Save your Property Taxes
You may be able to save your property taxes with Ontario Vacant Rebate and Reduction Programs. Ontario is now moving forward with providing municipalities broad flexibility for 2017 and future years to tailor the vacant rebate and reduction programs to reflect community needs and circumstances. Consistent with the plan to ensure that municipalities considering changes to the vacancy programs take into account the interests of local businesses, the Ministry has provided municipalities with the attached bulletin and checklist, which focuses largely on municipal engagement with the business community.
Since 1998, the Vacant Unit Rebate and Vacant/Excess Land Subclasses have provided tax rebates and reductions to property owners who have vacancies in commercial and industrial buildings or land.
- Vacant Unit Rebates: The Vacant Unit Rebate provides a tax rebate to property owners who have vacancies in commercial and industrial buildings. This application-based program is administered by municipalities. The current rebate is 30% of the property tax for vacant commercial space and 35% for vacant industrial space.
- Vacant and Excess Land Property Tax Subclass: Commercial and industrial properties or portions of these properties in the Vacant and Excess Land Property Tax Subclasses are taxed at a fixed percentage rate below the tax rate of the broad class. These properties are discounted at 30% to 35% of the full Commercial and/or Industrial rate.
Currently, upper- and single-tier municipalities may choose to apply the same percentage of relief (between 30% – 35%) to both the commercial and industrial property classes.
For more information 2017 Ontario Vacant Rebate and Reduction Programs Bulletin
