Sun Peaks, Canada Short-Term Rental Regulations: A 2026 Guide For Airbnb Hosts

Do you own a place in Sun Peaks, Canada and you're weighing whether to put it on Airbnb or Vrbo? Well, the good news is that British Columbia's principal residence rule, the one that shut down so many second-property listings across the province after May 2024, doesn't reach you up here. The municipality's own short-term nightly rentals page says it about as plainly as a government page ever says anything: the requirement "does not apply in Sun Peaks", because the 14 resort municipalities are exempt unless they opt in, and "the Municipality has not opted in at this time."

The catch is zoning, and it bites harder than most buyers expect. Short-term renting isn't a permitted use across most of Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality, and the council's own Short-term Rental Policy No. 0015 spells out the short list of zones where it is, then adds a sentence worth reading twice: "No property owner should have an expectation that STR approval will be given to any residential property." The unit you buy decides whether you have a business here. Your plans for it don't.

So let's walk through what it actually takes to do this properly in this corner of the Thompson-Nicola region of British Columbia: which zones permit nightly rentals, what a business licence costs in 2026, the provincial registration stacked on top of it, the three taxes riding on every night you sell, and how hard the bylaw officers push. Every figure below comes from the municipality's own bylaws or the Province of B.C.'s own pages, checked in July 2026, and where something is still moving I've flagged it. Assuming you're weighing a Sun Peaks chalet against somewhere cheaper down the hill, run both through BNBCalc before you commit to either.

What are Short-Term Rental (Airbnb, VRBO) Regulations in Sun Peaks, British Columbia?

Before any of those numbers mean much, three separate governments have to agree that your unit can be rented at all.

The municipality does the heavy lifting. Its zoning bylaw decides where nightly rental is a lawful use, Policy 0015 sets how council thinks about approvals, and Business Licensing and Regulation Bylaw No. 0203, 2023 carries the operating rules: occupancy caps, parking, signage, the manager you have to keep on the mountain.

Above that sits the province, through the Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act, SBC 2023 c 32 and the registry it created. Above that again sits Ottawa, which doesn't license anything but taxes non-compliance directly.

Everything starts from one number: 90 days. The municipality defines a short-term rental as accommodation provided to members of the public in a host's property, in exchange for money, "for a period of less than 90 consecutive days". Call it the 90-day line. It reappears word for word in federal tax law, so a stay that crosses it stops being a short-term rental for both governments at once.

On the municipal side, the zones are the whole game. Policy 0015 states that short-term rentals "are not a permitted use in any zoned areas except CC-1, RC-1, TA, R-1A or RS-1A zones or with an approved TUP." Tourist Accommodation zoning covers most of the village. R-1A and RS-1A cover a small set of single-family and duplex properties. Everything else needs a Temporary Use Permit, and council grants those one at a time, in public.

Multi-family strata buildings zoned residential are a harder no. Short-term rental isn't permitted there at all, though council grandfathered the properties that were "historically and have continuously rented short-term as of April 2018."

Those owners have to hold a valid business licence without a gap, since Policy 0015 kills the exemption after six months of not renting. Do keep that in mind before you leave a grandfathered unit dark for a season. The protection doesn't come back, and the policy states outright that the municipality wants those buildings to become "strictly residential in the future."

There's also a density ceiling on the residential side. Council has set a guideline of 25% short-term rentals within any given street or neighbourhood, measured against the homes actually built and occupied there, and it reserves the right to set a different limit whenever it likes. So even a well-presented application can fail purely on what your neighbours are already doing.

Starting a Short-Term Rental Business in Sun Peaks

That 25% guideline is a decent hint about where the real inventory sits, and the municipality's own licence register confirms it. The active business licence listing run on 5 August 2026 shows 545 licensed short-term rental units at Sun Peaks. Of those, 480 are strata complex units. Only 65 are RS-1A or TUP properties, the single-family and duplex category, alongside 14 licensed hotel and rental property managers.

Roughly seven out of eight licensed nightly rentals here are condos or townhouses in tourist-accommodation strata. That's the easy version of this business, mostly because the zoning question is already answered before you make an offer.

