If your short-term rental revenue passes $30,000, the CRA expects you to register for GST/HST, start charging the tax, and remit it. Most hosts never see this coming, because while they stay under the line, Airbnb quietly handles the tax for them. Crossing the line changes that.
This guide explains exactly how the threshold works, how the CRA counts your revenue, and the precise steps to take once you cross, all sourced directly from the CRA's published rules.
Why Short-Term Stays Are Taxable (and Long Stays Are Not)
The starting point is a distinction in the Excise Tax Act that most hosts have never heard of. Renting a home to someone as a place of residence is an exempt supply, no GST/HST. Renting short-term accommodation is a taxable supply. The line between them is one month of continuous occupancy.
Here is the CRA's own wording, from GST/HST Memorandum 19.2.2 (Residential Real Property, Rentals):
"A rental of a residential complex or a residential unit in a residential complex is exempt if the complex or unit is to be used by an individual as a place of residence or lodging and if the rental period is a period of continuous occupancy or right of occupancy of one month or more to the same individual."
GST/HST Memorandum 19.2.2, paragraph 1 (Schedule V, Part I, paragraph 6(a))
"If the rental is short-term accommodation, i.e., the period of occupancy is less than one month, the supply is taxable if provided by a registrant, unless the consideration for the supply is $20 or less per day of occupancy."
GST/HST Memorandum 19.2.2, paragraph 4 (Schedule V, Part I, paragraph 6(b))
In plain terms: your Airbnb bookings under a month are taxable supplies. Your mid-term stays of a month or longer are exempt. That single distinction drives everything else in this guide, including which of your revenue counts toward the $30,000 threshold.
What Counts Toward the $30,000
The $30,000 small supplier threshold measures your revenue from taxable supplies. For a host, that means:
- Counted: nightly revenue and cleaning fees from stays under one month of continuous occupancy, across every property you own, on every platform, plus direct bookings
- Not counted: stays of one month or more to the same guest (exempt residential rent), and taxes you collect from guests and pass on
Three details in the CRA's calculation catch people off guard:
"Include the total amount of all revenues (before expenses) from your worldwide taxable supplies from all your businesses and those of your associates."
CRA, "When to register for and start charging the GST/HST," small supplier limit calculation, footnote 1
- Before expenses. The test is your gross taxable revenue, not your profit after cleaning, fees, and management costs.
- All your businesses combined. If you own two rental units, their short-term revenue adds together. If you also freelance or run any other business making taxable sales, that counts toward the same $30,000.
- Associates count too. Revenue of associated persons can be pulled into the calculation. If your properties are split between you, a spouse, or a corporation, whose threshold applies is a question for your accountant.
The Two Ways You Cross the Threshold
This is the part most articles get wrong. There is no single "over $30,000 this year" test. The CRA applies two, and they have different consequences.
Test 1: You exceed $30,000 in a single calendar quarter
"You are no longer a small supplier and have to charge GST/HST on the supply that made you exceed $30,000 within the calendar quarter. Your effective date of registration is no later than the day of the supply that made you exceed $30,000."
CRA, "When to register for and start charging the GST/HST"
A strong quarter can end your small supplier status immediately. The very booking that pushed you over is already taxable, there is no grace period.
Test 2: You exceed $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters
"You are no longer a small supplier at the end of the month following the quarter in which you exceed $30,000. Your effective date of registration is no later than the day of the first supply you make after you are no longer a small supplier."
CRA, "When to register for and start charging the GST/HST"
Crossing gradually gives you a runway: you stay a small supplier through the end of the month after the quarter in which you crossed, and the tax starts with your first taxable booking after that.
Your Registration Deadline: 29 Days
Whichever test you crossed under, the paperwork deadline is the same:
"You will have to register within 29 days of your effective date of registration."
CRA, "When to register for and start charging the GST/HST"
Note the order of events: the effective date comes first, then you have 29 days to complete the registration. Waiting does not delay the tax. GST/HST is owed from your effective date whether or not you have registered, and whether or not you collected it from your guests.
One recent change to know about: registration is now online only.
"Effective November 3, 2025, the CRA will no longer accept business number (BN) or CRA program account registrations by phone. You must register online using Business Registration Online (BRO)."
CRA, "Register for a GST/HST account"
What Changes Once You Register
While you are unregistered and under the threshold, the platform rules that took effect July 1, 2021 generally make Airbnb, as an accommodation platform operator, responsible for the GST/HST on short-term stays booked through the platform. That is why hosts under $30,000 rarely think about this tax: it is being handled for them.
Registration flips the responsibility. The CRA is explicit that selling through a platform does not remove your obligation:
"A supplier of taxable supplies of short-term accommodation that makes more than $30,000 in taxable supplies over a 12-month period continues to be required to register under the normal GST/HST. This includes any supplies of short-term accommodation in Canada made through an accommodation platform operator."
CRA, "Platform-based short-term accommodation threshold amounts"
Once registered, you charge and account for the tax on every taxable stay, including Airbnb bookings. The rate follows the province the property is in: 13% HST in Ontario, 5% GST in Alberta, other rates elsewhere. The upside of registration is that you also gain the right to claim input tax credits, covered below.
