Markham Short Term Rental Regulation: A Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Markham and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the honest answer is almost certainly not, at least not the way you're picturing it. Markham's zoning by-law does not permit short-term rentals of fewer than 30 consecutive days anywhere in the city, and it hasn't since Council amended the rules back in May 2018. That prohibition carried straight through into the City's new Comprehensive Zoning By-law 2024-19, which the Ontario Land Tribunal approved city-wide on September 19, 2024. There is no such thing as a short-term rental licence here, unlike in Toronto or Mississauga a few exits down the highway.

Markham sits in York Region, just north of Toronto in the Greater Toronto Area, and that regional context matters because neighbouring municipalities took a completely different approach. Markham didn't build a licensing system to manage short-term rentals responsibly. It defined "short-term accommodation" in the zoning by-law and left it off every zone's list of permitted uses, which is the quiet, bureaucratic way of saying no. On top of that, a 2024 change to the federal Income Tax Act now strips away expense deductions for rental income the CRA considers "non-compliant," and a short-term rental in a city that doesn't permit them qualifies as exactly that.

So let's walk through what this means for you in 2026: why there's no licence to apply for, what the zoning by-law does allow, the tax exposure that stacks on top of the zoning risk, how seriously the city enforces this, and who to call if you get stuck. Everything below comes from Markham's own pages, Ontario's Planning Act, and the Canada Revenue Agency, checked in July 2026. Run the property through BNBCalc anyway, since knowing what a Markham home would earn if the rules were different tells you a lot about what you're giving up by staying legal.

Starting a Short Term Rental Business in Markham

Since knowing what you're giving up is the whole point of that comparison, let's answer the obvious follow-up directly. Unfortunately for almost anyone reading this, there is no nightly-rental business to start in Markham. If your plan involved buying or converting a house or condo here to run it as an entire-home Airbnb, that plan runs straight into a zoning by-law that doesn't list short-term accommodation as a permitted use in any residential zone, and no amount of paperwork changes that on its own.

Here's how Markham got here. Residents raised concerns during the city's Phase 1 zoning consultations about "AirBnB accommodations creating safety, noise and parking issues," and Council responded by directing staff to study rooming houses, secondary suites, and short-term accommodation together as a special project. That review wrapped up in May 2018, when Council amended a series of zoning by-laws to define short-term accommodation without permitting it anywhere. Nothing about that outcome has softened since. The Comprehensive Zoning By-law 2024-19, enacted January 31, 2024 and approved by the Ontario Land Tribunal that September, carried the same prohibition forward city-wide.

What's left, then, is the mid-term market: furnished rentals of 30 nights or longer, which fall outside this regime entirely and sit under ordinary landlord and tenant law instead. A fair amount of the inventory that would otherwise chase nightly Airbnb rates in the GTA has landed exactly there, since 30-plus-night stays don't trip Markham's short-term accommodation definition at all. Keep that pivot in mind as you read the rest of this guide, because nearly everything from here on describes why the nightly model doesn't work rather than how to run it.

Short Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Markham

Since the nightly model doesn't work as a rule, it makes sense that Markham never built a licence for it. Check the City's own Licences & Registrations page and you'll find a Marriage Licence, a Pet Licence, a Business Licence, a Lottery, Bingo & Raffle Licence, and birth and death certificates. Six categories, and not one of them is a short-term rental licence, because the city has never created that program.

That leaves exactly one theoretical door open, and it's a narrow one. A property owner can apply for a site-specific zoning by-law amendment or a minor variance, and Markham's Committee of Adjustment or Council decides whether to grant it. Both routes run through Planning Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.13. A minor variance in particular has to clear a specific legal test under section 45(1): it has to be minor, be desirable for the use of the land, and maintain "the general intent and purpose of the by-law and of the official plan." Turning a use the by-law categorically excludes into a permitted one is a hard sell against that test, which is exactly why site-specific approval for short-term accommodation is the exception rather than a normal permit path.