The house path is narrower. To rent a single or two-family dwelling you need R-1A or RS-1A zoning, or a Temporary Use Permit, and council has decided that new single-family short-term rental happens through TUPs only. A TUP application costs $1,500, and it goes to a public hearing where your neighbours get to speak.

The permit terms are tighter than a licence, too:

• Initial term of up to three years, with the potential for a renewal of up to three more. After that six-year total, continuing requires a brand new application.
• Renewals can be started after two years and must be filed no later than seven months before expiry, which is how council keeps you able to take advance bookings.
• You may not accept bookings for stays beyond the permit's expiry date. That single line reshapes how you sell a ski season.
• Short-term rental is permitted in either the main dwelling or the auxiliary suite, not both. The 30 properties zoned RS-1A that were specifically permitted to rent both units are the only exception.
• Changing which unit you rent, or any other permit condition, means an amendment application.

Council also publishes what it looks for, and it's less about your property than about its position. Walking distance to tourist services counts in your favour, so does ski-in ski-out access, so does a long-term tenant or an owner living on site. Neighbour support, or neighbour objection, is described as "an important part of Council deliberations". What the immediate neighbour does with their own property matters too.

One thing I couldn't pin down is whether council is taking new applications at all right now. The Sun Peaks Independent News reported in October 2025 that new TUPs were paused while a policy review ran, with renewals possibly proceeding at council's direction, and that the review would wrap by the end of 2025.

No municipal page states a pause, though, and I found no 2026 council resolution confirming or lifting one. So treat it as reporting rather than policy, and make sure you call the planning department before you spend the $1,500.

For anyone comparing this against a non-resort B.C. market, the contrast is sharp. The Merritt guide and the Chilliwack guide cover towns where the province's principal residence requirement does apply, which changes the entire question from "which zone is it in" to "do I live there".

Short-Term Rental Licensing Requirement in Sun Peaks

Once the zoning question is settled, and only then, you're still left with paperwork, though it's straightforward next to what you've been through. Bylaw 0203 s. 3.6(f) deems anyone "making property available for Short Term rental" to be carrying on a business, so a licence is mandatory, whether you self-manage or hand the keys to an agent.

Section 4.1 lists exactly who needs one:

• Every short-term rental property in a TA, R-1A, RS-1A or CC1 zone that isn't a hotel.
• Every property operating under a Temporary Use Permit.
• Every property in an RM zone holding written strata approval from before April 2018.

The 2026 fees come from the classification schedule attached to the current business licence application, and they're banded by bedroom count and by what kind of property you own:

Property type	Bedrooms	2026 annual fee
Strata complex short-term rental	Studio to 1 BR	$175
Strata complex short-term rental	2 BR	$275
Strata complex short-term rental	3 BR	$375
Strata complex short-term rental	4+ BR	$450
RS-1A or TUP property	Studio to 1 BR	$275
RS-1A or TUP property	2 BR	$425
RS-1A or TUP property	3 BR	$550
RS-1A or TUP property	4+ BR	$675
Hotel or rental property manager	25 units or fewer	$400

On an RS-1A or TUP property, note that the fee is charged per unit, so a main dwelling plus a suite pays twice.

The licensing year is the calendar year. Invoices go out in the last week of November, payment is due 31 January, and Bylaw 0203 s. 9.4 adds a 10% penalty on top of the fee if you miss that date.

A new applicant starting after 1 July pays half, while renewals always pay the full year. The licence is personal and non-transferable, so a sale means the buyer applies fresh. Ask for a refund before it's issued and you'll get it back less a $35 administration fee. Ask afterwards and you won't.

Before your first licence is issued you'll also sit a fire, life safety and building inspection, and the municipality can come back for more with reasonable notice.

Then come the operating rules, which is where hosts trip. Maximum occupancy is set by formula rather than by what you'd like to advertise:

• Principal dwelling unit in a single-family dwelling: 2 people per bedroom plus 4.
• Auxiliary residential dwelling unit on its own: 3 people per bedroom.
• A full single-family dwelling: 2 people per bedroom plus 4, capped at 16.
• Condo or townhouse: 2 people per bedroom plus 2.
• Studio unit: 3 people, full stop.