Step-by-Step: What to Do After You Cross
Here is the exact sequence, in order:
Confirm which test you crossed and pin down your effective date
Add up your taxable short-term revenue by calendar quarter, all properties and platforms combined, excluding stays of a month or longer. If one quarter alone tops $30,000, your effective date is the day of the booking that put you over. If the trailing four quarters top $30,000, you stay a small supplier until the end of the month following that quarter, and your first taxable booking after that sets your effective date. Write this date down; everything else keys off it.
Register through CRA Business Registration Online within 29 days
Register online through Business Registration Online (BRO); since November 3, 2025 the CRA no longer takes registrations by phone. If you do not have a business number yet, you will get one during the same registration. You will come out with a GST/HST account number to put on your records and invoices.
Start charging the tax from your effective date
Apply your province's rate, 13% HST in Ontario or 5% GST in Alberta, to what guests pay you for taxable short-term stays, including cleaning fees charged with the booking. Do not charge it on exempt stays of a month or longer.
Update your platform tax settings with your registration number
Add your GST/HST registration number to your Airbnb account settings, and to any other platform you list on, so the platform knows you are now a registrant and can handle the tax lines on your bookings accordingly. Until you do this, the platform may keep treating you as unregistered.
Set up your records for tax collected and tax paid
From your effective date forward, track the GST/HST you collect on every stay, and keep receipts for the GST/HST you pay on operating expenses: management fees, cleaning, supplies, repairs. The second list becomes your input tax credits, so every missed receipt is money left on the table. One caution before you claim anything: keep ITCs on the property itself and on renovations out of your returns until you have read the selling section below and talked to your accountant, because those specific claims can make your future sale taxable.
File your returns and remit by your deadlines
The CRA assigns you a reporting period when you register, and your filing and payment dates follow from it. Confirm your exact dates in CRA My Business Account and put them in your calendar. File every period once registered, even a period with no bookings.
Loop in your accountant
Effective date edge cases, associate rules, input tax credits on capital items, instalments, and Quebec's separate QST are all places where the general rules bend to your specific facts. A one hour conversation with an accountant when you cross the threshold is cheap compared to unwinding a mistake two years later.
Input Tax Credits: The Upside, and the One to Watch
Registration is not all cost. As a registrant, you can claim input tax credits (ITCs) to recover the GST/HST you pay on expenses used in your rental activity, and ITCs reduce what you remit. Most of them are straightforward and worth claiming. One category needs a conversation first, because it can convert your future property sale from exempt to taxable. Split them into two buckets:
Operating costs: the normal bucket. Management fees, cleaning services, guest supplies, utilities for the rental activity, and repairs and maintenance. These are the ITCs most hosts should be claiming, to the extent the property is used in taxable short-term rentals. Claiming them does not, by itself, change how your property sale is treated.
The property itself and improvements to it: the bucket to leave alone. The GST/HST paid on the purchase of the property, and on renovations or other improvements to it, is a different animal entirely. As covered in the selling section below, the CRA states that in most cases where an individual claimed an ITC on the purchase of the property, any later sale is taxable, and the trigger explicitly includes improvements: a sale is taxable where the vendor claimed ITCs "for the GST/HST paid or payable on the last acquisition of the property, or in respect of improvements made to the property since its last acquisition" (GI-025). A renovation ITC claimed today can put HST on your whole sale price years later.
The remaining fine print, properties with personal use, expenses shared between exempt long stays and taxable short stays, and the 10% change-in-use rules, is exactly where professional advice earns its fee.
Filing and Paying
Your GST/HST return reports the tax you collected, subtracts your ITCs, and remits the difference (or claims a refund when ITCs exceed collections). Payments can be made online, at a financial institution, or by mail, and most payments are due at the same time as the return. Some annual filers pay quarterly instalments during the year, and an annual filer with a December 31 year end and business income has a payment deadline that differs from the filing deadline, so check your dates rather than assuming.
Everything account-specific, your assigned reporting period, exact due dates, balances, lives in CRA My Business Account once you are registered.
When You Sell the Property: The Question Everyone Asks
This is the part of GST/HST that worries owners most, because it is about the sale price of the whole property rather than a nightly rate. It is also the part where the worry is most often misplaced. The default for a used home is that the sale is exempt, and most people hosting from a home they live in stay inside that default. Here is how the CRA's published rules actually work, and where the real exceptions sit.
The starting point: used homes normally sell exempt
Selling previously occupied residential housing is normally exempt from GST/HST. The CRA lists among exempt sales:
"the sale, by someone other than the builder, of residential housing"
GST/HST Memorandum 19.2.1, paragraph 24 (Schedule V, Part I, section 2)
That is why an ordinary home sale in Canada carries no GST/HST. The question is whether short-term rental use has pushed your property outside that exemption. Two more things to know before the specific rules:
"As a general rule, a supply of real property situated in Canada, including residential property, is taxable unless the transaction is specifically exempted. (The small supplier provisions do not apply to sales of real property.)"
