Big White Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Big White and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that you picked one of the friendlier corners of British Columbia to do it in. Big White is a ski resort area in the Okanagan, and it isn't a city or a town at all. It's an unincorporated electoral area governed by the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB), based out of Trail, roughly 150 kilometres away. That distance matters less than you'd think, because BC's provincial government has already done Big White a favour: it named the resort as exempt land under the province's short-term rental law, which means the rule that boxes in most BC hosts, renting only your own principal residence, doesn't apply here.

That's the headline, though it comes with a real catch. Even with the province out of your way, you still have to register your rental with British Columbia every year, and the regional district's own hands-off approach doesn't mean nobody sets rules. Most of Big White is strata-titled condos and townhomes, and a strata corporation can vote to restrict or ban nightly rentals in its own building regardless of what the RDKB or the province allows. So the real gatekeeper for a lot of owners here turns out to be their own strata council, not the government at all.

This guide walks through what governs a Big White short-term rental in 2026: the zoning and the regional district's own stance, what registering with the province costs and requires, the taxes that stack on a booking, how enforcement works at three different levels, and who to call when a question doesn't have an obvious answer. Every figure below comes from RDKB's or the Province of British Columbia's own pages, checked in July 2026, and where I couldn't confirm something from an official source, I've said so rather than guessed. Once you've got the rules straight, run the numbers through BNBCalc before you commit to a unit.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Big White

That strata point is worth sitting with before anything else, because it shapes what "starting a business" even means here. Big White was built, almost from the ground up, as a place where units get rented out nightly. Condos, townhomes and chalets around the village core exist because skiers need somewhere to sleep, and the resort's own zoning bylaw reflects that history rather than fighting it.

Big White Zoning Bylaw No. 1166, first passed in 2001 and consolidated with amendments since, carries the RDKB's name throughout it, not any city government's. It sorts the mountain into zones such as R8 (High Density Mixed Residential/Commercial), several Village Core zones, and a scattering of lower-density residential zones, plus a "Pension" use for guest houses that offer full board. None of those zones mention short-term rentals by name, and neither does anything else in the bylaw. That silence is deliberate, according to RDKB's own Short Term Rentals FAQ page: "the current (and historic) interpretation of all of the RDKB's zoning bylaws is that short-term rentals are part of a residential use," and staff make no distinction based on how long a guest stays. A dwelling unit can be rented out nightly, weekly or monthly under the same zoning that permits it as a home.

Where that gets complicated is legality of construction, not duration. If your unit was built or converted without a building permit, say a storage room turned into a bedroom, RDKB requires you to get a permit retroactively before it can legally be used "for habitation of any kind," rental included, and the finished space still has to meet the density rules for its zone. Assuming your unit was built properly in the first place, none of that applies to you, and you're free to treat a Big White purchase as a real nightly-rental business in a way that most BC municipalities won't allow. Just make sure you also read your strata's bylaws before you list anything, since a 3/4 vote of owners can ban short-term rentals in a specific building even where the zoning and the regional district both say yes.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirements in Big White

Since legality of construction is the local threshold, licensing is the next thing to sort out, and here Big White is unusually simple. RDKB says so plainly on its own FAQ page: a business licence is not required to operate a short-term rental anywhere in the district. There's no STR-specific bylaw, no licence fee, and no local application to file. If your only frame of reference is a city like Kelowna or Vancouver, that's a different starting point altogether.

What you can't skip is the province. British Columbia's Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act requires every short-term rental offer to be registered, and that requirement applies everywhere in the province, exempt land included. Registration and the principal residence requirement are two separate things in the Act: section 14 is the one that's switched off at Big White, while section 6, the registration requirement itself, still applies in full.

Registering means creating a BC Registries Account through a BC Services Card or a BCeID, then completing an online application with your property's details and paying the fee. On gov.bc.ca's host-registration page, the fee splits into two tiers:

Registration type	Annual fee	Applies to
Own home	$100 + $1.50 service fee	Your principal residence, including a spare bedroom or the whole home while you're away
Secondary property	$450 + $1.50 service fee	Secondary suites, ADUs, secondary properties in areas without a principal residence requirement, and strata hotel units on third-party platforms

Big White is, by definition, an area without a principal residence requirement, so most owners here who don't live on the mountain year-round register at the $450 tier. That fee doesn't come back if your application is denied, so it's worth getting the details right the first time. Renewal opens 40 days before your registration expires, with reminder emails at 40, 14 and 1 day out.