Advertising above that cap is an offence in itself, as is advertising before your licence is issued. Your business licence number has to appear in every advertisement, and the municipality notes that its numbers are only three digits, so where a platform demands a longer format it recommends padding with leading zeros.

Two more obligations catch people out. You must give the licence inspector a named on-mountain contact who can be at the property within 30 minutes, 24 hours a day, year-round, whenever the unit is occupied. And no more than five vehicles may park on site overnight, whatever the parking plan approved at rezoning or TUP allows.

Sitting above the municipal licence, B.C.'s provincial registry is a separate registration with its own fee. Host registration costs $100 a year where you live in the property and $450 a year where you don't, each plus a $1.50 service fee, and since a Sun Peaks investment unit is by definition somewhere you don't live, budget for the $450. Registration runs a year, the renewal window opens 40 days before expiry, and the number has to appear on every listing alongside your municipal licence number.

Required Documents for Sun Peaks Short-Term Rentals

Since none of those fees come back once a licence is issued, it's worth getting the file complete the first time. The municipal application is short, and the checkboxes on it are the real requirements list.

• A copy of the property title for the business operating address.
• Proof of registration with Tourism Sun Peaks, paying both the business and common assessment fees. Bylaw 0203 s. 4.3 makes this a precondition, not a formality.
• A garbage disposal plan, which doubles as a section of the guest notice.
• A to-scale landscaping plan showing snow storage and parking, for single and two-family applications.
• A posted Guest Information Notice, visible on entry.
• Your on-mountain contact's name, phone and email.
• A $1,000 deposit, for TUP properties, which the municipality can draw on to cover enforcement costs and which you have to top back up if it's spent.
• An owner authorization form, where the applicant isn't the registered owner.
• A declaration of no outstanding fines, plus an acknowledgement that you'll collect PST and MRDT.

One discrepancy is worth naming. Policy 0015 s. 3 says "Each Business Licence holder must provide a bond... of $1,000", while both the 2026 application form and the municipality's business licence page scope that deposit to TUP properties only. I've followed the two 2026 sources here, since they're the newer of the two, but do confirm which applies to your address before you budget.

The in-unit notice has its own content list under Bylaw 0203 s. 4.11, and a bylaw officer walking in can check it in about ten seconds: business licence number, maximum occupancy, maximum overnight vehicles, hot tub hours, noise bylaw rules, the garbage plan, the 24-hour contact's details, and the municipal bylaw department's contact. Section 4.12 adds a fire evacuation route notice in every dwelling unit.

Provincial registration asks for a different pile. You'll need government photo ID, two supporting documents drawn from a land title, assessment notice, property tax notice, insurance or banking statement, plus a copy of your Sun Peaks business licence. The province checks that local licence number wherever a local government requires one.

Sun Peaks Short-Term Rental Taxes

Assuming you get all of that filed and are able to start taking bookings, there's still tax layered onto every night you sell. Three charges apply at Sun Peaks, and they're collected in a way that depends less on you than on where the booking came from.

Charge	Rate	Collected by
GST	5%	Your platform, unless you're GST-registered yourself
PST on accommodation	8%	The online marketplace facilitator, or you on direct bookings
MRDT	3%	Same collector as PST, funding Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Association

The 8% provincial sales tax on accommodation and the MRDT of up to 3% both work the same way. An online marketplace facilitator that lists B.C. accommodation has to register and collect, which is why Airbnb charges them for you. Book a guest directly, though, and that duty lands back on you.

There's a small-seller exemption on the PST, mind you, and it's narrow: you have to be off the online platforms entirely, under $2,500 of accommodation revenue in the previous 12 months, and reasonably expecting under $2,500 in the next 12. Almost no Sun Peaks host qualifies.

The 3% figure is specific to this municipality, and it's set in the Designated Accommodation Area Tax Regulation, B.C. Reg. 93/2013, where item 32 of Schedule 1 names Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality with Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Association as the designated recipient.

Watch out for the fourth column of that item, though, because it reads 1 November 2026. Section 6 repeals a schedule item on the date in that column unless the designation is extended, and no extending order had been made as of my last check in July 2026. So the MRDT is worth re-checking each season.

