Toronto's Municipal Accommodation Tax rose from 6% to a temporary 8.5% on 1 June 2025, and reverted to 6% on 1 August 2026. If you're reading a guide, spreadsheet or contract quoting 8.5%, it's out of date — that rate window has closed.
Given how recently this changed, the safest move for any operator is to point your booking engine at the City's published rate rather than hard-coding a number anywhere it's expensive to update.
MAT applies to any room used for rental accommodation for four hours or more, on a continuous stay of 30 days or less. It's charged only on the room-cost portion of a booking — not on cleaning fees, damage deposits or other add-ons billed separately.
It applies uniformly across hotels, short-term rentals and every other transient-accommodation category the City tracks; there's no separate lighter regime for individual STR hosts versus commercial operators.
MAT is a tax collected from the guest, not a cost the operator carries. The practical failure mode is quoting a nightly rate that quietly includes MAT instead of adding it as a separate line — which either erodes margin every booking or requires an awkward retroactive correction once someone notices.