Do check with Development Services before you file anything, because both routes require public notice, a hearing, and a fee, and a refusal can be appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal by either side. I couldn't confirm the current 2026 fee schedule for these applications from an official source, so treat that as a real cost you need to ask about rather than a number I can hand you here. Approval also isn't guaranteed even after you've paid it, and Council or the Committee can say no.

Required Documents for Markham Short Term Rentals

Given how rarely that approval comes through, the paperwork question splits into two separate tracks worth understanding. If you're pursuing the site-specific route from the last section, you'll need the standard package any zoning application requires: a survey or site plan showing the property and the change you're requesting, a completed application form, written authorization from the owner if someone else is filing on their behalf, and the application fee. The city then handles notifying surrounding property owners and scheduling the public hearing, so that part isn't on you.

The second track matters even if you never touch the Committee of Adjustment, and it's arguably more important. Since 2024, the Canada Revenue Agency requires anyone claiming rental expenses to be able to document that a short-term rental complied with "all provincial and municipal registration, licensing and permit requirements" for every day it operated. Markham never issues that compliance, so keep in mind that any nightly-rental income earned here is, by the CRA's own definition, non-compliant from day one. That doesn't mean you skip reporting the income. It means you should expect to lose the matching expense deductions, and you'll want records proving exactly how many days the property operated as a short-term rental so you (or your accountant) can calculate the non-compliant portion correctly if the CRA ever asks.

Markham Short Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you're still weighing this after all of that, the tax layer is where things get painful rather than merely restrictive. Three separate obligations can attach to a short-term stay in Markham, and they come from three different governments.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT)	4%	City of Markham
GST/HST	13%, once you clear $30,000/year	Canada Revenue Agency
Income tax on rental profit	Your marginal rate	Canada Revenue Agency

As of July 2026, the City's Municipal Accommodation Tax is a flat 4% on the room portion of any stay of 29 consecutive nights or less, in force since January 1, 2019 under By-law 2018-116. It was built with hotels in mind, and since Markham doesn't licence short-term rentals, there's no clean mechanism tying an unlicensed nightly rental into that collection system the way there is for a hotel front desk.

GST/HST is where the Canada Revenue Agency draws a bright line at the length of stay rather than the city you're in. Anything under one month of continuous occupancy is taxable; a month or longer is exempt. Ontario's combined HST rate sits at 13%, and you have to register, collect, and remit it once your gross revenue from accommodation sharing passes $30,000 across four consecutive calendar quarters.

Now the part that changes the whole calculation. A 2024 amendment to the Income Tax Act was added by Bill C-69, effective for tax years after 2023. It denies expense deductions on any portion of short-term rental income the CRA classifies as non-compliant, meaning the property sits in a province or municipality that doesn't permit short-term rentals, or fails to meet applicable licensing rules. Markham fails that test outright. Mortgage interest, utilities, cleaning, and every other expense you'd normally write off against rental income become non-deductible for the non-compliant days. A one-time transition exception let 2024 slide if you came into compliance by December 31 of that year, but it doesn't apply to 2025 or later, so it won't help anyone reading this in 2026.

Markham wide Short Term Rental Rules

Given that the tax code alone now punishes non-compliance this hard, it's worth understanding where Markham's own rules sit inside the bigger Ontario picture. Ontario has no province-wide short-term rental statute. Everything you've read so far, the zoning prohibition, the licence that doesn't exist, comes from the Planning Act, which hands zoning authority to individual municipalities rather than setting one rule for the whole province. Markham chose to define and exclude short-term accommodation. Other Ontario cities, working from the exact same provincial law, chose to license and permit it instead.

That's not a small distinction. Markham's Municipal Accommodation Tax likewise traces back to provincial authority under the Municipal Act, 2001, which lets a municipality's council pass a by-law imposing a tax on transient accommodation. The province supplies the tool; the city decides how, or whether, to use it.