GST/HST Memorandum 19.2.1, paragraph 1
Read that parenthetical twice. The $30,000 small supplier threshold protects your rental revenue, but it gives no protection at all on the sale of the property itself. Whether your sale is taxable is decided by the rules below, not by whether you stayed under $30,000.
When short-term rental use makes the sale taxable
The CRA's info sheet GI-025, which deals specifically with individuals who use a property for short-term rentals, sets out the situations where the sale of such a property is taxable. The same rules apply to both purchases and sales. The main triggers:
1. You claimed input tax credits on the property.
"In most cases where an individual has claimed an ITC for the GST/HST paid or payable on the purchase of a vacation property, any subsequent sale of this property by that individual is taxable. Sales of similar vacation properties where the individual had not claimed an ITC may be exempt. Owners of vacation properties should be aware of the consequences of voluntarily registering for the GST/HST and claiming ITCs."
CRA GST/HST Info Sheet GI-025, "Subsequent sales"
This is the trade built into voluntary registration: claiming ITCs on the property purchase or improvements generally makes the eventual sale taxable. ITCs on operating costs like management fees and cleaning are a different matter from ITCs on the property itself; which ones you claim is a decision to make with your accountant, with the exit in mind.
2. The property was run like a hotel rather than lived in.
"The purchase of a vacation property is also taxable where the property is not used primarily (more than 50%) as the vendor's place of residence and all or substantially all (90% or more) of the rentals of the property are for periods of less than 60 days (i.e., the property is operated like a hotel-type establishment)."
CRA GST/HST Info Sheet GI-025
A dedicated Airbnb unit that is not your residence, rented in stays under 60 days, fits this description. The underlying mechanics: a building loses its status as a "residential complex" when it is a hotel-like premises and 90% or more of its rentals are for periods of continuous possession or use under 60 days (GST/HST Memorandum 19.2, paragraphs 24 and 28). Two details in how the CRA applies the 90% test matter in practice. The measurement method is flexible (revenues, room nights, or similar) but must be fair and used consistently, and the test is normally assessed over a period of about a year (Memorandum 19.2, paragraphs 30 to 33), so the property's recent rental pattern carries more weight than its distant history. And note the line is 60 days, not one month: a stay of 30 to 59 days is exempt from tax on the rent, yet still counts as an under-60-day rental for this building-status test.
3. You are a registrant and the property was used primarily for short-term rentals.
"If the vendor is an individual or personal trust that is a registrant, the purchase of a vacation property is taxable if the property was used primarily in making taxable short-term rentals, even though the individual or personal trust may not be engaged in a business carried on with a reasonable expectation of profit."
CRA GST/HST Info Sheet GI-025
For a vendor who is not a registrant, the sale is taxable where the property is capital property used primarily in a rental income business carried on with a reasonable expectation of profit. Notice the difference: once you are a registrant, the profit test drops away and primary use alone decides it.
The 60 day line runs in both directions
The hotel-type trigger is the one that worries owners most, and it is worth reading closely, because the way it is drafted gives you a lever rather than just a hazard.
The building only stops being a residential complex where all or substantially all of the arrangements are for periods of under 60 days. The CRA reads "all or substantially all" as 90% or more. So the test is not "did you ever rent short-term." It is "were essentially all of your arrangements short-term."
Turn that around and it becomes a planning point. If more than one in ten of your arrangements is for 60 days or longer, the 90% threshold is not met, the hotel exclusion does not apply, and the property remains a residential complex whose sale falls back under the exempt used-housing rule. A property with a genuine mix of stay lengths is in a materially different position from one running nightly stays year round.
Two further points from CRA Policy Statement P-099, which interprets what counts as a hotel, motel, inn, boarding house, lodging house or other similar premises, both of which favour ordinary owners. The policy treats a clear intention to operate the place as a hotel-type establishment as a general requirement, so the label is not applied to a property that simply had some short bookings. And where the hotel-type conditions are not present throughout the year, the CRA's position is that the building may remain a residential complex rather than becoming hotel-like premises, regardless of the lengths of the stays it did host. Seasonal and part-year patterns are not automatically caught.
So does registering make my sale taxable?
Registration by itself does not tax your sale. What decides it is the combination of how the property was used (primarily short-term rental versus primarily your residence or personal use), whether you claimed ITCs on the property, and your registrant status, which removes the profit test. In practice:
- Your own home with occasional hosting: a property used primarily as your residence generally stays within the exempt sale rules, registered or not.
- A dedicated short-term rental unit: the sale is more likely to be taxable, particularly if you are a registrant or claimed ITCs on the property. This is the case worth modelling with your accountant well before you list, and worth knowing that a taxable sale usually comes with offsetting ITCs or a rebate.
- Anything in between: the primarily (more than 50%) test decides, measured by a fair and consistent method such as days rented versus days of personal use.
