- Do I need a CITQ number to rent short-term in Quebec?
- Yes. Tourist accommodation in Quebec requires registration, which produces a certificate and a registration number. The number must be displayed on the listing, and the platform is required to verify it before publishing the listing.
- Can I rent out a property in Quebec that is not my principal residence?
- It depends on the category you register under and on municipal zoning. Quebec distinguishes a principal-residence establishment from a general one, and a general establishment is only possible where the municipality's zoning permits tourist accommodation at that address — which in much of Montreal it does not.
Registration, and the number on the listing
Operating tourist accommodation in Quebec — offering a place to stay for 31 days or less, against payment, on a regular basis — requires registration. Registration produces a classification certificate and a registration number, and that number has to appear in the listing itself.
Registration is per establishment, not per operator. A second unit is a second registration, and the number that goes on a listing has to be the one issued for that address.
Principal residence or general establishment
The category you register under decides what you may do:
- A principal-residence establishment is the home you actually live in, let while you are away or in part while you are there
- A general establishment is anything else — a unit held to be let — and is only available where municipal zoning allows tourist accommodation at that address
- Municipal zoning is checked at registration, so a general registration in a residential zone that forbids it will not be issued
The platforms carry the enforcement
Quebec's 2023 amendments made the platform responsible for verifying that a listing carries a valid registration number before it is published, with substantial penalties for platforms that do not. This is the mechanism that changed behaviour: an unregistered listing is not something a municipal inspector has to find, it is something the platform is not allowed to show.
For an operator this cuts both ways. It ends the ambiguity about whether the rules are enforced, and it means a lapsed registration takes the listing down rather than generating a warning letter.
The lodging tax and the municipal layer
Quebec applies a lodging tax to the price of an accommodation unit in participating tourism regions, on top of GST and QST. On a platform booking the platform generally collects it; on a direct booking the operator does.
Montreal restricts short-term tourist accommodation to specific zones, which is the practical constraint for most of the province's short-term stock — the provincial registration will not issue against an address the borough's zoning does not permit it at.
A registration number belongs on the unit that holds it, with the date it lapses. Direct PMS keeps both against the property, so a renewal is a task rather than a discovery.
Short-term rental operators →- Rules and rates in this area change often, and this page is a summary rather than advice. Check the official source before you rely on any figure in it.
BC moved short-term rental regulation from the municipality to the province: a principal-residence requirement in most communities, a provincial registry, and a duty on the platforms to enforce both.
Alberta is the loosest short-term rental regime of the four big provinces — no provincial licence, no principal-residence test — which puts the whole of the compliance burden on the city and the tax.
La France superpose trois régimes : la déclaration, qui est nationale ; le plafond de nuitées, qui dépend de la commune ; et le changement d'usage, qui ne concerne que les logements qui ne sont pas votre résidence principale.
Deutschland regelt Kurzzeitvermietung nicht im Bund, sondern über das Zweckentfremdungsrecht der Länder und die Satzungen der Städte — mit dem Ergebnis, dass die Frage nie „ist das erlaubt“ lautet, sondern „in welchem Bezirk“.