GST is federal and works on a threshold. Register once your taxable supplies pass $30,000 over 12 months, and from then on you charge and remit it yourself, including on platform bookings. Below that, the platform collects it on your behalf.

Then there's the federal rule that turns a municipal paperwork problem into a tax problem. Section 67.7 of the Income Tax Act denies your deductions for a "non-compliant short-term rental", meaning one in a place that doesn't permit short-term rentals, or one that "does not comply with all applicable registration, licensing and permit requirements."

The denial is prorated by non-compliant days over total rental days, and it has applied since the 2024 taxation year. Remember that Ottawa's definition of a short-term rental is the same 90-day line Sun Peaks uses. So an unlicensed chalet doesn't only risk a bylaw fine. It loses its mortgage interest, its strata fees and its cleaning costs as deductions.

Two smaller things are worth knowing. Tourism Sun Peaks membership is mandatory for owners in the recreational area, and its FAQ confirms that common and business fees apply "regardless if the unit is made available for nightly rentals or not", with assessments based on sleeping rooms at two assessment units each. It publishes no rate, so ask them directly for your unit's number.

The other one is a genuine break. B.C.'s speculation and vacancy tax doesn't reach here, since Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality is absent from the province's taxable areas list, while Kamloops, half an hour down the road, sits squarely on it.

British Columbia Wide Short-Term Rental Rules

That exemption from the speculation tax isn't the only provincial rule that treats Sun Peaks as a special case, which is why the B.C. framework is worth understanding even though its headline rule misses you.

Three things changed across the province on 1 May 2024 under the Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act. Short-term rentals were limited to a host's principal residence plus one secondary suite or accessory dwelling unit. Legal non-conforming use protection stopped applying to short-term rentals, so an old grandfathered use no longer survives a zoning change. And hosts in communities that require a business licence had to display the number on their listings.

Only the third of those applies at Sun Peaks. The principal residence requirement covers municipalities of 10,000 and over, plus smaller neighbouring communities, while resort municipalities and ski resort areas sit outside it, and the province notes that a council resolution "cannot change the exempt status of certain areas, including a resort area". Sun Peaks Resort appears by name on that exempt list, which was last updated on 23 July 2026.

The registry is the piece that genuinely bites here, and it arrived on a staggered schedule. Registration numbers had to be displayed on all B.C. listings from 1 May 2025. Platforms then had to stop advertising unregistered listings from 2 June 2025, and cancel their future bookings from 23 June 2025. That last date is the one that changed the risk profile, because an unregistered listing now loses the bookings it already has.

Enforcement of the provincial layer runs through the Short-Term Rental Compliance and Enforcement Unit, which investigates, issues binding compliance orders and levies administrative penalties. The amounts sit in Schedule 4 of B.C. Reg. 268/2023: $5,000, then $7,500, then $10,000 for failing to register on a first, second and third contravention, and $500, $750 and $1,000 for leaving a valid registration number or business licence number out of a listing.

The practical effect is that Sun Peaks hosts carry the provincial paperwork without the provincial restriction, which is a comfortable place to be by B.C. standards. Owners in the Fraser Valley have it differently, as the Abbotsford guide and the Maple Ridge guide both show.

Does Sun Peaks Strictly Enforce STR Rules?

Yes, and Sun Peaks holds an advantage those Fraser Valley cities don't. This is a municipality of a few thousand residents carrying 545 licensed rental units, so bylaw services already knows every address that should hold a licence. Nobody here is hunting for needles.

The municipality says outright that it monitors listings, using software to identify unlicensed nightly rentals and issuing fines to anyone advertising without a valid licence. Policy 0015 adds that "Internet advertising and other forms of advertising will be carefully monitored", and complaints arrive through three doors: a 24/7 short-term rental hotline on 778-910-4479, the bylaw department, and a hosted online complaint form.

What happens next is where the 30-minute rule earns its place. On a complaint, the property manager gets called first. If nobody responds inside 30 minutes, the bylaw officer handles it, records the violation, and fines the homeowner for the non-response itself. Changing your contact number without telling the municipality is explicitly not an excuse.