Two more wrinkles worth knowing. First, a taxable sale is not purely bad news: the CRA states that where the sale of a vacation property is taxable, the vendor "may be entitled to claim an additional ITC or rebate" for previously unclaimable purchase tax (GI-025). Second, the change-in-use rules run during your ownership, not just at the end: a cumulative shift of 10% or more between personal use and short-term rental use can require repaying ITCs or create new entitlements (GI-025, "Change in use").
What if you lived there for years and only recently started short-term renting?
Most people asking this are fine, and it is worth saying that before the mechanics. If you live in the home and host around your own life, nothing here is aimed at you.
The mechanics are worth understanding anyway, because HST works differently from capital gains. The capital gains formula in the next section averages your whole ownership history, so lived-in years keep protecting you. The HST tests do not average: the hotel-type test asks what the property's rentals are, or are expected to be, assessed by a consistent method over a period that is normally about one year (Memorandum 19.2, paragraphs 30 to 33), and the primary-use tests ask how the property is being used now. That cuts both ways, since a property's current character can move it out of the taxable tests as readily as into them.
In practice that splits recent converts into two very different situations:
- You still live there and recently added hosting. The property remains primarily (more than 50%) your place of residence, so both the hotel-type test and the primarily short-term rental test fail, and the exempt used-housing sale rule generally holds. Recent hosting from a home you genuinely live in does not convert the building.
- You recently moved out and switched the unit to short-term rentals. This is the situation that needs planning. The assessment window may contain mostly under-60-day stays and little or no residence use, and a property you lived in for years can then meet the hotel exclusion at the time of sale. The 90% threshold above is the lever here: a mix that keeps more than one in ten arrangements at 60 days or longer keeps the property a residential complex. The move-out and conversion is also its own change-of-use event with its own GST/HST consequences (GI-025, "Change in use"), separate from the eventual sale, which is why the conversion year is the right time to get advice.
The short version: living in your home and hosting from it keeps you inside the exempt rule, while a full conversion to dedicated nightly stays is the case to plan. The useful time to look at it is the year you convert rather than the month you list, and mid-term stays of 60 days or longer are the most straightforward way to keep the building on the residential side of the line.
What if you move back in before selling?
Moving back in is not a rewind button, and what it does depends on your registration and ITC history:
- Never registered, no ITCs claimed on the property: genuinely moving back in restores the home's residential character, and a later sale of what is once again the home you live in generally falls back within the exempt used-housing rule. A past period of hosting does not, by itself, tax the later sale of a home you returned to.
- Registrant, or ITCs claimed: the move back in is itself a tax event, not an escape from one. Under the change-in-use rules, "a significant decrease in the extent of use in commercial activities may require an individual who is a registrant to repay all or a portion of the ITC previously claimed," and in the CRA's worked mechanics the registrant "is considered to have collected and is required to account for the GST/HST" equal to the property's basic tax content at the time of the change (GI-025, "Change in use"; the deemed-supply rules are in GST/HST Memorandum 19.2.3). In plain terms, the tax attached to the commercial period gets settled at the conversion instead of at the sale.
One caution on timing: a move back in staged just before listing does not rewrite the record. The hotel-type test reads the property's rentals as they "are, or are expected to be" over a period of normally about a year, and the booking history is documented. A genuine return with time and records behind it is a real conversion, while one staged for the listing is harder to support. Either way, the conversion year is an accountant conversation, not a do-it-yourself form.
How often does this actually happen? An honest calibration
Here is what we can and cannot find, as of August 2026. There is exactly one reported court decision taxing a property sale because of short-term rental use: 1351231 Ontario Inc. v The King, 2024 TCC 37, which the Federal Court of Appeal upheld in 2025 FCA 53. Its facts sit at the far end of the dedicated-rental pattern. The owner was a corporation, the condo was never anyone's residence, it ran on long leases for nine years, then switched to Airbnb with most stays under seven nights and many of a single night, and it sold roughly fourteen months later. The assessment was about $77,000.
Those facts are the point. Nothing in that case resembles a person hosting from a home they live in, and we could find no reported court decision and no published CRA example of an owner who lived in their home, hosted on Airbnb for a period, and was assessed GST/HST on the eventual sale of that home.
That absence is consistent with the rules rather than a gap in enforcement. A home primarily lived in fails the taxable-sale triggers, so files like that rarely exist to fight about in the first place. If you live in your home and host around your life, this section is context, not a warning.
Two honest caveats against reading a thin public record as immunity. CRA assessments are confidential and only become public when someone appeals to court, so quiet assessments leave no trace anyone can count. And the platform-data reporting that feeds this kind of enforcement only began with the 2024 calendar year, so the public record trails the tools by design. None of that changes where the risk actually sits, which is exactly where the rules put it: dedicated nightly-stay units, homes converted to full-time short-term rental after the owner moved out, and anyone who claimed ITCs on the property itself.
How would the CRA even know how the property was used?
A fair question, and the answer has changed in the last few years. Three things are worth knowing, less as a warning than because they explain why keeping records is worth the small effort:
- Platforms now report hosts to the CRA by law. Under the Reporting Rules for Digital Platform Operators (Part XX of the Income Tax Act, in force since the 2024 calendar year), platform operators must collect and verify detailed seller information and report it to the CRA annually. The CRA's own page lists "rental of real or immovable property (both residential and commercial)" as a reportable activity. Your platform revenue arrives at the CRA every year whether or not you report it.
