BRIEF: City of Hamilton to Enforce Short-Term Rental Licensing Beginning Jan 2, 2024 – TPR Hamilton | Hamilton's Civic Affairs News Site

October 16, 2023
Hamilton Director of Licensing and By-law Services Monica Ciriello says the City will begin enforcing the City’s Short Term Rentals Bylaw on January 2, 2024.
“Licensing staff will begin to accept licence applications for Short-Term Rental Operators and Brokers on December 1st, 2023, with enforcement of the By-law beginning January 2nd, 2024,” Ciriello writes in an update to Council.
City staff delayed implementing the bylaw when they bungled the City’s renoviction bylaw. City staff stated they would not enforce short-term rentals to meet a Council direction to provide a proper bylaw to regulate renovictions in 2023.
The new short-term rental bylaws state all operators must obtain a license from the City of Hamilton. The bylaw restricts short-term rentals to being located in the operator’s principal residence or on the same property as the principal address.
STRs are limited to 28 days or less for each stay.
Hamilton is also implementing a Vacant Home Tax in 2024. Both the STR bylaw and VHT are designed to bring more rental units onto the market.
The City states it will launch a website for short-term rental owners to gain more information on November 1st at https://www.hamilton.ca/ShortTermRentals
In related news, the NDP government in British Columbia introduced legislation today to regulate short-term rentals in the province. The BC government’s stated goal is to increase the number of long-term rentals in the province by stopping “mini-hotel operators” from operating short-term rentals.