Toronto's Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT): filing vs. remitting, explained

The one distinction that clears up most of the confusion

Almost every MAT mistake comes from blurring two separate steps. So before anything else, here they are, cleanly separated:

• Filing is submitting your quarterly MAT report to the City — a short online declaration of how much rental revenue you collected and how many nights you rented during the period. Filing is a statement. You do it every quarter, without exception.
• Remitting is actually paying the tax money you owe to the City. Remitting is a payment. You only do it when the report shows tax owing.

Hold those two apart and the whole system makes sense. The rule that catches people is this asymmetry: you always file, but you don't always remit. A quarter can require a filing with nothing to pay — but there is never a situation where you remit without also filing. If you remember nothing else from this guide, remember that a "$0 quarter" still needs a report.

What MAT actually is

The Municipal Accommodation Tax is a tax the City of Toronto charges on short-term stays — accommodation booked for fewer than 28 consecutive nights. As a registered short-term rental operator, you are required to collect it from your guests and remit it to the City. It's not money out of your own pocket; you're collecting it on the City's behalf, the same way a store collects sales tax.

The rate is in an unusual spot right now, so this part matters:

• June 1, 2025 – July 31, 2026: the rate is temporarily 8.5%.
• August 1, 2026 onward: it returns to the permanent rate of 6%.

So the 8.5% you're collecting today is a temporary bump, not the long-run number. If you set up a listing or a pricing template that hard-codes 8.5%, put a reminder on August 1, 2026 to switch it back to 6% — collecting the wrong rate creates its own reconciliation headache.

The quarterly calendar

MAT runs on calendar quarters. Each report — and any payment — is due within 30 days of the end of the quarter:

Four dates a year. They don't move with your registration anniversary the way your renewal does — MAT is on the City's fixed quarterly clock, the same for everyone. That's actually what makes missed filings so common: the deadline isn't tied to anything personal, so there's nothing in your own calendar nudging you toward it.

Why you file every quarter — even when you owe nothing

This is the heart of it. The City is explicit: you must file a MAT report for every reporting period, even if you didn't rent your place out at all, and even if you arranged for a platform to collect and remit the tax for you. There are three common "I owe nothing" situations, and in all three you still file:

1. You didn't rent at all this quarter

Zero bookings still means a report — a zero return showing $0 in revenue and 0 nights. There's nothing to remit, but the filing is mandatory. A quiet quarter is the single most common reason an operator forgets to file, precisely because it feels like there's nothing to do.

2. Airbnb (or another platform) collected and remitted for you

Short-term rental companies can sign a Voluntary Collection Agreement with the City to collect and remit MAT on behalf of their hosts. Airbnb does this in Toronto. That handles the money — but it does not handle your report. You still file. On your own report you exclude the revenue and nights that the platform collected and reported directly to the City, so you're not double-counting. If every one of your bookings came through a platform that remitted for you, your own report may show nothing left to remit — but the report itself is still required.

3. You rented, but across both platform and direct bookings

This is where the two halves meet. The nights you booked through Airbnb (under its collection agreement) are reported by Airbnb. Any nights you booked directly — your own website, a repeat guest, a booking off-platform — are yours to report and yours to remit. Your quarterly report captures the direct side; that's the revenue you enter and the MAT you actually pay.

How filing actually works

The report itself is short. You file it online through the City's MAT portal, and it takes a few minutes once you have your numbers ready:

1. Registration number. Enter your short-term rental registration number, format STR-0000-XXXXXX.
2. ID verification. Enter the government ID you registered with — your Ontario Driver's Licence or Ontario Photo Card. If your ID details changed since you registered, update them with the City before filing, or the portal will reject you.
3. Total revenue for the period — but exclude any revenue Airbnb collected and remitted on your behalf. Only report what you collected yourself.
4. Number of nights rented — entire-unit and/or partial-unit — again excluding Airbnb nights, since the platform reports those directly to the City.
5. Note the tax owing. The report calculates the MAT due based on what you entered. That figure is what you remit next.

