BC Short-Term Rental Program Has Costly Glitch for Some

Kelowna homeowner Taylor Cameron was outraged to discover there was no help from the British Columbia government after a glitch with its registration system led to the cancellation of thousands of dollars in bookings for a property she lists on Airbnb.

“This is how I pay my mortgage,” she said. “I’m a single woman. This home is my retirement plan. I do this so that I can retire. Contrary to the propaganda that this government has portrayed homeowners and landlords as greedy investors and slumlords, I run a really beautiful business here.”

In May 2025, the B.C. government began requiring all short-term rental hosts to register their listings as part of efforts to make more homes available for people who live here.

Since last June, platforms like Airbnb and VRBO have been required to cancel bookings from hosts who lack a valid provincial registration number. Platforms that fail to comply can be investigated and fined.

Cameron, who has had a listing on Airbnb for four years and is designated a Superhost, said she has always followed local and provincial rules for short-term rentals and registered with the province last year when the system opened.

But when she renewed the registration shortly ahead of this year’s April 10 deadline, something went wrong and the system treated it as a new application. The government would normally take less than 20 minutes to process a renewal, but the additional time for what was considered a new application meant that it wasn’t ready before her existing licence expired.

“That’s what triggered Airbnb to shut down listings,” Cameron said, adding she’s heard from other hosts in the same situation. “They proceeded on a Sunday afternoon to cancel everyone’s listing and bookings. Any future bookings were completely wiped out.”

In Cameron’s case that included a $2,500 booking for two weeks that was supposed to start Tuesday. In total she had $15,000 worth of bookings cancelled.

“You’re literally just watching your livelihood be stripped away, cancellation by cancellation by cancellation,” she said.

Adding to the frustration, nobody from the province could quickly resolve the issue.

“You call the customer service number and they literally tell you, ‘We can do nothing, we don’t have access to your account,’” Cameron said.

The registry asks for communication by email. “I’ve emailed them multiple times now since Sunday,” she said. “Outside of an auto response you get right away, there’s been zero communication.”

It took until Thursday to get a new registration number and get the listing live on Airbnb again. “It doesn’t feel like any sort of celebration given the catastrophic financial fallout from this,” Cameron said.

Christine Boyle, B.C.’s minister of housing and municipal affairs, said she is aware of problems with the registration system.

“I know there have been some bumps in the renewals this year and staff have been working closely to smooth those over,” said Boyle. “What I’ve been told is that work has gone reasonably well. We’ve been able to work through hurdles with applicants and are getting back on a good path.”

A spokesperson for the ministry said thousands of hosts were able to renew without any issues. “While complaints have not been high, there have been a few specific cases where applicants required assistance to resolve particular issues, and staff have worked directly with those hosts.”

The ministry notifies hosts by email 40 days before their registration expires, then twice more when there are 14 days and 24 hours remaining.

“While glitches are rare, starting the renewal process 40 days before expiry ensures there is sufficient time to resolve issues when they arise,” the spokesperson said.

Cameron said she received the 40-day notice but was busy at the time and didn’t immediately act on it. If there was a 14-day notice, she missed it. When she got the 24-hour notice, she assumed that meant there was still time to register.

A spokesperson for Airbnb did not respond to a request for comment.

The Conservative Party of BC’s housing critic, Surrey-Serpentine River MLA Linda Hepner, said she has heard from a few people whose listings were cancelled because of problems with the government’s registration system.

“There have been some glitches with registration and the timing of when they put it in,” she said. “It’s costing people thousands of dollars.”

With housing pressures easing and vacancy rates rising, it’s time to revisit the restrictions on short-term rentals, Hepner said.

“I think it was a poorly thought-out policy and a bad implementation,” she said. “At least pause it right now and look at a full-on repeal down the road, because I think that not only was it an ill-conceived policy, I also think the implementation has left everyone wishing for more and better because it’s currently not working.”

When the province launched the registration system, there were an estimated 28,000 short-term rentals in the province. Since then 23,000 have been registered, which a ministry spokesperson says suggests thousands of units have been made available for long-term housing.

The fee to register is $100 if the host normally lives in the home and $450 if they do not.

The new rule was part of the government’s efforts “to make homes available for people, and not for speculators,” and the fees were intended to fund the short-term rental enforcement program.

Cameron in Kelowna said the province’s system was supposed to target people running illegal short-term rentals, but instead it punishes people who are trying to follow the rules.

“The whole system was built for illegal operators, and it is the legally operating hosts that are having their businesses stripped away while the illegal operators continue to this day to operate,” she said. “No other business in this province would just get shut down without notice like that. That in itself is just inexcusable.”