Quebec City Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Quebec City and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that short-term rentals are legal here, in the provincial capital of Quebec, whether you're renting a spare room in your own home or running a dedicated tourist accommodation. The catch is which path you're on matters a lot more than it used to, since the city spent the first half of 2026 tightening the zoning that governs commercial listings in several neighborhoods, Old Quebec included.

If you live in the unit and cap your bookings at 90 nights a year, you're on the "collaborative" path, and that's still open across the city. If you're planning to buy or convert a property purely for nightly rentals, you're on the "commercial" path, and that's exactly where Quebec City has been pulling back, freezing new permits in Vieux-Québec since April 2026 and stripping the zoning that allows it from parts of Vieux-Limoilou the following month. Neither move bans existing operators outright, but both make it a lot riskier to assume the rules that applied even a year ago still apply to the address you're looking at.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly in 2026: which path you qualify for, what the city and the province both require, what it costs, the three tax layers that stack on a booking, and how seriously any of this gets enforced. Every figure below comes from Quebec City's own site, the province's own law and tax pages, or CITQ (the body the province delegates registration to), read in full over the course of this refresh. Run the numbers on your own property through BNBCalc first, since the legal path you qualify for changes what kind of business you're building.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Quebec City

That fork in the road, collaborative versus commercial, is the first decision that shapes everything else, so it's worth getting it right before you spend a dollar. Quebec's provincial law defines an "établissement d'hébergement touristique" as any place where at least one unit gets rented to tourists for money for 31 days or fewer, and that single definition is what pulls almost every short-term listing in the province into the same registration regime, whether it's a spare room or a dedicated condo.

Quebec City then splits that regime into two tracks. The first is hébergement touristique collaboratif: you rent your own principal residence, either a single room or the whole place, to one group of travelers at a time, for 31 consecutive days or less, capped at 90 nights total per year. That's the path most Airbnb hosts here use, and it's protected by article 23 of the Loi sur l'hébergement touristique, which says no municipal zoning bylaw can outright ban a single-reservation rental in someone's own home. The city can still restrict it through a formal zoning-amendment process, mind you, so "protected" doesn't mean "untouchable."

The second track is hébergement touristique commercial: a property that isn't your principal residence, rented short-term under the C10 zoning use. This is the track the city revised its rules for in 2025, and it's the one caught up in the 2026 freeze. As of April 2026, Quebec City has a 150-day moratorium on new commercial tourist accommodation across roughly a dozen sectors of Vieux-Québec, including Vieux-Port, Petit Champlain and Place D'Youville, explicitly aimed at bringing back around 500 permanent residents to the old city. Saint-Roch and Saint-Jean-Baptiste sit outside this particular freeze, since they'd already been restricted in earlier rounds. Then in May 2026, Vieux-Limoilou's borough council moved to strip C10 zoning from four zones along Chemin de la Canardière and 3e Avenue, banning ground-floor and upper-floor short-term rentals there while still allowing basements, with existing operators grandfathered in. A council vote was expected before the 2026 summer break.

None of that touches the collaborative path. Unfortunately for anyone eyeing a pure investment play, though, it does mean the commercial track is getting harder to enter in exactly the neighborhoods tourists actually want to stay in. If your plan depends on buying a second property purely to rent nightly, check the zoning on that specific address before you close, because "it was allowed last year" is no longer a safe assumption in several of Quebec City's most visited districts.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Quebec City

Since which track you're on decides so much, it makes sense that licensing runs through two separate gatekeepers rather than one. Both tracks need a municipal step first and a provincial step second, and skipping the order gets your application bounced.

For the collaborative path, you start by calling 311, and the city takes about 30 days to review your request for a certificate of authorization. You'll need to submit proof that the unit is genuinely your principal residence, a redacted copy of your most recent provincial or federal notice of assessment, through the city's permit portal. Once approved, the fee for 2026 is $260, payable by bank transfer, debit, check or cash. The certificate is valid for 12 months, and here's the part that catches people out: the city sends no renewal reminder, so it's on you to reapply every year before it lapses.

For the commercial path, you first confirm the zoning allows C10 use at your address and get a certificate of authorization for that use, then complete a "avis de conformité" form and email it with sections 1 through 3 filled in to [email protected]. The city signs and returns it if your property qualifies, or contacts you to explain a refusal or request more documents.

