather than absorbing it later.

HST is federal and works on a different trigger. The CRA's rules for platform-based short-term accommodation apply 13% HST in Ontario to accommodation occupied for under a month at more than $20 a night. A host who is HST registered charges and collects it themselves, including on platform bookings, whereas an unregistered host has the platform operator collect and remit instead.

Registration generally becomes mandatory above $30,000 of taxable supplies over twelve months, and a three-bedroom room share can reach that faster than owners expect. One wrinkle to remember: the municipal accommodation tax is itself subject to HST, so the 13% applies on top of the 4% rather than beside it.

Then there's the federal rule that turns every licensing question above into a tax question. Section 67.7 of the Income Tax Act denies deductions for a non-compliant short-term rental, meaning one operating where short-term rentals aren't permitted, or one that fails to meet every registration, licensing and permit requirement that applies to it. The denied portion scales by non-compliant days divided by total short-term rental days, and it has applied to tax years after 2023. Running unlicensed in Newmarket therefore doesn't only risk a town penalty. It can strip the mortgage interest, utilities and maintenance out of your return and leave you taxed on gross revenue.

Ontario Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

Federal tax law reaches every Canadian host, yet Queen's Park has put almost nothing between that and your town by-law, which surprises people who've been reading about British Columbia.

Ontario has no provincial short-term rental statute and no provincial registry. There is no number to display in your listing, no province-wide principal residence requirement, and no provincial delisting machinery. Licensing power sits with municipalities under Part IV of the Municipal Act, 2001, which is why Newmarket's rules are a business licence by-law rather than an implementation of anything from Queen's Park. Compare that to British Columbia, where hosts pay $100 or $450 a year for a provincial registration number, or Quebec, where a CITQ certificate runs $54 to $156 and has to appear on every listing.

The one province-wide instrument that touches you is a tax rule. Ontario Regulation 435/17, in force since December 1, 2017, governs the transient accommodation tax that municipalities may impose under section 400.1 of the Municipal Act, 2001. It sets no maximum rate and bars only accommodation at universities and colleges, so Newmarket's 4% is a local choice, and neighbouring municipalities land on different numbers.

Practically, that means the rules change at the town line. A property a few kilometres away in another York Region municipality can face a completely different licence, a different cap, or no licensing regime at all, and nothing about your Newmarket licence travels with you. Be aware that provincial guides and national roundups are close to useless at this level of detail, because the operative document is always the local by-law.

Does Newmarket Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

That local by-law is also where the enforcement lives, and Newmarket pushes harder than its modest licence fee suggests.

The mechanism is a demerit point system in Schedule A of the licence by-law, and it runs backwards from what most people assume. Your licence is awarded 15 demerit points on approval, contraventions take points away, and losing 15 or more in a rolling year means the Manager shall suspend, revoke, or impose conditions. Points stay off for one year from the date they're assessed.

Look at the top of the schedule and the design becomes obvious. A Fire Protection and Prevention Act or Fire Code contravention costs the full 15 points on its own, so a single confirmed fire safety failure can end the licence in one step.

Operating while suspended costs 7, as does a Building Code Act contravention. Exceeding your bedroom count, exceeding your guest count, missing the response deadline, or breaching the noise by-law cost 5 apiece, which means three noisy weekends inside a year gets you to the threshold. From there the schedule tapers to 3 points for missing licence numbers and 2 for a waste collection breach.

Money sits alongside the points. Section 9 routes contraventions into the town's Administrative Monetary Penalty System, and its penalty schedule names the short-term rental offences one by one: operating or marketing a unit without a licence, exceeding the bedroom or guest cap, failing to respond to concerns within two hours, failing to post the licence number, marketing on an unlicensed platform. Each carries a separate set penalty for a first, second and third offence, escalating on the same ladder throughout, with 25% off for early payment and 25% added for late payment.