One more detail trips up hosts coming from other provinces. Platforms must display your provincial registration number on every listing, though a business licence number is only required "in areas where a business licence is required by the local government," according to gov.bc.ca's legislation overview. Since RDKB has no such requirement, your listing only needs the provincial number.

Required Documents for Big White Short Term Rentals

Given there's no local licence application to assemble a file for, the paperwork here is lighter than in most cities, though it isn't nothing. The province's own registration process asks for:

• A BC Services Card or BCeID account to log in and apply.
• Your property's address and details, entered directly into the online form.
• Supporting documents uploaded as PDF, JPG or JPEG, confirming who you are and your relationship to the property.
• Payment by credit card for the applicable fee.

Beyond that provincial checklist, keep two Big White-specific things on hand even though nobody may ask for them up front. If your unit went through any recent construction or conversion, keep your building permit, since RDKB can require proof of legal construction before a rental is allowed to operate. And if you own in a strata building, which describes most of the mountain, pull your strata's bylaws and any minutes about short-term rentals before you list. Remember, a strata vote can override everything else in this guide for your specific building, so that document matters more than anything RDKB or the province will ask you for.

Big White Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you clear the registration step and are able to start hosting, there's still tax to sort out, and three separate layers stack on a Big White booking.

Tax	Rate	Collected by
Provincial Sales Tax (PST)	8%	Host or platform, remitted to the Province
Municipal and Regional District Tax (MRDT)	around 3%	Host or platform, remitted through Big White's designated accommodation area
Goods and Services Tax (GST)	5%	Host or platform, once revenue exceeds $30,000 CAD in a 12-month period

PST is the most straightforward of the three. Gov.bc.ca's accommodation bulletin sets it at 8% of the accommodation charge, with exemptions for hosts earning under $2,500 a year off-platform, units charging $30 or less a day, and stays of 27 continuous days or more. Airbnb and Vrbo generally register as marketplace facilitators and collect this on your behalf, though you're still on the hook if you give a platform incorrect information.

MRDT is the one I'd flag as fluid rather than fixed. Since I last checked, the clearest figure I could find came from a 2023 news report rather than a live rate table. Big White's own senior vice president, Michael J Ballingall, told Castanet that Airbnb and Vrbo collect a 3% MRDT on Big White bookings, and that the resort had recovered over $300,000 from one platform that was misdirecting that tax elsewhere. That last part is an odd wrinkle worth knowing about. Big White has no postal code of its own, so listings and shipments alike often default to Beaverdell, a community roughly an hour down the highway, and tax dollars have occasionally followed the same wrong address. Do check that your own listing's location resolves correctly on whichever platform you use, since that's exactly the kind of error that cost the resort real money.

GST is a federal tax layered on top, and it works differently from the other two. Under Canada Revenue Agency's digital economy rules, effective since July 1, 2021, a platform or host only needs to register for GST once applicable revenue passes $30,000 CAD over any 12-month period. Below that threshold, you don't need to charge it at all. BC has no separate provincial HST, having left the harmonized system back in 2013, so GST and PST are charged and tracked separately.

Your rental income is also ordinary taxable income at the federal and provincial level, on top of all three of the above, so keep a full year of receipts and expenses if you plan to claim deductions like cleaning, utilities or a share of your mortgage interest.

Big White Short Term Rental Rules

With the tax side settled, the rules that govern day-to-day hosting split cleanly into three layers, and they don't always point the same direction. RDKB sets the floor, the province adds registration on top, and your strata, if you have one, can override both.

At the RDKB level, the standing rule is genuinely permissive: no business licence, no principal residence requirement, and zoning that treats a rental the same whether a guest stays one night or one month. The one condition RDKB does enforce is legal construction, so any addition or conversion needs a building permit before it's rented out.

