How Much Rent Can You Afford in Toronto?

The lowest turnover in the country, and what it hides

Fewer than one apartment in eleven changes tenant here each year. Everyone else is sitting on a lease signed at an older price, protected by Ontario’s annual guideline.

CMHC surveys those occupied units. So the widely quoted figure of $2,046 for a two-bedroom is an accurate average of what Torontonians pay — and a poor guide to what you will pay, which is closer to $2,660.

CMHC has measured this directly: nationally, units that turn over rent about 13% above ones that do not. In Toronto specifically it found the figure to be 44%.

The 2018 exemption that splits the market in two

Ontario’s rent guideline caps annual increases for units first occupied before November 2018. Anything newer is exempt entirely.

That has created two Torontos. A tenant in an older building may be paying well under market and facing a capped increase; a tenant in a post-2018 building has no such protection and can be asked for whatever the market bears at renewal.

If you are comparing listings, the building’s age is not a detail. It determines whether the rent you sign is the rent you keep.

Thirty-one Torontos: the same two-bedroom from $1,507 to $2,776

CMHC does not survey Toronto as one market. It surveys 31 zones, and the spread between them is wider than the spread between most Canadian cities. A two-bedroom in Toronto (Central) averages $2,776; the same unit in Etobicoke (South) is $1,762, in North York (Northwest) $1,751, and out past the 905 in Bradford and New Tecumseth $1,507.

That $1,269 spread is about $50,500 a year of required income at the 30% standard. The neighbourhood decision is a bigger lever on affordability than anything the calculator above can do with the income side.

CMHC Rental Market Survey, October 2025, survey zones, row and apartment units. A dash is a cell CMHC suppressed for sample size. Zone averages include row houses, so they can differ by a few dollars from the apartment-only citywide figures quoted above.

Two things the table does not say. Mississauga (Northwest) at $2,280 and Oakville at $2,309 are now dearer than most of the old city outside the core, so “move to the suburbs” is no longer automatically the cheaper answer. And the low-vacancy zones — Etobicoke (North) at 1.5%, Pickering/Ajax at 1.8% — are the affordable ones, which is exactly why they stay affordable only for people already living there.

Toronto has the most cost-burdened renters in Canada

• 35%of households rent
• 40.5%of renters spend 30%+ on shelter
• $97,000median household income (2020)
• 13.3%of renters in subsidized housing

Of the sixteen cities on this site, Toronto is where the largest share of renter households spend 30% or more of their income on shelter: 40.5%, ahead of Victoria and Hamilton. That is the census talking, not a rental listing site, and it counts every renter, not just people who moved recently.

It sits alongside a median household income of $97,000 — among the higher figures in the country — which is the Toronto paradox in one line: incomes are high, and rents have outrun them anyway. 13.3% of renters are in subsidized housing, the second-highest share among the large cities, which is part of why the waiting list for it is measured in years.

Statistics Canada, 2021 Census of Population, Census Profile, Toronto census metropolitan area. 789,545 renter households out of 2,262,470.

Toronto is turning before the rest of the country

National asking rents have now fallen for 22 consecutive months. Toronto’s decline has all but stopped — down just 0.6% year over year, and up 1.6% month over month, with listings roughly 6% below last year.

Vacancy sits at 3.0%. That is far healthier than the 1.1% of a few years ago but not loose, and the direction of travel has changed.

What Toronto costs against everywhere else

A two-bedroom asking $2,660 is $310 above Ottawa, $760 above Montréal and $760 above Calgary. Only Vancouver, at $3,100, asks more.

The income arithmetic follows. At the 30% affordability standard Toronto needs about $106,400 a year for that two-bedroom; Montréal needs $76,000 for its equivalent. That is a $30,000 difference in required income for the same number of rooms.

Moving the other way is where the gap really bites. A tenant leaving a long-held Toronto lease at close to the $2,046 occupied average, then returning to the market a year later, re-enters at $2,660 — the cost of having moved at all.

Where Toronto rents are heading

National asking rents have fallen for 22 consecutive months. Toronto’s share of that decline has all but stopped: down 0.6% over the year, but up 1.6% in the last month alone.

Listings are running roughly 6% below where they were a year ago. Fewer units competing for tenants is the mechanism by which a falling market stops falling, and Toronto is the first large Canadian city to show it.

For anyone timing a move, that combination — a year of softening now flattening, with supply tightening — argues against waiting for a better number. The national trend and the Toronto trend have separated.

What Ontario’s rules mean on a Toronto lease

Increase cap

2.1% for 2026Rent-controlled units only. Units first occupied after 15 November 2018 are exempt; the guideline for 2027 is 1.9%.

Deposit

Last month’s rent only — no damage deposit

Notice

90 days’ written notice, once every 12 months

Disputes

Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB)

On CMHC’s $2,046 sitting two-bedroom, the 2.1% guideline is about $43 a month — if the building is old enough to be covered. Toronto has built more new purpose-built rental than anywhere else in the country since 2018, and every one of those units is exempt: the landlord may raise the rent by any amount with 90 days’ notice. Ask the year the building was first occupied before you sign, not after.