How does the town find out? Mostly because a neighbour tells it. Of the 28 complaints reported in the May 2024 staff report, most concerned unlicensed operators rather than misbehaving licensed ones, which fits a town where every legitimate listing carries a sign with a complaint number on it and every illegitimate one doesn't. Advertising is itself the offence under section 8.2(11), so a live listing is evidence in its own right, and section 8.3(3) obliges a licensed platform to pull a listing within 24 hours of a Town request.

Watch out for the record-keeping side too. Under section 8.3(7), a licensed short term rental company keeps three years of transaction detail on every booking it handled: your name, address and licence number, the nights rented, the nightly and total price, and whether the stay was an entire unit or a room. All of it goes to the Manager on request.

Newmarket also reserves the right to have platforms create accounts for its officers to investigate with. So enforcement here isn't a patrol. It's a paper trail plus a phone number on your lawn.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business

Given how much of that lands on you rather than on a platform, the order of operations matters, and the early steps are the ones that tell you whether the later ones are worth the money.

1. Check the dwelling unit question before anything else. One short term rental per lot, inside one dwelling unit. Assuming the space you wanted to rent is a self-contained basement or accessory suite, stop here and talk to Planning, because that's the most common reason applications fail.
2. Count your parking. One off-street space per rented bedroom plus one for the permanent resident. Three bedrooms means four spaces on your own property.
3. Decide who the permanent resident is. That person has to normally live on the lot, be in town for every night guests are there, and answer within two hours. If it's a tenant rather than you, get the tenancy agreement ready as proof.
4. Line up general liability insurance that covers paid guests, and get the certificate in writing.
5. Draw the floor plan and the sign. Mark exactly which bedrooms are being rented, and size the sign to 0.2 square metres and 1.5 metres tall with no lighting.
6. Apply, and pay the $50 processing fee. Email the completed package to [email protected], and answer any request for more information inside 30 days.
7. Pay the licence fee by bedroom once approved, remembering that the term ends on December 31 regardless of your start date.
8. Register for the accommodation tax with ORHMA and diarize April 15, July 15, October 15 and January 15.
9. Sort out HST before your first booking, and check whether you're over the $30,000 registration threshold or relying on the platform to collect.
10. Post the licence number in every advertisement and the sign at the property, then protect your 15 demerit points like the asset they are.

Who to Contact in Newmarket about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning

Work through that list and you'll hit at least one question that needs a human, and between them four offices own almost everything you'd want to ask.

Licensing, applications and renewals

The Licensing Division issues both the operator and the company licence, and it's the first call for eligibility, amendments and renewals.

• Address: 395 Mulock Drive, Newmarket, Ontario L3Y 4X7
• Phone: 905-953-5300 ext. 2221
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: the municipal offices open Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and close on weekends
• Applications: the completed form goes to [email protected]

Signs, and general by-law questions

Sign specifications belong to Legislative Services, on 905-953-5300 ext. 2220. General by-law concerns, including the number that has to appear on your own STR sign, go to the main town line at 905-895-5193, or [email protected]. Outside office hours, call the same number and press 3. Genuine emergencies are 911, as always.

The accommodation tax

Remittances and registration are handled by the Ontario Restaurant Hotel Motel Association as the Town's collection agent, not by the Town's finance department.

• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: 905-361-0268
• Filing dates: April 15, July 15, October 15, January 15

Zoning and your specific address

Whether a bed and breakfast establishment is permitted on your lot, and whether your basement counts as an accessory dwelling unit, are planning questions rather than licensing ones. Start with the town's zoning by-law, then ask Planning to confirm your zone in writing before you apply. HST and the section 67.7 deduction rules belong to the Canada Revenue Agency, and neither the Town nor ORHMA will advise you on them.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Newmarket Think About the Local Regulations?

Ask around and the arguments here aren't really about paperwork, they're about whether the town drew the line in the right place. What follows is my read of a public record rather than a survey, so do weigh it accordingly.

The clearest snapshot came from the council meeting of May 27, 2024, where the split was on full display. Pat McLean, who'd been renting his basement before the by-law and lost his licence application to the segregation rule, told council he'd rather not delist the apartment and asked them to reconsider. Deputy Mayor Tom Vegh said he had difficulty understanding why a short-term rental couldn't sit in a segregated unit with its own access, and suggested it was worth tweaking. Councillor Bob Kwapis argued that some landlords would never offer a long-term rental but might offer a short one, so opening that door wouldn't cost the housing stock anything.