Only once you're holding that municipal approval, either the $260 collaborative certificate or the signed avis de conformité, can you move to the provincial half: registering with the Corporation de l'industrie touristique du Québec (CITQ). CITQ's own fee schedule, effective January 1, 2026, charges $54 a year for a résidence principale establishment, $131 for hébergement touristique jeunesse, and $156 for hébergement touristique général. That registration is also good for 12 months and, just like the municipal certificate, has to be renewed annually, ideally within the 60 days before it expires.

A few rules apply no matter which category you land in. Registration cannot be transferred to a new owner if you sell, so a buyer has to start the whole process fresh. You must display your CITQ registration number, and the certificate itself, where guests can see them at the main entrance, and the number has to appear distinctly on every advertisement, social media post and website you use to promote the listing, transactional or not. If you list on Airbnb or another booking platform, you'll need to hand over a digital copy of that certificate before the listing can go live, since platforms are required to verify it.

Required Documents for Quebec City Short Term Rentals

Getting that certificate right the first time matters more than it looks, since a rejected application costs you another round trip through the same 30-day municipal review. CITQ won't even open your registration file without every one of these items in hand:

• The signed municipal avis de conformité, the document confirming your local zoning permits the use, obtained before you ever start the CITQ application.
• Proof of ownership or tenancy: your title deed, municipal tax bill, or lease agreement.
• Liability insurance of at least $2,000,000 per event, covering bodily injury or property damage tied to operating the establishment.
• Interior and exterior photographs of the property, meant for use on whatever digital platform you list on.
• Condo or lease authorization, where it applies: a copy of the condo declaration's provisions permitting tourist accommodation, or a landlord's written authorization if your lease doesn't already allow it.

For the collaborative path specifically, do check that your notice of assessment is recent enough and shows the correct address before you upload it, because that document has one job: proving the unit you're renting is where you live. Make sure any account numbers or other sensitive details get redacted first, in line with the city's own privacy guidance.

Quebec City Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear both certificates and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to work through, and Quebec stacks three layers on a single night's stay. The good news, if you can call it that, is that a booking platform handles two of the three for you automatically in most cases.

Tax	Rate	Collected by
Lodging tax (taxe sur l'hébergement)	3.5% of the nightly rate	Revenu Québec, generally remitted by the platform
GST (TPS)	5%	Canada Revenue Agency, above the small-supplier threshold
QST (TVQ)	9.975%	Revenu Québec, above the small-supplier threshold

The lodging tax applies to any tourist region that's opted in, and "Québec," the tourism region covering Quebec City, is one of them. It's calculated on the price of the night alone, excluding anything billed separately like parking or a cleaning fee, and it's the tax you'll spend the least time thinking about, because Airbnb has automatically collected and remitted it on eligible Quebec bookings since October 2017. If you're renting solely through a platform that's registered for the lodging-tax file, which Airbnb is, the obligation to collect and remit sits with the platform, not with you.

GST and QST work differently, and the threshold is the part hosts most often get wrong. You're a "small supplier" and don't have to register or collect either tax as long as your taxable supplies, including any other commercial activity, stay under $30,000 in a single calendar quarter or the four quarters before it. Below that line, a registered platform still collects GST and QST on your behalf, so you're not left exposed because you're small. Above it, you register yourself, and from that point on you charge, collect and remit both taxes directly. Keep in mind that all three taxes stack: on a $135 room, Revenu Québec's own worked example shows $4.73 of lodging tax added first, then GST and QST calculated on that combined total.

Your rental income is also ordinary taxable income at both the provincial and federal level, and the usual deductions for a rental business apply. If you're weighing what a Quebec City room-share might realistically clear against other Canadian markets, the Canada Markets page breaks that comparison down at the country level.

Quebec City wide Short Term Rental Rules

That tax framework sits on top of a provincial law that governs every host in Quebec, city bylaws included, so it's worth knowing where the floor actually is. The Loi sur l'hébergement touristique (RLRQ, chapitre H-1.01) has applied province-wide since 2021, and it was substantially toughened by a 2023 amendment, adopted June 7, 2023 and aimed squarely at illegal listings.

