The friction usually shows up after a sale closes. On October 6, 2026, Canmore Council partially cancelled Livability Tax levies on 11 tax rolls whose owners had missed the primary residence declaration deadline, less $500 in administration costs. In June, seven more properties occupied by primary residents got similar relief, with a $500 administrative fee per property. The Town's own declaration rules spell out the default. If a property has no declaration by 11:59 p.m. on December 31, it normally goes into the higher-rate Residential class.
That deadline is less than three months away. It matters more this year because the program changed underneath it in May 2026. Canmore's higher rate on second homes now depends mostly on the owner's province of residence. For a buyer from British Columbia, Ontario or the United States, that one change matters more for annual carrying costs than unit type or zoning.
One clause in Bill 28 moved the test
Canmore built the program on its Division of Class 1 Property Bylaw 2024-19. Council passed it on August 20, 2024 to tax homes that aren't occupied full time by a Canmore resident at a different rate. The court fight that followed went the Town's way. The Court of King's Bench upheld the Town's authority but found a 2025 launch impermissibly retrospective, which pushed implementation to 2026. In March 2026, the Alberta Court of Appeal dismissed the opponents' appeal.
Then the province changed the law the courts had just interpreted. Bill 28, the Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act, 2026, received Royal Assent on May 14, 2026. It adds this to the Municipal Government Act:
"the assessor shall not assign that sub-class to a residential property that is wholly or partially owned by one or more individuals that reside in Alberta."
The same section defines residing in Alberta as having lived in the province for at least 183 days in the current or previous calendar year, with no intention of taking up residence outside it. The Rocky Mountain Outlook summarized the effect like this: properties owned wholly or partly by Alberta residents are exempt "regardless of how the property is used." Council amended its bylaw to comply on May 19 and passed the 2026 tax rate bylaw unanimously on May 26.
So the same condo, empty eleven months a year, pays one rate if a Calgary resident is on title and another if the owner lives in Vancouver.
Three owners, one assessed value
The Town's published 2026 rates are now shown as tax rates rather than mill rates, and the levy is simply assessed value multiplied by the total rate. The table below applies the 2026 rates to an illustrative $1,000,000 assessment. That value is a round number for the arithmetic, not a market figure.
| 2026 subclass | Who typically lands here | Total 2026 rate | Levy on a $1,000,000 assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Residential | Owners or long-term tenants who pass the use test, plus any property with an Alberta-resident individual on title | 0.456554% | $4,565.54 |
| Residential | Non-primary homes with no Alberta-resident individual owner, and undeclared properties | 0.833462% | $8,334.62 |
| Tourist Home | Properties with a Tourist Home development permit, whether rented or owner-used | 0.83179% | $8,317.90 |
The gap between the first two rows comes almost entirely from the municipal component. That is 0.186062% for Primary Residential and 0.562970% for Residential, which the Town describes as roughly an extra 0.4% of assessed value.
The last two rows sit almost level. In 2026, a non-Albertan's Residential-class second home pays a fraction more than a Tourist Home: the total rate is about 0.0017 percentage points higher, or $16.72 on the illustrative assessment. That holds even though the Tourist Home can rent short-term and the Residential unit cannot.
Why the Tourist Home math looks different to an out-of-province buyer
Until recently, the decision ran the other way. The Town's Tourist Home page still describes that rate as about three times the residential rate. It also says owners have been unable to declare personal use since 2025, so every Tourist Home is taxed the same even when an owner lives in it. For years, buying a residential unit instead of a Tourist Home meant a much smaller tax bill in exchange for giving up short-term rental rights.
For an owner with no Alberta residency, that trade has mostly disappeared on the tax side. What separates the two classes now is mostly what the owner is allowed to do with the unit:
- Tourist Home: may rent short-term or long-term, may be used full or part time, cannot be declared a primary residence, and needs one business licence per unit for short-term rental, with the licence number shown in all marketing.
- Residential: cannot be rented short-term, may be rented long-term, may qualify as a primary residence, and allows uses like visiting family, billeted athletes or temporary workers.
Supply is fixed too. Since March 11, 2025, Canmore's Land Use Bylaw no longer lists Tourist Homes as a permitted use. Existing ones remain, but converting or reverting a residential property to a Tourist Home, or building new ones, has largely been eliminated. Movement can only go one way. The Town offers a streamlined conversion from Tourist Home to Residential and is waiving the conversion fees until December 31, 2026.
