The rise of short-term rental of entire homes is taking away much needed homes for British Columbians. Data shows that more than 16,000 entire homes are being used as short-term rentals for the majority of the year in B.C. This is making it more challenging to find affordable long-term rentals.
Many local governments have taken action to regulate short-term rentals, but enforcement of bylaws is a challenge, and they have asked the Province for more tools and resources.
The purpose of the Act is to:
- Give local governments stronger tools to enforce short-term rental bylaws
- Return short-term rental units to the long-term housing market
- Establish a new Provincial role in the regulation of short-term rentals
The Act applies to short-term rentals being offered to the public including:
- Offers hosted by a platform, where people reserve and pay for the rental service (which may include for example, Airbnb, VRBO, Expedia, and FlipKey)
- Offers on other web listing forums (which may include for example, Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji, and Craigslist)
- Listings in classified ads in newspapers
Published by Government of British Columbia
for Government of British Columbia