- Your own filings describe the property. Rental income on your income tax return, GST/HST returns if you are registered, municipal short-term rental registrations, and accommodation tax filings together paint a clear usage picture, and they are all records the CRA can put side by side.
- The obligation is self-assessment, backed by records. Canada's system makes the vendor responsible for characterizing a sale correctly in the first place, and for keeping the records that support the position: booking histories, stay lengths, and personal-use records. On review, those records are exactly what gets requested, and the burden of showing the property's use falls on you, not the CRA.
The practical framing is not whether the CRA is watching a given listing. It is that the data trail already exists and the characterization duty is yours at closing. That is an argument for keeping a simple log of stay lengths and personal use, which works in your favour more often than against it: the same records that would establish a taxable sale are the records that establish an exempt one, and the exempt case is the one most owners need to be able to show.
Capital Gains: The Other Tax on Sale, and How Timing Splits It
HST on the sale price and income tax on the capital gain are two separate regimes, and they turn on different questions. For HST, the short-term versus mid-term distinction is everything. For capital gains, that distinction is irrelevant: what matters is which years the property was your principal residence versus which years it was not, and a year rented to a long-term tenant costs you exactly as much protection as a year of Airbnb stays. Short-term, mid-term, and multi-year lease rentals all count the same way in the formula below. A property can escape HST on sale and still produce a taxable capital gain, or vice versa, so switching a unit from short-term to mid-term stays can help the HST position while changing the capital gains position not at all.
The criteria
When you sell a property for more than it cost you, the gain is taxable as a capital gain except to the extent the principal residence exemption shelters it. The exemption has conditions: the property must qualify as your principal residence for the years you want to shelter, which generally requires that you, your spouse or common-law partner, or your child ordinarily inhabited it in each of those years, and that you designate it. Only one property per family unit can be designated for any given year. CRA's guidance is generous on what counts as inhabiting: even a short period of living there in a year can be enough, but not where the main reason for owning the home is to earn income:
"Even if a person inhabits a housing unit only for a short period of time in the year, this is sufficient for the housing unit to be considered ordinarily inhabited in the year by that person... If the main reason for owning a housing unit is to gain or produce income then that housing unit will not generally be considered to be ordinarily inhabited in the year by the taxpayer where it is only inhabited for a short period of time in the year."
Income Tax Folio S1-F3-C2, Principal Residence, paragraph 2.11
The timing formula: how the gain splits between lived-in years and rental years
The split is not done by measuring how much your home appreciated while you lived in it versus while you rented it. It is a simple year-count proration set out in paragraph 40(2)(b) of the Income Tax Act (Folio S1-F3-C2, paragraph 2.20). The sheltered portion of your gain is:
Exempt portion = total gain × (1 + the number of tax years you designate the property as your principal residence) ÷ the number of tax years you owned it
Income Tax Folio S1-F3-C2, paragraph 2.20 (the "plus 1" applies where you were resident in Canada in the year you acquired the property)
A worked example: you owned a home for 10 tax years, lived in it as your principal residence for 6 of them, and ran it as a rental for the other 4. You can shelter (6 + 1) ÷ 10, or 70% of the gain. The remaining 30% is a capital gain, taxable at the current federal inclusion rules, whatever your rental mix was in those 4 years. Note the pieces that help you: the extra "plus 1" year in the numerator, and the fact that a tax year counts as a principal residence year if you qualified at any time in that year, so the year you move out and the year you move back in can both still count as lived-in years.
Moving out and renting it: the change-of-use rules
Converting your home entirely to a rental is itself a tax event, before any sale:
"If a taxpayer has completely converted his or her principal residence to an income-producing use, he or she is deemed by paragraph 45(1)(a) to have disposed of the property (both land and building) at fair market value and reacquired it immediately thereafter at the same amount."
Income Tax Folio S1-F3-C2, paragraph 2.48
The gain up to that point can usually be eliminated by the exemption, and there is a valuable option: an election under subsection 45(2), filed with your return for the year of the change, defers the deemed sale, and while the election is in force the property can keep qualifying as your principal residence for up to four additional tax years even though you no longer live there (Folio S1-F3-C2, paragraph 2.50). The main conditions: you cannot claim capital cost allowance on the property (a CCA claim cancels the election), you must still be resident in Canada for the full benefit, and those years count against the one-property-per-family-unit limit. Used well, this can convert several rental years into sheltered years in the formula above. Used late or not at all, those same years become taxable ones. This is the single biggest timing lever, and it is claimed by filing, not automatically, so raise it with your accountant in the year you convert, not the year you sell.
The rest of the capital gains mechanics, CCA recapture where depreciation was claimed, valuations at change-of-use dates, and how the current inclusion rate applies to the taxable portion, are covered in our capital gains and CCA guide and belong in your accountant's spreadsheet, not a blog estimate.