Hosts get one warning a year. After that, fines follow for every valid complaint or any infraction an officer spots, and the triggers are listed plainly: noise after 10 PM, parking off your own property, dumping snow on a neighbour's lot or back onto the road, advertising over the occupancy cap, and breaching any TUP condition.

The escalation is what should focus the mind. Three substantiated violations in a calendar year can cost you the business licence for a full year, and a second suspension lets the municipality prohibit short-term rental at that address permanently unless the property changes hands. Council can revoke earlier for anything it considers egregious. You have 30 days to ask council to reconsider.

There's a sharper tooth still, and it's in Policy 0015. Council "may also consider reverting R1-A or RS1-A properties to R1 or RS-1 where the Business Licence has been revoked due to violations". Read that one twice. Council can take back the zoning that made the property worth buying in the first place.

Fines themselves run to $500 a day per violation for operating without a licence. Under Bylaw 0203 s. 9.3 a conviction in Provincial Court carries up to $50,000, a bylaw notice up to $500, and s. 9.1 makes each day a separate offence. So the cost isn't a single ticket you absorb and forget. It stacks up day by day, which is how a careless season turns into a five-figure bill.

How to Start a Short-Term Rental Business in Sun Peaks

Given how much of that enforcement lands on things you set up on day one, the order below saves real money. The early steps tell you whether the later ones are worth attempting at all.

1. Check the zoning before you make an offer. TA, R-1A, RS-1A, CC-1 and RC-1 are the zones that permit nightly rental. Anything else needs a Temporary Use Permit, and council is under no obligation to grant one.
2. For a house, price in the TUP properly. $1,500, a public hearing, a three-year term, and a hard rule against booking past its expiry date. Call planning first about the status of new applications.
3. Check the neighbourhood, not just the lot. The 25% density guideline is measured street by street against homes built and occupied.
4. Register with Tourism Sun Peaks and pay both the business and common assessment fees. Without that proof, the licence application doesn't proceed.
5. Book the fire, life safety and building inspection, which has to be done before a first licence is issued.
6. Line up the on-mountain contact. They need to reach the property within 30 minutes, 24/7, year-round. Don't forget to tell the municipality when that person changes.
7. Apply for the business licence with the title copy, garbage plan, landscaping and snow storage plan where required, and the $1,000 deposit on a TUP property.
8. Register with the province at $450 a year for a property you don't live in, and put both the provincial registration number and your municipal licence number, zero-padded if the platform insists, into every listing.
9. Post the notices before your first guest: the Guest Information Notice on entry and the fire evacuation route in each unit.
10. Set your calendar for 31 January. Renewal after that date costs an extra 10%, and a lapsed licence on a grandfathered strata unit is far more expensive than that.

Assuming all of that lands, there's still one question left, which is whether the numbers justify any of it. Sun Peaks sells like a ski market rather than a city one, so I'd model a strong winter, a smaller summer and shoulder seasons that can be brutal, then check those assumptions against the Canada market before you sign anything.

Who to Contact in Sun Peaks about Short-Term Rental Regulations and Zoning?

Whichever of those steps you get stuck on, one small office handles nearly all of it, which is one advantage of a municipality this size.

The municipality

Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality, 106-3270 Village Way, Sun Peaks, BC V0E 5N0. The contact page lists office hours of Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

• Main line: 250-578-2020, fax 250-578-2023
• Reception: [email protected]
• Business licences: [email protected]
• Bylaw enforcement: [email protected], 778-257-2275
• Building inspector: [email protected], 250-319-4558
• Planning and Community Services: 250-319-4558, for zoning and Temporary Use Permit questions
• Payments: Interac e-Transfer to [email protected], quoting your unit's civic address

Complaints, in both directions

The 24/7 short-term rental complaint hotline is 778-910-4479, printed on the municipality's own guest notice template. It's worth knowing as an owner as well as a neighbour, since it's the number your guests' behaviour will be reported to.

The province

Registry questions, exemptions and enforcement all run through ServiceBC on behalf of the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs.

• Phone: 1-833-828-2240, Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
• Email: [email protected]
• Online: the provincial short-term rental registry

Tourism Sun Peaks

Membership and assessment fees are handled by the Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Association, trading as Tourism Sun Peaks, and its assessment confirmation is what the municipality wants to see attached to your licence application.

