Satisfying the 180 day hosting limit in Toronto

[Anthony2656]

Hello, I'm wondering if I can get some clarity on some things that I think are true in Toronto:

1) Days spent long term renting (>28 days) don't count towards the ST limit but also don't penalize me for my house being considered my primary residence.

2) To mantain status as a primary residence time my kids live there count.

3) Out of 185 days not rented how many should be occupied by myself or my kids?

Thanks for any replies.

-Tony

[Marie8425]

Use a free AI tool  I just used chatgpt and it doesn't get judged as a primary residence by Toronto as number of days.  It mentioned tax info, driver license address.  Lots of rules you want to follow correctly even who on Airbnb Platform as Airbnb Host.

[Emilie]

Hi @Anthony2656, 

In addition to Marie's insights, there is some information in 👉 this article on responsible hosting in Toronto, including the following local regulation items:

• Short-term rental regulations
• Hosting requirements
• Renewing your registration
• Night limits for hosting
• Registration data-sharing
• Taxes

I hope it is helpful, but I will also mention a few fellow hosts in Toronto who might be able to advise you further based on their own experience: @Zheng49 @Alex14140 @Brian3808 @Karen277 @Shirley705 if you know more about this, let us know!

Thank you everyone 🙂

Emilie

[Karen277]

1) The >28 days do not count towards your 185 day limit. Idk what you mean by your other comment about penalizing you for your primary residence. Do you live there? Is your Driver's License at that address? Is it a secondary suite?

2) If it is a secondary suite do your kids have driver's licenses to prove they live there? 

3) The space needs to be occupied 6 months by the person who lives there. They are the person that would be able to STR it.

You can't juggle people around to fulfil the primary residence requirement. If, for example, you are a family living upstairs and you have a secondary suite in your basement that is not actually lived in by your kids, you may be exposing them to fraud.

[Emilie]

Very useful pointers, thank you @Karen277 😃

@Anthony2656 What do you make of all this advice?

[Karen277]

Sorry, the third point may be incorrect. The city generally defines a primary residence as the place where you ordinarily live and conduct your daily life. So there aren't a specific number of nights, but you must sleep most nights at the primary residence. Among other tactics, they may check with your neighbours to determine whether it is actually your primary residence.

[Emilie]

Thank you @Karen277 for the amendment on your previous advice, super useful!

@Anthony2656 Could you let us know if all of the information shared by other hosts answers your questions on the limit in Toronto? If you need more help, do let us know. 😊

[Anthony2656]

Emilie, could you let me know how to find the threads I have started?

Regards,

Tony

[Emilie]

@Anthony2656 Of course! If you click on the menu in the top right corner of your page, you can navigate to your Community Profile and find all the topics you have started:

For reference as well, here are the links:

👉 How to get a cvs file summarizing my airbnb activity

👉 Satisfying the 180 day hosting limit in Toronto

In regards to the hosting limit in Toronto, were the answers from Marie and Karen helpful?

[Anthony2656]

@Emilie Thanks all for the help here. I will take some time with the links Emilie provided.  @Karen277's advice on not rotating in family members was helpful. To be super clear, my understanding is that if I STR half the time and rent month to month the other half that would not be a violation of any code. It is funny I can rotate in clients but I can't rotate in family. I suppose one solution is to just month to month it to family.

If I STR half the time and month to month for 4 months and it's empty for 2 months does that count as me "being there most of the time" since month to monthing it for 6 months effectively does?

Thanks again, Tony

[Karen277]

@Anthony2656 

---

To be super clear, my understanding is that if I STR half the time and rent month to month the other half that would not be a violation of any code. It is funny I can rotate in clients but I can't rotate in family. I suppose one solution is to just month to month it to family.

It sounds like that would be a violation.

How can you be living there if you are renting it out all the time?

If I STR half the time and month to month for 4 months and it's empty for 2 months does that count as me "being there most of the time" since month to monthing it for 6 months effectively does?

---

This sounds like it is not your primary residence. You need to actually occupy the space for it to be your primary residence.

Unfortunately, the city has really made it a pain to STR in Toronto. 

The best thing for you to do is review the links supplied by @Emilie above, if you are aiming to be compliant.

[Emilie]

Thank you @Karen277 for the additional advice!

@Anthony2656 I hope this is helpful, and please let us know how you get on 🙂