What does it cost to leave a home empty in Vancouver?

Two vacancy taxes apply to the same property, and neither credits the other. This multiplies the published rates by a value you choose.

Rates are for the 2025 reference year, the last year both are published. The provincial rate rose in 2026 to 1% / 3% and rises again on 1 January 2027 to 1% / 4%; the city has not published a 2026 empty-homes rate.

Arithmetic, not a forecast. Every figure here is a statutory rate times an assessed value. Nothing on this page estimates how many homes would be rented out at any rate.

Assessed value $1.85M Default: citywide average assessed value, 2024 reference year. Vacant properties averaged $2.01M. Ledger row 8.

Owner citizen or PR Sets the provincial rate: 0.5% or 2%. Ledger row 10.

Empty Homes Tax rate 3.0% Statutory rate. 1% from 2017, 1.25% in 2020, 3% from 2021. Ledger row 2.

Rent it could earn $2,900/mo Default: Vancouver rental condominium, October 2025. Ledger row 25.

What this deliberately does not do

It does not predict conversions. Declared vacancy fell at 11.6% a year while the tax was 1% and 11.5% a year after it tripled to 3%. No relationship between the rate and the response is visible in the published series, so no output here moves with the rate except the bill itself.
It does not model exemptions. Roughly four in five properties that would otherwise be taxed are exempt, most commonly for redevelopment or a recent transfer. A home that qualifies pays nothing.
It excludes the federal Underused Housing Tax. That was 1% a year on vacant or underused housing from 2022, and was removed for 2025 onward. A property held empty in 2022, 2023 or 2024 carried it as well.
Assessed value is not sale price. Assessments are produced for taxation and lag the market.