The 2026 roll shows how the classes compare in size. The Town's tax-roll table lists 764 Tourist Home rolls and 818 Residential rolls in the higher-rate class.
The use test still decides everything else
Bill 28 exempts Alberta-resident owners, but everyone else still goes through the Town's original use test. That includes non-Albertans who live in their Canmore home or rent it out long term. The housing declaration page sets out how it works:
- The owner or tenant has to conduct daily life at the property, use it as their primary address, and live there at least 183 days in the calendar year, including 60 consecutive days. A person can have only one primary residence.
- A long-term rental can qualify for the Primary Residential class when the tenant uses it as their primary residence and meets the occupancy test. Ownership through a company or trust doesn't decide eligibility on its own.
- Some situations count as being unable to occupy, but they still need a declaration. They include an arm's-length sale followed right away by primary-residence occupation, new construction, permitted renovations, an owner's death within two years, hospitalization or long-term care, a legal order barring occupancy, or catastrophic damage.
- Owners or authorized agents file one declaration per tax roll by December 31 each year. A property with no declaration normally goes into the Residential class, and for the 2026 roll, missing the declaration also meant losing the right to file an assessment complaint.
Some property types skip the process and go into Primary Residential automatically, including certain apartment buildings, qualifying employee housing, and individually titled residential parking and storage units. The 2026 declarations covered how properties were used in 2025. If the next cycle follows that pattern, a property bought this year carries its 2026 history into the 2027 tax year.
How much the declaration matters shows up in the counts. A March 2026 report found 1,131 rolls assigned to the non-primary class because no declaration had been filed. That was before the final Bill 28 reassignment.
A smaller pool paying fixed rates
Bill 28 cut the revenue roughly in half. On May 12, 2026, Council lowered the 2026 Livability budget to $4.4 million from an earlier projection of $10.3 million, after properties owned by Albertans were taken out of the pool. The final 2026 table lists 8,663 Primary Residential rolls against the 818 in the Residential class. Treat the $4.4 million as a budgeted figure. No total for actual 2026 collections had been published as of early October.
The Town has said the rates won't move again this year. Finance manager Chelsey Gibbons said that if more properties are later confirmed exempt through Alberta residency, the rates stay the same and the Town may simply collect less. The current declaration page tells owners who think an Alberta-resident exemption was missed to email the Town.
The money has specific destinations. For 2026, the Town has budgeted $2.4 million for Stoneworks Creek flood mitigation and $320,000 for Canmore Community Housing. Starting in 2027, it plans $10 million over four years for the YWCA Banff Moustache Lands project. Mayor Sean Krausert has tied Stoneworks Creek to steep-creek hazards identified after the 2013 floods. He said the work must be done before part of the Canmore Community Housing lands in the Palliser area can be developed for housing.
What isn't settled for 2027
Two things remain open. The Town's declaration guidance covers the primary-residence declaration and says declarations selected for audit may need documents such as Alberta-issued ID, CRA correspondence or mail. It doesn't describe how Alberta residency under Bill 28 will be verified for the 2027 tax year. Separately, Council adopted a revised Property Tax Policy from the 2025 Property Tax Task Force on May 12, 2026, effective with the 2027 tax year. The 65% residential and 35% non-residential tax split will be revisited next year. The 2026 rates are therefore a reliable snapshot, not a guaranteed forecast.
FAQ
Does Canmore's Livability Tax apply to Tourist Homes? No. Livability Tax revenue comes only from the Residential subclass, not from Primary Residential, Tourist Home or residential vacant land. Tourist Homes pay their own subclass rate.
How does Bill 28 define an Alberta resident? Someone who has lived in Alberta for at least 183 days in the current or previous calendar year and has no intention of taking up residence outside the province. How a particular ownership arrangement is treated is a question for the Town and the owner's own legal and tax advisors.
Is visitor accommodation part of this? No. Visitor accommodation is classed as non-residential and pays the non-residential rate of 0.957275% in 2026.
For buyers outside Alberta, the classification and declaration history of a Canmore property now affect the annual cost of owning it about as much as the purchase price does. Chris Vincent and the Vincent & Wright Group can walk you through a property's tax subclass, its Tourist Home status and the December 31 declaration cycle before you write an offer. Connect with a Canmore & Banff property specialist.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