That 2023 law is what put teeth into platform compliance. Since June 7, 2023, booking platforms can't advertise a listing without a valid registration number attached, and can't let an unregistered establishment that offers stays over 31 days sneak through a shorter booking instead, on pain of fines up to $100,000 per infraction. Further obligations, including displaying the certificate at the property's main entrance and the platform-side verification duties, took effect by September 1, 2023. And since August 31, 2023, the old classification signage (the star or diamond panels hotels used to display) is banned outright under article 48, on pain of a fine from Revenu Québec, since the registration number replaced it as the only thing that matters.

The law also gives municipalities real teeth of their own. If a host or their guests rack up two convictions for a municipal nuisance, sanitation or security bylaw within 12 months, the city can ask the minister to suspend the registration, and the penalties escalate on a graduated schedule: a two-month suspension first, a six-month suspension if it happens again, then outright cancellation. That's a meaningful deterrent on its own, well before Revenu Québec's civil fines even enter the picture.

Does Quebec City strictly enforce STR rules?

Given how much of that framework is built around penalties, it should come as no surprise that Quebec City and the province both take enforcement seriously, and 2026 has been an active year on that front. Revenu Québec is the body responsible for inspections, investigations and penal enforcement of the whole tourist-accommodation law, and anyone can report a suspected non-compliant establishment directly to it.

The fine schedule is genuinely steep once you look at the actual numbers. Operating without any registration runs $2,500 to $25,000 for an individual, and $5,000 to $50,000 for anything else, a company included. Operating with a registration that's been refused, suspended or cancelled costs more: $5,000 to $50,000 for an individual, $10,000 to $100,000 otherwise. Skipping the $2,000,000 liability insurance draws $1,000 to $10,000 for a person, or $2,000 to $20,000 for a company, and false or inaccurate documentation carries the same $2,500-to-$50,000 range as operating unregistered. Platforms face the largest exposure of all: up to $100,000 per infraction for advertising an unregistered listing or failing to verify a registration number properly.

Beyond the fine schedule, 2026 has brought a genuine tightening of enforcement through zoning rather than penalties alone. The April 2026 freeze in Vieux-Québec and the May 2026 rezoning in Vieux-Limoilou both came with public statements framing tourist accommodation as something the city now actively wants to rebalance against housing supply, not just regulate for safety. CITQ's own site also references updated display-rule enforcement that took effect April 9, 2026 and a Règlement amendment from March 25, 2026 aimed at "favoriser une plus grande conformité," greater compliance, though I couldn't pin down the full detail of either change beyond the announcement itself. Watch for both if you're already registered, since compliance requirements here have clearly been moving in one direction this year.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Quebec City

Given everything above, working through the steps in order will save you both time and the $260 municipal fee if your property turns out not to qualify at all.

1. Decide which track you're on. Principal residence with a 90-night cap, or a dedicated commercial property. That single choice determines every step that follows.
2. Check the zoning before you commit to anything commercial. Confirm your address isn't inside the Vieux-Québec freeze zones or the newly rezoned Vieux-Limoilou sectors, using the city's interactive zoning map or by calling 311.
3. Apply for the municipal step first. Call 311 for the collaborative certificate, or email the avis de conformité to [email protected] for a commercial one.
4. Gather your CITQ documents while you wait. Liability insurance of at least $2,000,000, proof of ownership or a lease, condo or landlord authorization if needed, and your property photos.
5. Register with CITQ once the municipal approval is in hand, and pay the applicable fee: $54, $131, or $156 depending on your category.
6. Display everything correctly. Registration number and certificate at the entrance, the number on every ad and web listing, and hand a digital copy of the certificate to any platform you list on.
7. Sort out tax before your first guest. Confirm your GST/QST small-supplier status against the $30,000 threshold, and don't forget the platform is already handling the 3.5% lodging tax for you.
8. Diarize your renewal date. Both the municipal certificate and the CITQ registration run 12 months, and neither one sends you a reminder.

Who to contact in Quebec City about Short Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever step trips you up, the right office depends on whether your question is municipal, provincial, or tax-related, and knowing that in advance saves a lot of being transferred around.