What Do Airbnb Hosts in Sun Peaks on Reddit and Bigger Pockets Think about Local Regulations?

Those official channels tell you what the rules are, though they say very little about how owners feel about them, and I should be straight about the limits of what I can report. Reddit blocks automated access, so I haven't read those threads and won't pretend to summarise them. What follows leans on the municipality's own consultation record and on local reporting, and it's my read rather than a survey.

The clearest division is between strata owners and house owners. Hold a tourist-accommodation condo and the rules are administrative: pay the fee, post the notice, keep a manager reachable. Hold a house in a residential zone, though, and you're in a discretionary process with a public hearing, a density cap and no guarantee at the end. Same municipality, completely different experience of it.

The 30-minute response rule generates a lot of the practical grumbling, and it's the one requirement you can't solve remotely. It effectively forces a relationship with a local manager or a very reliable neighbour, and that cost rarely shows up in a first-pass spreadsheet.

Housing pressure is the backdrop to all of it. Sun Peaks needs beds for the people who work the lifts, the restaurants and the cleaning contracts, and every house converted to nightly rental takes one of those beds out.

That tension is why council capped density at 25%, and why it wrote that nobody should expect approval on a residential property. It's also why the municipality began a multi-year review of its short-term rental framework in 2025, covering permit renewals, tiered fees and stronger enforcement, with later phases reaching into 2028.

My honest read is that the exemption from the principal residence requirement is not a permanent gift. It survives because council hasn't opted in, and council reconsiders its short-term rental position on a published cycle. I'd plan on the current rules holding for the next couple of seasons, and I wouldn't build a ten-year model on them.

A resort town that lets you rent a property you don't live in is rarer than it used to be, and it stays that way for exactly as long as the local housing pressure allows. So wherever you end up buying, ask who the rules are there to protect, and whether your unit sits on the right side of that line. It ages better than asking what the rules happen to permit this season.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you legally run an Airbnb in Sun Peaks in 2026?

Yes, provided the property is zoned for it. Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality permits short-term nightly rental in CC-1, RC-1, TA, R-1A and RS-1A zones, or on a property holding a Temporary Use Permit, and every one of them needs a municipal business licence plus a British Columbia provincial registration. Unlike most of B.C., the province's principal residence requirement doesn't apply at Sun Peaks, so you can rent a property you don't live in.

How much does a Sun Peaks short-term rental licence cost?

For 2026, a strata complex unit pays $175 for a studio or one bedroom, $275 for two bedrooms, $375 for three and $450 for four or more. An RS-1A or Temporary Use Permit property pays $275, $425, $550 and $675 across the same bands, charged per unit, so a main dwelling plus a suite pays twice. Provincial registration adds $450 a year for a property you don't live in. Renewal after 31 January carries a 10% penalty.

Do you need a Temporary Use Permit to rent a house in Sun Peaks?

Unless the property is already zoned R-1A or RS-1A, yes. Council has determined that short-term rental in single-family dwellings is permitted only with a Temporary Use Permit. Applications cost $1,500, go to a public hearing, run up to three years with one renewal of up to three more, and cannot accept bookings beyond the permit's expiry date. Council applies a 25% density guideline per street or neighbourhood and states that no owner should expect approval.

What taxes apply to a short-term rental in Sun Peaks?

Three. Federal GST at 5%, British Columbia's 8% provincial sales tax on accommodation, and a 3% Municipal and Regional District Tax designated to Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Association. Online marketplace facilitators such as Airbnb must register and collect the PST and MRDT, and the platform collects GST unless the host is GST-registered. Direct bookings put the collection duty back on the host. British Columbia's speculation and vacancy tax does not apply at Sun Peaks.

What are the penalties for renting without a licence at Sun Peaks?

Operating without a valid business licence draws fines of up to $500 a day per violation, and each day counts as a separate offence. A Provincial Court conviction under Bylaw No. 0203 can reach $50,000. Three substantiated violations in a calendar year can suspend the licence for a year, and a second suspension lets the municipality prohibit short-term rental at that address unless it changes ownership. An unlicensed rental also loses its expense deductions federally.

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