Do You Need a Corporation to Register for HST?
No. This is one of the most common misunderstandings about GST/HST. Registering for GST/HST does not create a corporation, and you do not need a corporation to register. An individual registers as a sole proprietor under their own name:
"When you register for a GST/HST account, you will be asked to provide your business number (BN) if you have one. If you do not have a BN, you will get one at the same time as your GST/HST account registration."
CRA, "Register for a GST/HST account"
The business number is an identifier the CRA attaches to you, not a legal entity. The CRA's own threshold instructions speak directly to sole proprietors ("If you are a sole proprietor, include the total amount of all revenues..."), and its short-term rental guidance, GI-025, is written entirely about individuals who register. Every host in the CRA's worked examples registered personally, no corporation involved.
Incorporating is a separate decision with its own consequences. A corporation is a separate person for GST/HST: it has its own $30,000 threshold, its own registration, and its own returns, and moving a property into a corporation is itself a transaction with tax consequences. People incorporate for liability, income tax planning, or partnership reasons, not because HST requires it. If you are weighing it, that is a conversation for your accountant and lawyer together, before anything is transferred.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the GST/HST small supplier threshold?
The CRA lets you operate without a GST/HST number while you are a small supplier, meaning your revenue from taxable supplies stays at or under $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. For an Airbnb host, taxable supplies are your short-term stays (under one month of continuous occupancy). Once you exceed $30,000, you stop being a small supplier and must register, charge the tax, and remit it to the CRA.
Is the $30,000 test based on the calendar year?
No. The CRA applies two tests: whether you exceeded $30,000 in a single calendar quarter, and whether you exceeded $30,000 over the previous four consecutive calendar quarters. The four quarter window rolls forward every quarter, so you can cross mid-year even if no single January to December total ever reaches $30,000. Watching a calendar year total alone can make you miss the crossing.
Do stays of a month or longer count toward the $30,000?
No. A rental with a period of continuous occupancy of one month or more to the same individual is an exempt supply of residential accommodation, so that revenue does not count toward the threshold and you do not charge GST/HST on it. Only short-term stays, under one month of continuous occupancy, are taxable and counted.
Is the threshold per property or per person?
Per person. The CRA counts total revenues, before expenses, from your worldwide taxable supplies from all your businesses, and those of your associates. If you own three Airbnb units, their short-term revenue adds together. If you also run another business that makes taxable sales, that revenue counts too. Ownership structure matters here, so confirm with your accountant whose threshold applies.
Does Airbnb already collect GST/HST on my bookings?
While you are not registered, the platform rules that took effect on July 1, 2021 generally make the accommodation platform operator responsible for the GST/HST on short-term stays booked through the platform. Once you register, that responsibility shifts to you, including for bookings made through Airbnb. That shift is the practical reason crossing $30,000 changes your obligations.
If Airbnb collects for unregistered hosts, why do I still have to register?
Because the law says so directly. The CRA states that a supplier of taxable supplies of short-term accommodation who makes more than $30,000 in taxable supplies over a 12 month period continues to be required to register under the normal GST/HST, including for supplies made through an accommodation platform operator. The platform rules cover the tax while you are under the threshold; they do not remove your registration obligation once you are over it.
How long do I have to register after crossing the threshold?
You must register within 29 days of your effective date of registration. If you crossed within a single quarter, your effective date is no later than the day of the booking that put you over $30,000. If you crossed over four consecutive quarters, you remain a small supplier until the end of the month following the quarter in which you exceeded $30,000, and your effective date is no later than your first taxable booking after that.
What rate do I charge?
The rate follows the place of supply, meaning where the property is. In Ontario you charge 13% HST. In Alberta you charge 5% GST. Rates differ in other provinces, and they can change, so check the CRA rate table for your province before you set anything up.
Do I charge GST/HST on my cleaning fee?
Generally yes. For a taxable short-term stay, the tax applies to what the guest pays you for the stay, and a cleaning fee charged with the booking is part of that price. Confirm the treatment of any unusual charges with your accountant.
Does the $30,000 include the GST/HST or accommodation taxes I collect?
No. The threshold measures your revenues from taxable supplies, before expenses. Taxes you collect from guests and pass on, such as GST/HST or a Municipal Accommodation Tax, are not your revenue. Your nightly rate and cleaning fees for short-term stays are what count.
Can I register voluntarily before I hit $30,000?
Yes, but be careful what you then claim. Voluntary registration lets you claim input tax credits right away on operating costs. The trade-offs: once registered, you must charge GST/HST on every taxable stay and file returns for every reporting period, and the CRA specifically warns owners to be aware of the consequences of voluntarily registering and claiming ITCs, because ITCs claimed on the property itself generally make the eventual sale taxable. Run the math, including the exit, with your accountant first.
What are input tax credits (ITCs)?
ITCs let a registrant recover the GST/HST paid on expenses used in commercial activity. Think of them in two buckets. Operating costs, such as management fees, cleaning, supplies, and repairs, are the normal bucket and reduce what you remit. The property purchase and renovations or improvements are the bucket to leave alone: claiming those ITCs generally makes your future sale of the property taxable. Claim the first bucket, and take advice on the second before claiming anything.
