Toronto charges a 6 percent Municipal Accommodation Tax on every short-term rental booking under Chapter 547 of the Toronto Municipal Code, on top of whatever a booking platform or property manager charges. The tax applies to nightly stays in a registered short-term rental, not to furnished stays of 28 nights or longer, and the registered host stays responsible for making sure it is collected and remitted even when someone else handles the booking. Here is what a Toronto host actually owes, who has to register first, and what happens if the tax goes unremitted.
The Municipal Accommodation Tax, MAT, is 6 percent of the booking cost on a registered short-term rental in Toronto, charged in addition to whatever the booking platform and the property manager charge separately. It applies to nightly stays booked through a platform such as Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com or Expedia under Chapter 547, the bylaw that also sets the principal residence rule and the 180 night annual cap on entire home rentals. Our guide to Toronto’s short-term rental rules covers that general bylaw in full. This post is about the tax mechanics specifically: who registers, who remits, and what it costs to get it wrong.
Every short-term rental operator has to register with the City of Toronto before hosting a single guest. Registration renews annually, and the registration number has to appear on the listing itself; booking platforms will not activate a Toronto listing without a valid one on file. That requirement sits underneath the tax, not beside it: an unregistered listing is not a MAT problem waiting to happen, it is a bylaw violation already in progress, with the tax exposure stacked on top once bookings start coming in.
Registration is also where the principal residence rule actually gets enforced. A unit an owner does not live in cannot be registered for nightly short-term rental at all, which is the reason some Toronto investment condos operate as furnished mid-term stays instead of nightly listings; the rule and the registration requirement are two parts of the same mechanism, not two separate ones to track.
The guest pays the MAT as part of the total booking cost, but the registered host or operator is the one on the hook for making sure it reaches the City. That holds even when a property manager or the booking platform is the party actually collecting payment from the guest: the registration is in the host’s name, so the remittance obligation follows the registration, not the payment processor. If you use a short-term rental management company, ask directly whether registration and MAT remittance are part of what they handle, or whether that is still sitting on your own to-do list.
An operator who is not registered, or who does not remit the MAT on bookings already taken, is exposed on two fronts under Chapter 547: the tax itself is still owed to the City regardless of whether it was collected from the guest, and the registration that keeps the listing legally live is subject to bylaw enforcement, including suspension. Since platforms require a valid registration number before they will publish a Toronto listing at all, losing that registration does not just create a tax bill, it can take the listing down entirely.
This is also why “the platform probably handles it” is the wrong assumption to carry into a first booking. A host who has never logged in to check whether MAT is being remitted on their behalf has no way of knowing whether the obligation is actually being met until the City asks. Confirming it before the first guest checks in costs nothing; confirming it after several months of bookings have already gone unremitted means working out a tax owed on revenue that may already be spent.
The MAT is not a management fee and it is not optional, so it should never be the number a manager quotes you when you ask what short-term rental management costs. Certus publishes its own tiers at 10, 15 and 20 percent per booking on the pricing page, and the 6 percent MAT sits on top of whichever tier applies, collected from the guest and remitted separately, not folded into the percentage. If a manager you are evaluating quotes one number and the MAT turns out to be an unexpected addition on your first statement, that is a sign the tax was never mentioned as part of the arrangement in the first place, which is worth asking about directly before you sign anything.
No. A furnished stay of 28 nights or longer falls outside Chapter 547 entirely, which is why corporate and furnished mid-term rentals are structured around that 28 night line. No MAT, no 180 night cap, and no short-term rental registration apply to a booking on that side of it. The table below is the full comparison.
| Stay type | Registration required | MAT applies | 180 night cap applies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nightly short-term rental (Airbnb and similar platforms) | Yes, before the first booking | Yes, 6 percent per booking | Yes, on entire-home bookings |
| Furnished mid-term stay, 28 nights or longer | No, falls outside Chapter 547 | No | No |
That distinction matters for owners deciding between strategies, not just for tax paperwork: a unit booked nightly carries registration and MAT obligations that a 28 night furnished booking never triggers, which changes both the compliance workload and the net return on the two approaches.
Certus manages registered short-term rentals and furnished mid-term stays for owners across Toronto, North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough, Mississauga, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Oakville, and registration plus MAT remittance are handled as part of running an Airbnb management account, not billed as a separate add-on.
It is a 6 percent tax on the cost of every booking at a registered short-term rental in Toronto, charged under Chapter 547 of the Toronto Municipal Code on top of whatever the platform or property manager charges separately.
The guest pays it as part of the total booking price, but the registered host or operator is responsible for making sure it is collected and remitted to the City, whether or not they are the one physically handling the guest’s payment.
Yes, before hosting a single guest. Registration renews annually, the number has to appear on the listing, and booking platforms will not activate a Toronto listing without a valid one on file.
No. A furnished stay of 28 nights or longer falls outside Chapter 547 entirely, so the MAT, the 180 night cap and the short-term rental registration requirement do not apply to it.
The tax is still owed to the City regardless of whether it was collected, and the registration that keeps the listing legally live is subject to bylaw enforcement, which can mean suspension and the listing coming down from every platform it was on.
Not sure whether your short-term rental registration and MAT remittance are actually being handled correctly?
Talk to Certus
Toronto property management and short-term rental specialists. We manage Airbnb, mid-term, and long-term rentals across the GTA.