Mayor John Taylor took the opposite view and won the framing. In a housing crisis with very low vacancy rates, he argued, the town has to prioritise policies that keep rentals available to people and families on a stable, longer-term basis, and he added that other municipalities were moving toward Newmarket's position rather than away from it. Council did approve a motion asking staff to come back with options for a review and possible zoning amendments. Since then, from what I can tell, the Town's own licensing page still publishes the 2020 by-law as the operative one, so nothing has changed in the rules themselves as of July 2026.

Two themes run through the host side of it consistently. The first is that the compliant hosts, the ones living in the house, mostly describe the regime as survivable and complain about documentation rather than principle. The second is that the complaints reaching the town come overwhelmingly from neighbours reporting unlicensed operators, which tells you the licensed cohort isn't the problem the by-law was written for. Mind that gap, because the people paying for a rule aimed at party houses are mostly the ones who were never going to throw one.

Don't plan around a change, in any case. A motion asking for options isn't an amendment, and Newmarket's licensing page has looked the same since 2020. Once you want to compare these economics against places that do license absentee operators, the Canada market is where those numbers sit, and BNBCalc will still tell you whether the room-share version pays at your own address.

Every town that ties a short-term rental licence to somebody living in the house is making the same trade: fewer listings, calmer streets, and a business that only works for owners who were going to be home anyway. Whether that's a market you want depends less on the fee schedule than on whether you're one of them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Newmarket in 2026?

Yes, with a licence and only as an owner-occupied or resident-occupied rental. Newmarket's Business Licence By-law 2020-31 requires a short term rental licence for any paid stay under 28 consecutive days, and requires a permanent resident on the lot who stays within the Town while guests are present and responds to concerns within two hours. A maximum of three bedrooms may be rented to a maximum of six overnight guests. Absentee whole-home rentals cannot be licensed.

How much does a Newmarket short-term rental licence cost?

The Town prices the operator licence by bedroom. Under the 2026 fee schedule, effective January 1, 2026, it is $113.13 for one bedroom, $226.26 for two and $339.38 for three, with no HST added. A non-refundable $50 application processing fee applies to every new application and is credited against the licence fee if the application succeeds. Licences run to December 31 regardless of the issue date, and a late renewal adds a 25% penalty after 31 days.

Can you rent out a basement apartment in Newmarket on Airbnb?

Generally no. A short term rental may only be operated within one dwelling unit on a lot, and a self-contained basement apartment with its own kitchen, bathroom and entrance is a separate dwelling unit. Newmarket's zoning by-law reinforces this by permitting a bed and breakfast establishment only in a detached dwelling and not in an accessory dwelling unit. Applicants have been refused licences on exactly this ground since the by-law took effect in 2020.

Do you have to charge the Municipal Accommodation Tax in Newmarket?

Yes. A 4% Municipal Accommodation Tax has applied to short-term rental stays under 28 consecutive days since January 1, 2025, charged on the accommodation portion of the bill. Airbnb does not collect it in Newmarket, so the operator registers with the Ontario Restaurant Hotel Motel Association, the Town's collection agent, and files quarterly on April 15, July 15, October 15 and January 15. Overdue amounts carry interest and penalties of 1.25% a month.

What happens if you run an unlicensed short-term rental in Newmarket?

Operating or marketing a dwelling unit for paid stays under 28 days without a licence is an offence under the business licence by-law, penalised through the Town's Administrative Monetary Penalty System with escalating amounts for a first, second and third offence. Licensed platforms must remove a listing within 24 hours of a Town request. Federally, section 67.7 of the Income Tax Act denies expense deductions for non-compliant short-term rentals, which can leave the operator taxed on gross revenue.

Last verified: July 2026. Every ordinance, tax rate, state law, and contact detail in this guide links to or comes from its official source.