One development worth tracking rather than relying on: Ontario's Environmental Registry posted a notice for public comment on Bill 119, the Protecting Ontario's Streets and Communities Act, between May 26 and June 25, 2026. Schedule 7 would let municipalities apply administrative monetary penalties directly to "zoning by-law contraventions that relate to land uses that are not permitted," which is exactly the category an illegal short-term accommodation falls into. As of my last check in July 2026, that consultation had closed but the change hadn't been enacted, so it's a proposal rather than a rule you're bound by yet. Watch out for it anyway, because it would give Markham a faster, cheaper enforcement tool than a court prosecution.

Does Markham strictly enforce STR rules?

Given that faster tool is still pending, it's the current, slower mechanism you need to plan around. Enforcement here is complaint-driven rather than proactive, and the city runs it through combined By-law, Fire, and Building Standards teams. An investigating officer needs "reasonable evidenced-based grounds" before acting on a complaint, and entering a home without the owner's consent requires a warrant, so a single anonymous tip doesn't automatically trigger an inspection.

Once a violation is established, though, the penalties still aren't gentle under Planning Act section 67. An individual faces a fine of up to $25,000 on a first conviction, and up to $10,000 for every day the contravention continues after a subsequent conviction. A corporation faces up to $50,000 on a first conviction and up to $25,000 per day continuing after that. Those are court-imposed fines under a provincial statute, not a quick administrative ticket, which is exactly why a prosecution takes longer to land but hurts more once it does.

Where a tenant is subletting rather than an owner operating directly, resolution often runs through the Landlord and Tenant Board instead of a fine, since eviction is frequently the more direct fix and that process alone can take several months. Either way, don't expect a fast resolution or a cheap one. Markham's own councillors describe this as the standard path, and none of it has softened since the 2024-19 by-law took effect.

How to Start a Short Term Rental Business in Markham

Given everything above, "starting a business" here mostly means confirming there isn't one, then deciding what to do with the property instead. Work through these steps in order, because the early ones tell you whether the later ones are worth bothering with.

1. Confirm your zone and address with Markham's own zoning search, rather than assuming your neighbourhood works like the last city you researched. Not every property sits under the same by-law, since parts of Markham are still governed by By-law 177-96 or one of roughly 42 older area-specific by-laws.
2. Rule out the nightly model for planning purposes. Short-term accommodation isn't a permitted use anywhere as of right, so don't budget on Airbnb income from a Markham property without an approved variance in hand.
3. Decide whether a site-specific application is worth pursuing. Given the section 45(1) test above, this makes sense only if your situation is unusual enough to clear it, not as a routine step for an ordinary house.
4. Price the mid-term furnished market instead, since 30-plus-night stays sit outside this whole regime. Run both scenarios, the mid-term rental and whatever nightly numbers you can find for comparable Ontario markets, through BNBCalc so you're comparing real figures rather than a guess.
5. Register for GST/HST once you're near the $30,000 threshold, regardless of which model you land on, and keep clean records of every rental day from the start.
6. Talk to an accountant about the section 67.7 deduction rule before you file a return that assumes you can write off the usual expenses.
7. Diarize the Municipal Accommodation Tax rules if you ever operate something the city classifies as a hotel rather than a short-term accommodation, since the 4% rate and the quarterly filing obligations still apply even when your situation is unusual.

If Markham's numbers still don't pencil out after that, it's worth comparing them against the Canada market more broadly, since plenty of other Canadian cities allow the exact model Markham excludes.

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

Whichever step you got stuck on above, one of four contacts should be able to unstick you.

• General complaints and by-law questions: City of Markham Contact Centre, 905-477-5530, [email protected].
• Zoning, the zoning search tool, and questions about which by-law applies to your address: Development Services, 905-475-4861, [email protected].
• Municipal Accommodation Tax: Shane Manson, 905-415-7514, [email protected].
• In person: Markham Civic Centre, 101 Town Centre Boulevard, Markham, Ontario, L3R 9W3, Cashiers at the Thornhill Entrance, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Remember that none of these offices can grant you a short-term rental licence, because none exists to grant. What they can do is confirm your zone, walk you through the site-specific application if you decide it's worth the fee, or clarify a specific MAT question if you're operating something that qualifies as a hotel.