What if I crossed the threshold months ago and never registered?
Your registration takes effect from the date you were required to register, not the date you get around to it. The CRA expects the tax from that effective date, even for stays where you never collected it from the guest, plus interest. If you are in this situation, talk to your accountant promptly about registering and about whether the CRA's Voluntary Disclosures Program applies. The problem gets more expensive the longer it sits.
Once registered, do I file even for periods with no bookings?
Yes. A registrant files a return for every reporting period, including a nil return for a period with no activity. Missing returns generate CRA follow-up even when no tax is owing.
My property is in Quebec. Is anything different?
Yes. In Quebec, Revenu Quebec administers the GST alongside the Quebec Sales Tax (QST), which is a separate tax with its own registration. If you host in Quebec, ask your accountant about both before registering for either.
My property is in Alberta. What changes?
The federal side is the same $30,000 threshold, but the rate you charge is 5% GST since Alberta has no provincial sales tax. Alberta's 4% tourism levy is a separate provincial tax with its own rules and is not part of your GST registration.
What happens if my revenue later drops back under $30,000?
Registration does not switch off by itself. While your account is open you keep charging, filing, and remitting. If you qualify as a small supplier again, you may be able to close the account, subject to CRA conditions. Ask the CRA or your accountant before you stop charging.
Will I have to pay GST/HST when I sell the property?
It depends on how the property was used, not on registration alone. Sales of previously occupied residential housing by someone other than the builder are normally exempt. But per CRA info sheet GI-025, the sale is generally taxable if you claimed input tax credits on the property, if the property was not primarily your residence and 90% or more of its rentals were under 60 days (run like a hotel), or if you are a registrant and the property was used primarily (more than 50%) in short-term rentals. Read that second trigger carefully, because it cuts both ways. It needs 90% or more of your arrangements to be under 60 days, so if more than one in ten is 60 days or longer, the test is not met and the property stays a residential complex whose sale is exempt. A dedicated nightly-stay unit often meets these tests; a home you mostly live in usually does not, and a property with a genuine mix of stay lengths often does not either. Get advice before you list it for sale.
Does staying under $30,000 protect me when I sell?
No. The CRA states that the small supplier provisions do not apply to sales of real property. Whether your sale is taxable is decided by how the property was used, your registrant status, and whether you claimed input tax credits, not by whether your rental revenue stayed under the threshold.
I claimed ITCs on the property purchase or on renovations. What happens when I sell?
Per GI-025, in most cases where an individual claimed an ITC on the purchase of the property, any later sale of that property is taxable, and the same trigger covers ITCs claimed on improvements made to the property. Claiming ITCs on operating costs is a different matter from claiming them on the property itself or on renovations. If your sale is taxable, you may also be entitled to an additional ITC or rebate for the portion of purchase tax you could not claim before, so a taxable sale is not purely bad news. This area needs an accountant.
Do I need to set up a corporation to register for HST?
No. GST/HST registration is not incorporation. An individual registers as a sole proprietor under their own name, and the CRA issues a business number automatically if you do not have one. A corporation is a separate person with its own $30,000 threshold and its own registration, and transferring a property into one is itself a transaction with tax consequences. Incorporate for liability or income tax reasons if your accountant and lawyer advise it, not because HST requires it.
My city only allows short-term rentals in my principal residence. Does that protect me when I sell?
It helps as a matter of fact, not law. The CRA's taxable-sale tests turn on actual use: a property genuinely used primarily (more than 50%) as your residence fails both the hotel-type test and the primarily-short-term-rental test, so the exempt used-housing sale rule generally holds. But the CRA follows how the property was really used, not your municipal registration, so a principal residence on paper that runs as a dedicated rental gets no protection. The rule also does nothing for the $30,000 revenue threshold, and a registered host who claims ITCs on renovations to their home can still taint the sale. Dedicated suites, like a basement apartment rented short-term year-round, are their own analysis, since the hotel exclusion can apply to part of a building.
What portion of my capital gain is protected for the years I lived there versus the years I rented?
The principal residence exemption prorates by year count, not by when the appreciation happened. The sheltered portion equals your gain multiplied by (1 + the number of tax years you designate the property as your principal residence) divided by the number of tax years you owned it (Income Tax Folio S1-F3-C2, paragraph 2.20). Own for 10 years, live there for 6, rent for 4: (6 + 1) divided by 10 shelters 70% of the gain, and 30% is taxable as a capital gain. A year counts if you qualified at any time in it, so transition years usually count as lived-in years.
I moved out of my home and turned it into a rental. Is there anything I should file?
Yes, and in the year of the change, not the year you sell. Fully converting a principal residence to a rental is a deemed disposition at fair market value under paragraph 45(1)(a). An election under subsection 45(2), filed with your return for the year of the change, defers that deemed sale and can keep the property qualifying as your principal residence for up to four additional years while it is rented, provided you claim no capital cost allowance and designate no other property for those years. Those extra designated years feed directly into the exemption formula, so this election can meaningfully shrink the taxable portion of your eventual gain. Talk to your accountant when you convert.
