Canmore Livability Tax: The Vacancy Tax, Explained

If you are buying in Canmore from outside Alberta, the Canmore vacancy tax, officially the Livability Tax Program, is the line item most likely to surprise you. It is new for 2026, it is not small, and whether it applies to you depends less on how you use the home than on where you live. Here is how it works, who pays, what it costs, and how to make sure you never pay it by accident.

What the Canmore Livability Tax actually is

The Canmore Livability Tax is a separate, higher property tax rate that the Town applies to dwellings that do not house a primary resident. Council approved the program in 2024, the first declarations were collected for 2025, and it is being charged for the first time on 2026 tax notices.

The stated purpose is housing: about 26% of Canmore’s homes are owned by people who do not live in them full-time (2021 Census, via CBC), rental vacancy is close to zero, and the Town’s living wage is the highest in Alberta at $38.80 an hour (2023, the last year Canmore participated). The tax is meant to nudge weekend homes back into full-time use and to fund affordable housing with the revenue from those that stay empty, the Town expects roughly $4.4 million from it in 2026.

Who counts as a “primary resident”

A dwelling is exempt from the vacancy tax when someone, the owner or a tenant, lives in it as their primary residence for at least 183 days in the calendar year, including at least 60 consecutive days. That is the whole test. It does not matter whether the person is the owner, a relative or a long-term renter, as long as it is genuinely where they live.

Two consequences follow:

• A Canmore home rented to a full-time tenant is treated as occupied.
• A home you visit for twenty weekends a year is not, even if that adds up to a lot of nights. Weekends rarely reach 183 days, and they never produce a 60-day continuous stay.

The Alberta-resident exemption (the part that changed in 2026)

The original program applied to every non-primary residence in town. In 2026 the provincial government intervened with legislation that exempts any property owned wholly or partly by an Alberta resident, whatever the property is used for. The Town has said it will apply the program within those limits.

In plain terms:

How much it costs

The Town’s 2026 Rate of Taxation Bylaw sets two residential rates. A primary residence pays 0.00456554 of assessed value (municipal, provincial education, seniors housing requisition and the Vital Homes levy combined). A home that is not a primary residence pays 0.00833462. The Livability Tax sits inside the municipal portion rather than appearing as a separate line on your bill. The difference is 0.377% of assessed value per year.

Assessed at $800,000

+ $3,015 / yr

$6,668 total instead of $3,652

Assessed at $1,200,000

+ $4,523 / yr

$10,002 total instead of $5,479: about $377 a month

Assessed at $2,000,000

+ $7,538 / yr

$16,669 total instead of $9,131

For an out-of-province buyer, that means the true annual tax bill on a $1.2M home is about $10,000, against roughly $5,480 for the Albertan neighbour across the street. The buyer cost calculator applies the add-on automatically when you tell it where you live and whether the home will be your primary residence.

The December 31 declaration

Every residential property owner in Canmore must file the Canmore primary residence declaration with the Town each year, by 11:59 p.m. on December 31. It is the form that settles the vacancy tax question for the year, and it is short: who lives there, for how long, and whether it is their primary residence.

If you do not file:

• the property is automatically taxed at the higher rate for that year, and
• you lose the right to file an Alberta property assessment complaint for that tax year.

As of April 2026, about 300 owners had declared themselves out-of-province part-time residents, and 566 properties still had not declared at all (CBC). Non-filers are the group most likely to be paying the tax by mistake.

1. 1Buy: and note the possession dateThe declaration covers the calendar year. If you take possession in October, you (not the seller) file the December declaration for that year.
2. 2Decide the use honestlyPrimary residence, long-term rental, or second home. The Town can ask for evidence: leases, utility bills, driver’s licence address.
3. 3File by December 31, every yearPut it in the calendar. The declaration does not roll over.
4. 4Check the tax notice in late MayConfirm the class matches your declaration. Complaints about assessment have a deadline printed on the notice.

Livability Tax vs tourist-home tax vs Vital Homes tax

Canmore has three housing-related levies that buyers mix up:

• Livability Tax, the vacancy tax on non-primary residences described here. Residential properties only.
• Tourist Home class, properties zoned for nightly rental are assessed in their own class, paying the non-residential municipal rate while keeping the residential education rate: 0.832% all in, whether or not they are occupied. That is about 1.8 times a primary residence, and almost exactly what a non-Albertan's second home now pays. Details in the tourist-home zoning guide.
• Vital Homes levy, a small line (0.00001335 on residential) funding Canmore’s affordable-housing program. Everyone pays it; it is part of the totals above and is covered in the Canmore property tax guide.

The seven exemptions, and what they actually cover

The exemptions are narrow, and each one has to be claimed on the declaration rather than assumed. These are the Canmore Livability Tax exemption categories the Town publishes.

Two things follow from that list. None of the exemptions turns on how much you use the home, so a well-used weekend property held by an out-of-province owner has no route out other than a long-term tenant or an Alberta resident on title. And every one of them is a statement of fact you may be asked to stand behind years later, because declarations can be audited for up to three years and a false or misleading declaration carries fines of up to $10,000.

Buying or selling part-way through the year

The Canmore Livability Tax declaration follows the owner on record at year end rather than the month you took possession, which catches people on both sides of a sale.

If you buy in the autumn, you are the owner on December 31 and the declaration for that tax year is yours to file. Where you or a tenant moved in straight away, the arm’s length sale exemption is the one that fits, and it only helps if you actually file it. If you buy as a non-Albertan and leave the home empty, the higher rate follows for that tax year regardless of how few weeks you have owned it.

Selling is the mirror image, and the seller's guide to a Canmore sale sets out where it lands. The property carries the classification declared for that tax year, and how the resulting bill is split between buyer and seller is settled in the purchase contract and the statement of adjustments rather than by the Town. Where the property is a weekend place, the tax rules on selling one matter more than the split does. Raise it during negotiation rather than on possession day. Ask for the seller’s declaration status in writing alongside the tax certificate, and if the answer is that nobody declared, price the higher rate into the year you are buying into.

What this means if you’re buying

If you live in Alberta, the Canmore Livability Tax (the Canmore vacancy tax, as most people call it) is not your problem, but the declaration still is, so file it. If you live outside Alberta and plan to use the home as a weekend or holiday place, budget an extra 0.377% of assessed value every year from day one, and price that into your offer. If you are buying as an investment, a long-term tenant makes the tax disappear; nightly rental does not, and is only legal in tourist-home buildings in the first place. Run the numbers before you fall for a view.

If you live elsewhere in Alberta, the short answer is in do Albertans pay the Canmore vacancy tax.

If you are earlier in the process than this page assumes, the how-to-buy overview is the place to begin, and it sets the Canmore Livability Tax beside the other yearly costs of owning here.