Do I have to file a vacant home tax declaration every year even if someone lives in my Toronto property?

Yes. Toronto requires an annual occupancy status declaration for every residential property, regardless of whether it seems obvious to you that the property is occupied. This applies whether you live there yourself, a tenant rents it, or a family member occupies it - the declaration still has to be filed each year confirming the property's status.

This catches a surprising number of owners off guard, because it feels unnecessary to declare that a property is occupied when the answer seems self-evident. But missing the annual declaration is a common and genuinely costly trap: if you don't file it, the property can be deemed vacant by default for that year, even though it was actually lived in the whole time, which can trigger the tax and require you to go through a correction or appeal process afterward to fix it. Because the declaration requirement, deadlines, and exact process can be updated by the city from year to year, it's worth confirming the current year's specific filing details rather than assuming last year's process is unchanged, and treating the deadline as a fixed annual obligation regardless of how obviously occupied the property actually is.