What happens to the Foreign Buyer Ban after January 1, 2027?

Direct answer

Nobody knows yet, so the useful thing to plan around is what does NOT change. The federal Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act is set to expire on January 1, 2027. That is already its second deadline: the original sunset ran to 2025 and was pushed out by Order in Council in February 2024. Whether Ottawa lets it lapse, extends it again or replaces it is a political decision that has not been made. Three outcomes are worth planning for. The Act simply lapses, and a non-Canadian can buy in a Census Metropolitan Area or Census Agglomeration subject only to the provincial layers, meaning the additional 20% transfer tax in the five Specified Areas and the Speculation and Vacancy Tax in designated areas. Or it is extended again, most likely with the geographic scope or the exemption list adjusted rather than the whole mechanism. Or it is replaced by something else, such as higher taxes or rules set province by province. Whichever of the three happens, the provincial arithmetic is unchanged, and it is the larger number. On a $1,500,000 Vancouver condo a foreign buyer pays $328,000 on closing: $28,000 of ordinary transfer tax plus the $300,000 Additional Property Transfer Tax. Then the Speculation and Vacancy Tax runs every year on the full assessed value at 3% for a foreign owner in 2026, rising to 4% for the 2027 tax year, which is $45,000 this year and $60,000 a year after that. Note the timing: the rate step and the expiry of the ban land in the same tax year, so a lapse would not leave BC an open market, it would leave the province collecting more. One layer has genuinely come off, the federal Underused Housing Tax, repealed for 2025 and every year after, so that is out of the arithmetic whichever way the ban goes. For non-Canadian buyers planning a 2027+ acquisition: contract law allows offers contingent on "lifting of federal foreign-buyer prohibition" but most BC sellers will refuse such a subject. Monitor Department of Finance announcements and the Order in Council registry through late 2026; nothing is binding until it is announced.