As the May 1st deadline arrives for all short-term rental hosts in the province to register, the BC Government believes more of these units are now being converted to long-term homes.

The government says over 20,000 listings have been registered, but when the legislation was introduced in early 2023 there were an estimated 28,000 individual short term rentals in BC.

The province suggests this is an indication that owners are a now renting them as long term housing.

To provide Internet platforms with more time to complete their technical work, the deadline to begin validating provincial registration numbers and removing illegal listings is being pushed back.

– As of June 2, 2025, if a short-term rental listing does not have a valid registration number, platforms must stop advertising the listing and prevent new bookings from that host or face a possible investigation and potential monetary penalty. This date was previously May 1.

– As of June 23, 2025, platforms must cancel all future bookings from hosts without a valid provincial registration number or face a possible investigation and potential monetary penalty. This date was previously June 1.

The government says it will continue working with platforms to ensure any technical challenges or concerns are addressed.

Hosts are still expected to register their listings by May 1.

The province says that since the legislation was introduced to restrict short-term rentals, asking rates for long-term rentals are down 6.1 per cent in BC.

In addition, the BC government says CMHC data shows average provincial vacancy rates are up from 1.2 per cent in 2023 to 1.9 per cent in 2024.