Canada considers future of foreign homebuyers ban ahead of year-end expiry

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne says the federal government is mulling its options ahead of the expiry of Canada’s foreign homebuyers ban at the end of the year.

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“We’re looking at all the options that we have in front of us, considering where the market is going, what has happened over the last few years,” Champagne told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday. “We want to make sure that we have a higher stock of housing opportunities for Canadians.”

Former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s government banned foreign purchases of residential real estate in Canada in 2023, with exemptions for vacant land intended for development and larger multi-unit buildings. The government renewed the measure in 2024.

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The policy was introduced after home prices surged during the pandemic, when interest rates were near zero. But data suggest foreigners owned no more than 5% of properties in any major Canadian market in 2020, while developers have argued the ban cuts off a source of capital that would help fund new housing construction.

The ban is set to expire on Jan. 1, 2027. Housing Minister Gregor Robertson said last year the government would use 2026 to review the policy and examine models that have worked elsewhere, including Australia, where foreigners can purchase newly built homes.

The housing market has also changed dramatically since the pandemic. After the Bank of Canada began hiking interest rates in 2022, demand softened and prices began to fall. The national benchmark price is now roughly 20% below its peak, one of the sharpest corrections on record.

Despite the downturn, many younger Canadians remain priced out of home ownership, making any move to welcome more foreign capital into the housing market politically sensitive for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government.

Champagne acknowledged that the market is evolving, and said municipalities, provinces and the federal government have all taken steps to improve affordability.

“The market is very different from one region to the other, even one community from the other,” he said. “We’re looking at not only what the federal government has been doing and can be doing, but also what other levels of government have been addressing.”

Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, has called for the government to let the ban expire.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said last week, arguing that Carney has been encouraging foreign investment in other sectors of the economy and that allowing offshore buyers back into the market could help finance new housing projects and boost supply.

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