Canada’s rental market is undergoing one of its sharpest shifts in years, with national asking rents falling even as smaller cities buck the trend and landlords in some regions continue raising prices. New data from Statistics Canada, released September 9, 2026, shows asking rents for two-bedroom apartments across the country’s major census metropolitan areas fell 3.6 per cent year over year in the second quarter of 2026, landing at an average of $2,130 a month.
The figures, drawn from Statistics Canada’s Quarterly Rent Statistics program run in partnership with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, track listings on major rental platforms and cover both purpose-built and secondary market units nationwide. Statistics Canada cautions the data is experimental and subject to revision, but the pattern is consistent with a broader softening flagged separately by CMHC.
A Tale of Two Rental Markets
The national decline masks stark regional divergence. Asking rents fell year over year in several of Canada’s largest and historically most expensive markets, including Abbotsford–Mission and Calgary, both down 6.4 per cent, along with Montréal, down 5.2 per cent, and Vancouver, down 4.1 per cent. Yet in smaller and mid-sized cities, rents kept climbing. Thunder Bay posted the largest increase in the country at 6.5 per cent, followed by Sherbrooke at 5.7 per cent, Halifax at 5.3 per cent, and Saskatoon at 5.2 per cent.
Despite the pullback in Canada’s priciest markets, absolute rent levels there remain far higher than elsewhere. Vancouver’s average asking rent for a two-bedroom unit stood at $3,030 a month, followed by Toronto at $2,650, Victoria at $2,640 and Halifax at $2,400.
Statistics Canada’s release also tracks paid rent — what existing tenants are actually paying under active leases — separately from asking rent, which reflects what a new tenant would face on the open market today. In almost every metro area where both figures were available, asking rent exceeded paid rent, with Calgary, Regina and Edmonton the exceptions. Statistics Canada attributes part of the gap to provincial rent-control frameworks that cap increases for sitting tenants while leaving new renters exposed to prevailing market prices, as well as differences in the age, location and features of available versus occupied units.
Supply Catches Up With Demand
CMHC’s 2025 Rental Market Report found the purpose-built rental vacancy rate across Canada’s major centres rose to 3.1 per cent, up from 2.2 per cent the year before, as new supply outpaced a slower-growing pool of renters. According to reporting from RENX, CMHC’s 2026 Mid-Year Rental Market Update found this trend has continued, with rising supply and softer demand pushing major rental markets toward more balanced conditions. Vacancy increases have been concentrated in newer, higher-priced units, which has contributed to the pullback in asking rents in cities such as Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa.
That relief has not reached everyone equally. CMHC’s data also indicate that rental conditions remain very tight in the lowest-rent segments of most markets, leaving limited room for improvement among lower-income households even as overall vacancy loosens.
CMHC’s mid-year report further suggested the current softening may not be permanent, noting that demand in major cities is expected to grow again as affordability gradually improves — a dynamic that could put a floor under rents in high-demand urban markets over time.
Immigration Slowdown and the Ownership Pivot
RBC Economics, in its mid-year housing outlook, pointed to slowing population growth and federal immigration cuts as a major factor reshaping rental demand specifically, noting that newcomers — particularly temporary residents — tend to remain in rental housing for their first five to 10 years in the country. RBC’s analysis also found that its national measure of homeownership costs fell 1.4 percentage points to 53 per cent of pre-tax household income in the first quarter of 2026, the best reading in four years, a shift that could eventually draw some renters toward the ownership market rather than staying in place.
RBC’s broader housing forecast projects national home resales falling 3.6 per cent to 453,200 units and the benchmark price index dropping 2.3 per cent to $794,200 in 2026, before a modest recovery in 2027, with transactions rising 6.7 per cent and the benchmark value edging up 0.8 per cent. The bank noted the recovery is likely to be uneven across the country, with Ontario and British Columbia still healing from a prolonged correction.
Watching the Data Ahead
Analysts covering Canadian real estate investment vehicles, including apartment-focused REITs and smaller multi-residential operators, have also flagged the divergence between stable underlying rental income and broader real estate market pressure, according to coverage from Kalkine.ca. Separately, commentary from RENX highlighted that Canada’s 2026 Census — with population and dwelling counts due in winter 2027 and additional demographic detail through the rest of that year — will offer the first comprehensive nationwide benchmark since 2021, giving investors, lenders and developers updated insight into where household formation and migration patterns are actually occurring after several years of shifting federal population policy.
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