For the municipal certificate, zoning, and general questions: call 311 (or 418-641-6311 / 1-855-641-6311 from outside the area), Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Quebec City's Hôtel de Ville sits at 2, rue des Jardins, C.P. 700, succ. Haute-Ville, Québec (Québec) G1R 4S9, open 8:30 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4:30 p.m. weekdays, and general questions can also go to [email protected].

For commercial zoning and business permits specifically: the Info-commerçants line at 418-641-6611 handles urban-planning, permit, regulation and financial-assistance questions for businesses. Commercial avis de conformité requests go by email to [email protected].

For CITQ registration: apply and manage your registration directly through citq.qc.ca.

For tax questions and reporting non-compliance: Revenu Québec administers the lodging tax, GST and QST, and is also the agency to contact if you want to report an establishment you believe is operating illegally.

For general questions about the provincial law: the Ministère du Tourisme's Québec-region line is 1-418-659-2281 (Montréal: 1-514-873-3474; toll-free: 1-866-423-3234), or email [email protected].

What do Airbnb hosts in Quebec City on Reddit and Bigger Pockets think about local regulations?

Given how much has shifted in the zoning this year, you'd expect that to be the main thing hosts are talking about, and to some extent that's true, though the specific discussion is thinner than you'd find for a bigger market. I looked through BiggerPockets rather than surveying it, and the Quebec-specific forum thread I found turned out to be mostly quiet: one investor who owns short-term rentals downtown and in Lévis offered to answer questions, but there wasn't a deeper thread debating the 2026 freeze specifically. I couldn't find an active Reddit discussion focused on Quebec City's rules either, so treat this section as a genuine gap rather than a synthesized consensus.

What the news coverage of the freeze and the Vieux-Limoilou rezoning does make clear is that local sentiment is split along fairly predictable lines. Le Soleil quoted the hotel association as broadly supportive of "rebalancing" the market, while realtors interviewed in the same reporting called the freeze unwelcoming to investors given how little supply already exists. That's roughly the fault line you'd expect: residents and existing hoteliers reading the tightening as overdue, and anyone hoping to buy into the commercial track reading it as the door closing. Whichever side of that you land on, run any specific address through BNBCalc before you assume the numbers still work under the new zoning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Quebec City in 2026?

Yes, through one of two paths. Renting a room or your whole principal residence, capped at 90 nights a year, needs a $260 municipal certificate plus a $54 CITQ registration. Renting a separate property commercially needs the municipal zoning to allow it, which has gotten harder in parts of Vieux-Québec and Vieux-Limoilou in 2026, plus a CITQ registration costing $131 or $156 depending on the category. Both paths require registering before you list, not after.

How much does it cost to register a short-term rental in Quebec City?

Two fees apply. The municipal certificate costs $260 for 2026 on the collaborative (principal-residence) path, or requires a separate avis de conformité for a commercial property. The provincial CITQ registration adds $54 a year for a résidence principale establishment, $131 for youth tourist accommodation, or $156 for general tourist accommodation. Both renew annually, and neither the city nor CITQ sends a reminder before they expire.

What happens if you rent short-term in Quebec City without registering?

Operating without a valid registration carries a fine of $2,500 to $25,000 for an individual, or $5,000 to $50,000 for a company, per the province's official penalty schedule. Operating with a refused, suspended or cancelled registration costs even more, $5,000 to $50,000 for an individual and up to $100,000 otherwise. Booking platforms also face fines up to $100,000 per infraction for listing an unregistered property, which is why most won't let an unregistered listing go live in the first place.

Do you have to collect tax on a Quebec City Airbnb?

Usually not directly, at least not the lodging tax. Airbnb has automatically collected and remitted Quebec's 3.5% lodging tax since 2017. GST and QST work differently: you only need to register and collect them yourself once your taxable supplies pass $30,000 in a quarter or the trailing four quarters, and below that threshold a registered platform collects those on your behalf too.

Is it still possible to buy a property in Quebec City purely as a short-term rental?

It's gotten harder in 2026, though not impossible everywhere. Quebec City froze new commercial tourist-accommodation permits in around a dozen Vieux-Québec sectors starting in April, and Vieux-Limoilou moved to remove that zoning from several zones in May, both aimed at protecting housing supply. Outside those specific areas, the commercial C10 path still exists, so check the zoning on your exact address before assuming it applies.

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