What renters pay and what landlords ask, by city
Updated · Sources
In Toronto, two-bedroom apartments advertised in the second quarter of 2026 were listed at $2,650 a month on average, while tenants already living in one paid $2,160. Choose your metropolitan area and unit size to see both figures where Statistics Canada publishes them, the change over a year, and how your own rent compares.
How to read the result
The tool always names the measure beside each dollar figure, because the table has two. Asking rent is the price on listings for units on the market now. Paid rent is what existing tenants pay. When a size isn't published for your area, the tool says so rather than showing a blank or borrowing a figure from somewhere else.
The change over a year compares the latest quarter with the second quarter of 2025. Statistics Canada says the figures for that earlier quarter should be used with caution: data from one listing platform were missing, so apartment values were estimated with a regression model and rooms and houses by interpolation. The tool marks those values; read the yearly change with that in mind.
If you type your rent, the tool shows the difference in dollars and the arithmetic behind it. That difference describes the market, not whether an increase you received is allowed.
What the table measures
The figures come from Statistics Canada's Table 46-10-0092-01, published quarterly under the Quarterly Rent Statistics program run with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The latest release, on September 9, 2026, covers the second quarter of 2026; the series starts in the first quarter of 2019. Statistics Canada calls the estimates experimental and says they may be revised.
- Average asking rent
- The monthly amount a unit is advertised for, whatever the rent includes, taken from active listings on major rental platforms through the quarter. It covers apartments and houses by number of bedrooms, and single rooms, both in purpose-built rental buildings and on the secondary rental market. Collective dwellings, vacation homes, mobile homes and subsidized units are left out. The average is not adjusted for quality, so a quarter with more new or larger listings can raise it without any landlord charging more for the same unit.
- Average paid rent
- The rent existing tenants pay, usually under a lease and after any increases since. It comes from the rent questions of the Labour Force Survey, averaged over the last three quarters. It covers apartments only, excludes social and affordable housing, and is published only where Statistics Canada's quality and confidentiality standards are met: 18 metropolitan areas in the latest quarter.
Geography stops at the census metropolitan area: a region of at least 100,000 people around a core city. There are no neighbourhood, town or postal-code figures, and a city outside a metropolitan area has no row at all. Amounts are in current dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
What it does not measure
- It is not a legal limit. The limits on this site apply to the increase for a current tenant, starting from the rent that tenant already pays, whatever the local average is.
- It is not the rent of any one unit. An average mixes old and new buildings, included and excluded utilities, and every floor and finish.
- Asking is not paid. Statistics Canada found asking rents above paid rents in almost every area where it has both, and points to older leases under price controls in some provinces as one reason. Listings show what a new tenant would face; paid rent shows what people in place are charged.
Your rent next to the figures
Compare like with like: the same metropolitan area, the same unit type and the same number of bedrooms. A one-bedroom apartment set against the house or room rows, or against the combined figure for all metropolitan areas, tells you nothing. Paid rent tells you how you compare with tenants already in place; asking rent, what moving would cost.
A two-bedroom in Toronto at $1,950.00. Asking: $2,650 − $1,950 = $700, so you pay $700 less than units advertised now. Paid: $2,160 − $1,950 = $210, so you also pay $210 less than the average tenant in place. Being under the average doesn't let a landlord raise the rent toward it.
A two-bedroom in Vancouver at $2,600.00, rented last year. Paid: $2,600 − $2,470 = $130 above the average tenant in place. Asking: $3,030 − $2,600 = $430 below units on the market.
Halifax, where asking rents rose. The average asking rent for a two-bedroom apartment was $2,400, up 5.3% on a year earlier, and that year-earlier figure is one of the modelled ones. Neither number changes what your landlord may add: an increase for a current tenant in a covered Nova Scotia unit is held to the cap of 5%, whatever listings do.
Two-bedroom apartments, every area in the three provinces
The same figures as the tool, for one unit size, so they can be read without it. Areas are census metropolitan areas; a dash means Statistics Canada doesn't publish that figure for the area, and values marked E are the ones Statistics Canada says to use with caution.
| Area | Province | Average asking rent, Q2 2026 | Average asking rent, Q2 2025 | Average paid rent, Q2 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barrie | Ontario | $2,100 | $2,130 E | — |
| Belleville - Quinte West | Ontario | $1,900 | $1,870 E | — |
| Brantford | Ontario | $1,890 | $1,890 E | — |
| Greater Sudbury | Ontario | $1,940 | $1,900 E | $1,400 |
| Guelph | Ontario | $2,190 | $2,260 E | — |
| Hamilton | Ontario | $2,150 | $2,150 E | — |
| Kingston | Ontario | $1,940 | $2,020 E | $1,750 |
| Kitchener - Cambridge - Waterloo | Ontario | $2,120 | $2,160 E | $1,720 |
| London | Ontario | $1,920 | $2,000 E | $1,560 |
| Oshawa | Ontario | $2,000 | $2,050 E | — |
| Ottawa - Gatineau (Ontario part) | Ontario | $2,360 | $2,430 E | — |
| Peterborough | Ontario | $1,920 | $1,950 E | — |
| St. Catharines - Niagara | Ontario | $1,900 | $1,880 E | — |
| Thunder Bay | Ontario | $1,980 | $1,860 E | — |
| Toronto | Ontario | $2,650 | $2,670 E | $2,160 |
| Windsor | Ontario | $1,850 | $1,800 E | — |
| Abbotsford - Mission | British Columbia | $1,890 | $2,020 E | — |
| Chilliwack | British Columbia | $1,760 | $1,770 E | — |
| Kamloops | British Columbia | $1,960 | $1,940 E | — |
| Kelowna | British Columbia | $2,330 | — | — |
| Nanaimo | British Columbia | $2,080 | $2,030 E | — |
| Vancouver | British Columbia | $3,030 | $3,160 E | $2,470 |
| Victoria | British Columbia | $2,640 | $2,710 E | — |
| Halifax | Nova Scotia | $2,400 | $2,280 E | $1,770 |
The other official measure: CMHC's survey
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation runs its own Rental Market Survey every October, on a sample of privately initiated rental apartments with 3 or more units, in urban areas of 10,000 people or more. Its average rent is a weighted average of all units, vacant or occupied. The latest edition is the 2025 survey, data tables published December 11, 2025; its tables are in Rental Market Survey Data Tables. The two surveys will not give the same number for the same city, and neither is the rent of your building.
Licence and updates
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 46-10-0092-01 Asking rent and paid rent prices, by rental unit type and number of bedrooms, experimental estimates, second quarter 2026. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
The data are used under the Statistics Canada Open Licence. Statistics Canada publishes the table each quarter; when a new quarter appears, the tool's data and the figures on this page change together, and the change is dated on What's new.
The limits that do apply
For what your landlord may actually add, see the Ontario guideline, the British Columbia limit and the Nova Scotia cap.
Sources
- The Daily: Quarterly rent statistics, second quarter 2026Statistics Canada
- Quarterly Rent Statistics (QRS), Summary of changesStatistics Canada
- Table 46-10-0092-01 Asking rent and paid rent prices, by rental unit type and number of bedrooms, experimental estimatesStatistics Canada
- Table 46-10-0092-01, full table download (CSV) and metadataStatistics Canada
- Residential Tenancies Program: legislative changesGovernment of Nova Scotia
- Rental Market Report (major centres, 2025 edition)Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
- Rental Market Survey Data TablesCanada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
- Statistics Canada Open LicenceStatistics Canada
Every source listed here was consulted on .