That's the filing. If the calculated amount is $0 — because you had no direct bookings, or no bookings at all — you've still satisfied your obligation by filing. If it's more than $0, filing is only step one, and remitting is step two.

How remitting (paying) works

You don't pay through the report form. After filing, you remit the tax owing through your financial institution — online banking, telephone banking, an ATM, or in person — exactly like paying a bill:

• Add a payee called "Short Term Rental Tax Toronto."
• Use your STR registration number (STR-0000-XXXXXX) as the account number.
• Pay the amount your filed report calculated.
• Send it a few days before the due date — bank transfers take time to land, and the City counts the date it receives the money, not the date you sent it.

Made a mistake? Corrections are allowed — within a window

If you under- or over-reported, you can file a corrected report. Two limits to know:

• Corrections are accepted only for the current and the immediately previous reporting period. Older periods can't be self-corrected through the portal.
• A corrected report automatically replaces the one you previously submitted for that period — you don't stack them.

The practical lesson: catch errors quickly. The correction window is narrow, so a reporting mistake you don't notice for two quarters can become something you can no longer simply fix online.

What happens if you miss a deadline

Two layers of consequence — financial, then existential.

Interest and charges accrue on anything unpaid:

• Overdue MAT accrues interest at 1.25% per month from the day after the due date until it's paid in full.
• After the default period, interest continues on the outstanding principal at 15% per year.
• A returned payment (insufficient funds) adds a $40 NSF charge.

That's why MAT isn't really a "tax task" so much as a registration-survival task. The dollars on a quiet quarter might be zero, but the missing report can still cost you the registration itself.

A quick word on HST (so you don't double-count)

MAT and HST are different taxes going to different governments. MAT goes to the City; HST goes to the Canada Revenue Agency. The MAT is only subject to HST if you're registered for HST as an operator — and you're generally not required to register for HST unless your short-term rental income exceeds $30,000. Most small operators aren't HST-registered, so for them MAT stands alone. If your income crosses that threshold, that's an accountant conversation, not a portal step.

How Permit Ready Pros keeps MAT from slipping

The reason MAT deadlines get missed isn't that operators don't care — it's that the system gives you nothing to push against. Four fixed dates a year, no personal reminder, a "nothing owed" quarter that still needs action, and a payment that lives in a completely different place from the filing. PRP is built to close exactly those gaps:

• Deadline tracking that never sleeps. Every property in the PRP workspace carries its MAT quarters on the calendar, with reminders that fire before each April 30 / July 30 / October 30 / January 30 — so the quiet quarters don't slip by unnoticed.
• Filed and remitted, tracked separately. PRP treats the report and the payment as two checkboxes, not one. A quarter isn't "done" until both are confirmed — the report filed and the payment received — which is precisely the gap that catches operators who file and forget to pay.
• Zero returns flagged, not skipped. A no-activity quarter is the easiest one to miss. PRP surfaces it as a required action so a $0 quarter still gets its mandatory filing on record.
• Airbnb reconciliation built in. Because your own report must exclude platform-collected revenue and nights, PRP helps separate platform-remitted bookings from your direct bookings — so what you report is the right number, not a double-count.
• Renewal protection. PRP tracks each property's renewal anniversary and its MAT status together — so a blocked renewal never surprises you, because the unfiled report that would have blocked it never existed.

Quarter-end checklist

• Quarter ended — note the due date (30 days out)
• Totals ready: direct-booking revenue and nights, excluding Airbnb-collected bookings
• ID details with the City still current (update first if they changed)
• File the MAT report — even if the answer is zero
• Note the tax owing the report calculates
• Remit through your bank to payee "Short Term Rental Tax Toronto," using your STR number — sent a few days early
• Both confirmed: filed ✓ and paid ✓
• If a past report was wrong: correct it while it's still the current or previous period

Frequently asked questions