What Airbnb Hosts in Markham Report About Local Regulations

Given how firmly those four offices point back to "there's no licence," it's worth understanding how that reads to people comparing Markham against the rest of the region. Investors discussing the Greater Toronto Area on forums like BiggerPockets tend to sort cities by how much daylight the rules leave for a nightly rental, and Markham consistently comes up on the restrictive end of that comparison. Toronto at least permits a host's own principal residence. Mississauga goes further and licenses a principal residence explicitly. Markham offers neither path, which is why hosts researching the region often mention it as the city to avoid if a nightly Airbnb is the whole plan, rather than a market worth fighting the zoning by-law over.

The sentiment that does come through consistently is less about the rules being unfair and more about how quietly Markham closed the door. There was never a splashy ban announcement the way some cities have had. Council defined the use in 2018, left it off every permitted list, and let the new comprehensive by-law carry that forward in 2024 without changing the substance. For anyone comparing markets, that's the practical lesson: a city doesn't need a headline-grabbing prohibition to make nightly rentals a dead end. It just needs to say nothing, and let a zoning by-law do the rest.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Markham in 2026?

Not as a nightly rental. Markham's zoning by-law does not permit short-term accommodation, defined as stays under 30 consecutive days, in any zone, and this has been the case since Council amended the by-laws in May 2018. The city's Comprehensive Zoning By-law 2024-19 carried that prohibition forward unchanged. The only theoretical path is a site-specific zoning amendment or minor variance, which requires council or committee approval and is granted rarely. Stays of 30 nights or longer fall outside this rule entirely and remain legal under ordinary landlord and tenant law.

Does Markham have a short-term rental licence?

No. Markham's own Licences & Registrations page lists a Marriage Licence, Pet Licence, Business Licence, Lottery, Bingo & Raffle Licence, and birth and death certificates, and none of them covers short-term rentals. Unlike Toronto or Mississauga, which both built licensing programs for principal-residence short-term rentals, Markham never created one. There is no application to file for a standard short-term rental permit, because the zoning by-law doesn't permit the use anywhere, so a licence was never necessary from the city's perspective.

What taxes apply to a short-term rental in Markham?

Three layers can apply. The city's Municipal Accommodation Tax is 4% on stays of 29 nights or fewer. GST/HST at Ontario's 13% rate applies once your gross revenue from accommodation sharing passes $30,000 over four consecutive quarters. On top of both, a 2024 federal tax change denies expense deductions on rental income the CRA considers non-compliant, and a Markham short-term rental qualifies as non-compliant by definition, since the city doesn't permit the use. Regular income tax still applies to every dollar of profit regardless.

What happens if you run an unregistered short-term rental in Markham anyway?

Enforcement is complaint-driven through combined By-law, Fire, and Building Standards teams, and officers need reasonable grounds before acting, with a warrant required to enter without your consent. Once a violation is proven, Ontario's Planning Act allows fines of up to $25,000 for an individual on a first conviction, and up to $10,000 per day for a continuing violation after that. Where a tenant is subletting, resolution often runs through the Landlord and Tenant Board and eviction proceedings instead, which can take several months to resolve.

Can you rent out a Markham property for 30 days or more?

Yes, and this is the realistic option for most owners. A rental of 30 consecutive nights or longer doesn't meet Markham's definition of short-term accommodation, so it falls outside the zoning prohibition entirely and is governed by ordinary Ontario landlord and tenant law instead. Plenty of furnished-rental inventory across the GTA has shifted toward this mid-term model because the nightly alternative isn't available. It's worth running the numbers on a 30-plus-night lease before assuming a Markham property has no rental potential at all.

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