Does capital gains tax only apply to short-term rentals, or to mid-term and long-term tenants too?
All of them, equally. Capital gains is rental-type blind: what removes the principal residence exemption for a year is the property not being your principal residence that year, and a year with a two-year lease tenant counts exactly the same as a year of Airbnb stays. The short-term versus longer-term distinction matters for HST, not capital gains. So moving a unit from short-term to mid-term stays can improve the HST position on a future sale while leaving the capital gains position unchanged.
I lived in my home for years and only recently started short-term renting. Where does that leave me on HST if I sell?
For most people in this position, exactly where they were. If you still live in the home and host around your own life, the property remains primarily your residence, both taxable-sale triggers fail, and the exempt sale rule for used housing generally holds. Adding hosting to a home you actually live in does not convert the building. The situation that needs planning is different: moving out entirely and running the unit as dedicated nightly stays. There the HST tests look at the property's use around the time of sale rather than its history, so the sale can become taxable. Even then there is a lever, because the hotel test requires 90% or more of arrangements to be under 60 days, so a genuine mix that includes 60 day and longer stays keeps the property a residential complex. Capital gains is separate and more forgiving: your lived-in years keep counting in the exemption formula no matter what the property is doing now.
How would the CRA know whether my rentals were short-term?
Mostly because the data already flows to them. Since the 2024 calendar year, platform operators must collect, verify, and report seller information to the CRA annually under the Reporting Rules for Digital Platform Operators, and the rental of real property is explicitly a reportable activity. Add your own tax filings, any GST/HST returns, and municipal short-term rental registrations, and the usage picture is largely assembled from records the CRA already holds. On review, your booking histories and stay-length records are what gets requested, and the burden of supporting the sale's characterization is on the vendor. Keep a log of stay lengths and personal use; the same records that establish a taxable sale also establish an exempt one.
If I move back into the property before selling, do I avoid HST on the sale?
It depends on your history. If you were never registered and never claimed ITCs on the property, genuinely moving back in restores the home's residential character and a later sale generally falls back within the exempt used-housing rule. If you are a registrant or claimed ITCs, the move back in is itself a tax event under the change-in-use rules: repayment of ITCs and an accounting of GST/HST based on the property's tax content at the time of the change, so the tax gets settled at conversion rather than avoided. A move staged just before listing does not rewrite the documented booking history either way. Plan the conversion year with your accountant.
Has anyone actually been charged HST on a sale after hosting from their own home?
Not that we could find. As of August 2026 there is one reported court decision taxing a sale over short-term rental use, 1351231 Ontario Inc. v The King (2024 TCC 37, upheld by the Federal Court of Appeal in 2025 FCA 53). Its facts are worth knowing because they are so far from a normal host: a corporately owned condo that was never anyone's residence, rented on long leases for nine years, then switched to Airbnb with most stays under seven nights and many of one night, and sold about fourteen months later. We found no reported decision and no published CRA example of an owner-occupant assessed HST on the sale of a home they lived in and hosted from. That fits the rules rather than contradicting them, since a home primarily lived in fails the taxable-sale triggers. Two honest caveats: CRA assessments are confidential unless appealed, and platform data reporting only began with the 2024 year, so a thin public record is limited evidence rather than immunity. The risk concentrates where the rules put it, on dedicated nightly-stay units, full conversions after moving out, and ITCs claimed on the property itself.
Nurture is a property management company, not an accounting or law firm, and we cannot give financial or tax advice. This guide summarizes rules published by the Canada Revenue Agency as of July 2026 for general information only. Thresholds, rates, deadlines, and procedures change, and your circumstances may put you outside the general rules. Confirm everything with your accountant and the official CRA resources below before you register, charge, file, or pay anything.
Official CRA Resources
- When to register for and start charging the GST/HST (the $30,000 threshold, both tests, effective dates, the 29 days)
- Register for a GST/HST account (Business Registration Online)
- Charge and collect the GST/HST: which rate (rates by province, place of supply)
- GST/HST Memorandum 19.2.2: Residential Real Property, Rentals (the one month exemption)
- Platform-based short-term accommodation threshold amounts (the platform rules and your continuing obligation)
- Remit (pay) the GST/HST you collected (payment methods, instalments, due dates)
- GST/HST Info Sheet GI-025: Purchase, Use and Sale of Vacation Properties by Individuals (ITCs, change in use, and when a sale is taxable)
- GST/HST Memorandum 19.2.1: Residential Real Property, Sales (the exempt sale rules and their limits)
- Income Tax Folio S1-F3-C2: Principal Residence (the exemption formula, ordinarily inhabited, and the change-of-use elections)
- Reporting Rules for Digital Platforms (what platforms must report to the CRA about hosts each year)
We watch this threshold for our owners
Nurture tracks each owner's short-term rental revenue against the $30,000 line as part of our management service, so the registration conversation happens before the CRA starts it. Want that kind of oversight on your property?
Get Your Free Estimate