A vacancy rate is the clearest signal of whether the rental units being built are catching up with demand. In 2025 the national rate crossed the threshold the industry treats as balance.
Headline figure
3.1%
Canada’s purpose-built rental vacancy rate in 2025. CMHC reports that “Vacancy rates for purpose-built rentals rose across major Canadian cities in 2025 as the national rate increased to 3.1%, up from 2.2% in 2024 and above the national 10-year average” — news release dated Ottawa, 11 December 2025.
What the data says
The move from 2.2% to 3.1% in a single year is large by the standards of this series, and CMHC attributes it to supply arriving at the same time as demand growth slowed. That is the first time in several years the completions side of the equation has been the dominant explanation.
CMHC also notes that “Rental condominium apartment vacancies also increased this year but stayed well below purpose-built levels” — so the condominium rental pool, which the census shows is a substantial share of downtown housing, remains tighter than the purpose-built market.
| Census metropolitan area | Vacancy rate, 2025 |
|---|---|
| Calgary | 5.0% |
| Edmonton | 3.8% |
| Vancouver | 3.7% |
| Canada (national) | 3.1% |
| Toronto | 3.0% |
| Ottawa | 3.0% |
| Montréal | 2.9% |
| Halifax | 2.7% |
Sources: the national rate from the CMHC news release of 11 December 2025; the census-metropolitan-area rates as published in CMHC’s 2026 Mid-Year Rental Market Update of 9 June 2026. City rates are not national rates — Vancouver’s 3.7% and Calgary’s 5.0% describe those markets only.
Vacancy tells you whether units are empty. Turnover tells you how often a landlord gets the chance to reprice one, and that is what drives the gap between the rent an existing tenant pays and the rent advertised on the street. CMHC makes the link directly in explaining the 5.1% rise in the average two-bedroom rent paid by all tenants.
The city-level figures show how differently that plays out. In Toronto CMHC reports “an 8.7% turnover rate, up from record lows”. In Halifax, “A 29% rent gap between turnover and non-turnover units kept turnover rates low”. In Ottawa, “Newly built units had the highest vacancy rates at 6.7%”.
CMHC’s mid-year update goes further and splits turnover by rent quartile, reporting figures as far apart as Edmonton’s highest rent quartile at 33.60% and Vancouver’s lowest quartile at 11.10%. A single national turnover number would average away the entire signal, which is presumably why CMHC does not publish one in its release prose.
For a builder, a rising vacancy rate and record completions together are the classic signal that the multi-unit pipeline is closer to satisfied than it was — worth reading against the investment figures, where multi-unit investment is still the largest single residential component. For a property management company, higher vacancy and higher turnover both raise the operational load per unit: more showings, more turnovers to prepare, more lease paperwork per hundred doors.
Where a tenancy question becomes a legal one, the rules are provincial and differ materially. Ontario’s rent increase guideline and its notice requirements are published by the province at the rent increase guideline, and the Landlord and Tenant Board’s current filing fees are at Tribunals Ontario. The condominium side of the same rental pool is covered in Canada’s condominium stock and its age.
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