Airbnb and short-term rental rules in Halifax (HRM), Nova Scotia

At a glance

It depends on the plan area and the zone. Outside the plan areas that allow one short-term rental per lot, a whole home must be the operator's primary residence unless its zone allows tourist or commercial accommodation.

Can I?

• The home you live in (as HRM’s by-law defines it) Allowed
• A home you don’t live in In some zones
• A suite or second unit on the lot you live on In some zones

Land use →

What do I need?

• Municipal step: Zoning Confirmation Letter or Development Only Permit
• Municipal step: Residential Rental Registry
• then register with the Province

Municipal step →

What does it cost?

• Zoning Confirmation Letter or Development Only Permit: $200 for the letter; $250 for the permit (one time)
• Residential Rental Registry: No fee (one time)
• The home you live in: $50 a year
• Commercial short-term rental (a home you don’t live in): $240 to $2,000 per unit a year, by community tier
• Personal vacation home (a home you don’t live in, kept mainly for your own use): $50, or $150 with five or more bedrooms
• No total: the Zoning Confirmation Letter or Development Only Permit fee has more than one amount

Costs →

Who collects what?

• Guests pay a 3% marketing levy
• Airbnb collects it (as of 28 Sep 2026)
• Vrbo collects it (as of 28 Sep 2026)
• Booking.com collects it (as of 28 Sep 2026)
• On direct bookings, you add and remit it (as of 28 Sep 2026)

Marketing levy →

Checked 27 Sep 2026 against 8 sources (3 official) · Changed 30 Sep 2026 · Next check 1 Oct 2026 · How we check →

General information, not advice. How to confirm →

In the Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, the home an operator lives in can be a short-term rental wherever homes are permitted, but a whole home they don't live in is allowed only in zones that permit tourist or commercial accommodation, such as hotels or motels, or through a discretionary planning approval. Some plan areas set their own rule: see Plan areas in HRM.

Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, Lower Sackville, Cole Harbour and Fall River are communities of HRM, not separate municipalities, so HRM's municipal steps and marketing levy apply in each. What differs from place to place is the plan area and the zone of the lot.

Where this guide applies

Which municipality a property is in depends on where its parcel (PID) sits, not on the community name or the mailing address. The property tax bill shows it; either office can confirm it.

Every community in HRM →

Halifax here means Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the rest of HRM, not Halifax County, Virginia. Inside HRM, the plan area and zone decide, not the community name or mailing address. Hubbards straddles the boundary with Chester; its HRM side is in the St. Margarets Bay plan area.

Is a short-term rental allowed here?

HRM sorts short-term rentals by where the operator lives: residential in the unit the operator normally lives in, commercial elsewhere. HRM's commercial examples include seasonal cottages and secondary or backyard suites, so a cottage registered provincially as a personal vacation home is still a commercial short-term rental under HRM's land-use rules.

Renting bedrooms to separate guests is its own use: residential when the host lives on site, commercial when the host lives elsewhere. Either way it needs the Development Only Permit. HRM's zoning map shows a lot's zone and plan area; a planner can confirm both: Planning & Development: call 311 and ask to speak to a planner, 311, contact page.

Plan areas in HRM

On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Municipal step

HRM has two municipal steps, and neither stands in for the other. The first approves the land use for the unit, and HRM describes it as the proof the Province asks for when a host registers. The second puts the home on HRM's registry of rental housing, which covers long-term rentals as well.

Steps and costs

1. Check the zone of the lot and confirm the use with Planning & Development: call 311 and ask to speak to a planner, 311, contact page.
2. Zoning Confirmation Letter or Development Only Permit, from HRM Planning & Development, through the online PPLC permitting system. Details
3. Residential Rental Registry, from HRM's Registrar under By-law R-400. Details
4. Register for the marketing levy and remit it on the bookings you collect it on. Details
5. Renew the Zoning Confirmation Letter or Development Only Permit (The permit doesn't expire and can be reused for later provincial renewals).
6. Renew the Residential Rental Registry (One-time registration; the registration number can be used when advertising).

Then register each unit with the Province and show the number on every listing. The provincial checklist →

On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see both columns.

A personal vacation home (a home you don’t live in, kept mainly for your own use; 150 rental days per registration year; an applicant may register only one personal vacation home) registers as a traditional tourist accommodation instead: $50, or $150 with five or more bedrooms a year (Regulations s.2(1), s.14).

The levy and HST are charged to guests, not owners; they are in Marketing levy.

Marketing levy

A platform collects the levy only on bookings paid through it. On a booking made directly with the host, where the host collects the payment, the host collects and remits it with HRM's monthly return. Booking.com's tax page says it collects on the room rate only, excluding property fees (checked 28 Sep 2026).

Ask Marketing levy (Finance), through 311, 311, or 1-800-835-6428 toll-free, contact page whether the levy applies to those fees. The how-to: Halifax's marketing levy: who pays and when to remit.

Provincial registration

Other local rules

What we haven't confirmed yet

• What Harbour East-Marine Drive Community Council decides after its public hearing on allowing one short-term rental per lot, with no primary-residence test, in Cow Bay outside the serviced area and in North Preston, Lake Major, Lake Loon, Cherry Brook and East Preston. (checked 28 Sep 2026 · source)
• Whether the one-per-lot rule adopted for the Eastern Shore (West and East), Lawrencetown, Musquodoboit Valley and Dutch Settlement, and Lake Echo and Porters Lake plan areas covers each whole plan area or only its unserviced parts. In the Shubenacadie Lakes plan area, which includes Fall River, the by-law's clause has no such limit. (checked 28 Sep 2026 · source)
• Which communities sit in the Chebucto Peninsula plan area, whose by-law has a one-per-lot clause like St. Margarets Bay. (checked 28 Sep 2026 · source)
• How a separate cleaning fee is treated in the levy's base: the by-law's definition of purchase price doesn't mention cleaning fees. (checked 28 Sep 2026 · source)

Nearby and often confused

• Municipality of the District of Chester (guide coming)

• District of Chester: a Hubbards parcel on the Chester side of the line follows Chester's rules, not HRM's; see the District of Chester.