At the provincial level, registration is mandatory everywhere, and it's worth keeping in mind that the exemption at Big White only removes the principal-residence piece of the Act, not registration itself. You still need your registration number displayed on every listing, and you're still required to keep your account information current with the registrar.

At the strata level is where things tighten. British Columbia's strata short-term rental bylaws page confirms that a strata corporation can pass a bylaw, by a 3/4 vote of owners, to limit or ban short-term rentals outright, and can fine an owner up to $1,000 a day for a continuing breach. That's a meaningfully bigger stick than anything RDKB or the province brings to bear on a compliant, legally built unit, so don't skip this check just because the rest of the picture looks easy. Some buildings at Big White are explicitly set up as rental-pool properties that welcome nightly guests; others restrict rentals to protect a quieter, owner-occupied feel. Keep in mind that the only way to know which one you own is to read the actual bylaws, not to assume from a building's reputation.

Does Big White Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Given those three layers pull in different directions, "how strict is enforcement" doesn't have one answer at Big White, it has three.

Locally, enforcement is light because there's very little RDKB rule to break. There's no STR-specific bylaw, so RDKB's bylaw enforcement officers only get involved over the same things they'd chase for any residential property: an illegally built or converted space, a zoning violation, or a general nuisance complaint. If your unit is legally constructed and used the way its zone permits, you're unlikely to hear from RDKB about the fact that you rent it nightly at all.

Provincially, enforcement has real teeth, even if it isn't aimed at the exemption Big White holds. The Compliance and Enforcement Unit, housed in the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs, investigates registration non-compliance through record requests, correspondence and public-record searches, and can issue compliance orders or administrative penalties. Those penalties are not small: a May 2024 government release sets host penalties at $500 to $5,000 a day per infraction, and corporate penalties up to $10,000 a day. None of that touches your right to rent a non-principal-residence unit at Big White, but it applies in full if you skip registration altogether.

At the strata level, enforcement is arguably the one most owners will experience directly, since it's a fellow owner or the strata council, not a distant regulator, watching for a bylaw breach. A strata's own daily fine can run up to $1,000, and unlike RDKB or the province, a strata council doesn't need to prove much beyond a bylaw violation to start charging it. If you're weighing a purchase specifically for its rental income, that strata bylaw is honestly the single biggest variable to check before you buy, more than anything in this guide about RDKB or the province.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Big White

Given how much of this comes down to your specific building rather than the government, the order below is designed to catch that early, before you spend money on anything else.

1. Read your strata's bylaws first, if you're buying or already own in a strata building. Confirm short-term rentals are permitted, and note any rental-pool requirement, minimum stay, or per-owner cap.
2. Confirm your unit was legally built. If there's any conversion or addition without a permit, get that sorted with RDKB's Building Inspection department before you list.
3. Register with the Province of British Columbia. Create a BC Services Card or BCeID account, complete the online application, and pay $100 or $450 depending on whether the unit is your own home or a secondary property.
4. Display your registration number on every listing, and skip the business licence field, since RDKB doesn't issue one.
5. Set up tax collection. Confirm whether your platform collects PST and MRDT on your behalf, and track your revenue against the $30,000 GST threshold.
6. Double-check your listing's address resolves to Big White rather than Beaverdell on whichever platform you use, so tax dollars and guests both end up in the right place.
7. Run the numbers before you commit. Run the property through BNBCalc to see what a realistic nightly rate and occupancy produce once taxes and fees are subtracted.

Who to Contact in Big White About Short Term Rental Regulations and Zoning

Whichever step trips you up, three offices between them handle almost everything above.

Zoning, building permits and bylaw enforcement

The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary's Planning & Development department handles zoning questions, comments on future STR policy, and bylaw enforcement.

• Address: 202 - 843 Rossland Avenue, Trail, BC V1R 4S8
• Phone: 250-368-0241
• Email: [email protected]

Building permits specifically

The RDKB Building Inspection department handles permit applications for any construction or conversion, including retroactive permits for an unpermitted rental space.

• Address: 202 - 843 Rossland Avenue, Trail, BC V1R 4S8
• Phone: 250-368-0222

Fire safety on the mountain

The Big White Fire Department, one of RDKB's own fire services, is the local contact for fire safety questions specific to the resort.

• Address: 7555 Porcupine Road, Big White, BC
• Phone: 250-765-3090

Provincial registration and enforcement

British Columbia's short-term rental registry and Compliance and Enforcement Unit, run through ServiceBC, handles registration, renewals, and complaints about unregistered listings anywhere in the province.

• Phone: 1-833-828-2240
• Email: [email protected]
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 7:30 am to 5:00 pm, with support in more than 140 languages

Your strata council or property manager

For anything about a specific building's own rules, your strata council or its property manager is the actual authority, not RDKB or the Province. Check your strata's bylaws or ask your strata manager directly before you assume either government's answer applies to your unit.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Big White on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think About Local Regulations?

I looked for BiggerPockets threads specific to Big White and came up short. There's an active short-term rental forum on the site generally, but nothing readable and Big White-specific turned up, so what follows is my own read of the public, verifiable facts already laid out above rather than a survey of what other hosts say.

The recurring theme, once you dig into the primary sources, is that Big White is a genuinely unusual market to invest in, because the government layers are so quiet. Between an RDKB that has no STR bylaw and openly says so, and a province that named the resort exempt land rather than restricting it, there's very little regulatory risk here compared to almost anywhere else in this guide series. That's a real point in Big White's favour if you're comparing it to a market where a city council might ban entire-unit rentals outright.

What that quiet also does, though, is push all the actual decision-making down to the strata level, and that's the part an outsider is most likely to miss. A building's own bylaws, not the regional district's zoning or the province's registry, decide whether your specific unit can operate as a nightly rental at all, and those bylaws vary condo to condo. The postal-code quirk is its own small, telling detail. A resort popular enough to draw skiers from across the continent still doesn't have its own mailing address, and that's created real, dollar-figure headaches around tax remittance and even guests showing up in the wrong town. None of that shows up if you only read the province's exemption list and stop there.

If you're weighing Big White against other Canadian markets for a rental purchase, the country-level numbers on BNBCalc's Canada market page are worth pulling up before you compare, since the regulatory ease here doesn't automatically mean the returns beat every other market in the country.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Big White in 2026?

Yes, in most cases. British Columbia's Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act names Big White Ski Resort as exempt land, so unlike most of the province, hosts here aren't restricted to renting out only their principal residence. You still need to register your rental with the Province every year, and the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary requires no separate business licence. The main limit most owners run into in practice is their own strata's bylaws, which can restrict or ban short-term rentals building by building regardless of what the zoning or the province allows.

Do you need a business licence to operate a short-term rental in Big White?

No. The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary states directly on its own website that a business licence is not required to operate a short-term rental anywhere in the district, Big White included. What you do need is a provincial short-term rental registration, which is a separate requirement that applies across all of British Columbia regardless of local business licence rules.

How much does it cost to register a short-term rental in British Columbia?

Registration costs $100 a year plus a $1.50 service fee if the property is your own home, including a spare bedroom or your whole home while you're away. It costs $450 a year plus the same service fee for a secondary property in an area without a principal residence requirement, which describes most non-owner-occupied units at Big White. The fee is not refundable if your application is denied, and renewal opens 40 days before your registration expires.

What taxes do you pay on a Big White short-term rental?

Three layers typically apply: 8% Provincial Sales Tax, a Municipal and Regional District Tax of around 3% that funds local tourism promotion, and 5% federal GST once your revenue passes $30,000 CAD in a 12-month period. Airbnb and Vrbo generally collect PST and MRDT on your behalf as registered marketplace facilitators, though you remain responsible for giving them accurate information. Your net rental income is also ordinary taxable income at tax time.

Can a strata ban short-term rentals at Big White?

Yes. A strata corporation can pass a bylaw, by a 3/4 vote of owners, that limits or bans short-term rentals in its building, and it can fine a violating owner up to $1,000 a day for a continuing breach. That authority exists independently of RDKB's zoning and the province's resort exemption, so a strata vote can effectively override both. Always check your specific building's bylaws before assuming a purchase will work as a nightly rental.

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