Rental vacancies have increased dramatically across Canada in the last year, providing relief in a tight housing market but sparking concerns of a slowdown in construction as developers struggle to cover costs.

The national rental vacancy rate was 3.1 per cent in October 2025, a 41 per cent year-over-year increase, with the figure rising in every province, according to Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC) data.

Increased construction is one factor behind the spike, according to housing economist Mike Moffatt, who said government initiatives, including the Apartment Construction Loan Program, “work as well, if not better than anticipated” in getting developers building.

The result has been a rapid uptick in the number of rental units hitting the market, with 2025 construction starts in the sector nearly double than 2020 levels. By comparison, starts on condos intended for sale were actually lower in 2025 than in 2020.

Just as rental supply has gone up, immigration levels have also gone down, further reducing competition for housing. In 2024, the federal government began limiting study and work permits, as well as the number of temporary foreign workers allowed into Canada, causing the first back-to-back population decreases ever recorded, according to a March 2026 National Bank report.

The Quebec government also cancelled a fast-track immigration program in 2025, though it recently reinstated it for a two-year period. The combined decrease may cause Montreal’s population to contract, according to the CMHC housing market outlook for 2026. 

“It’s a perfect storm,” said Anthony O’Brien, executive director of Jesta Group, a Montreal-based real estate investment and management firm. One of the company’s rental properties, a 321-unit building in Old Montreal, has been almost full since opening in 2023—until this spring, when 140 residents didn’t renew their leases. Many condo owners, bedeviled by a collapse in condo sales, have converted their properties to rental, further saturating the market, O’Brien said.

Growing vacancy rates could be a sign that Canada’s long-running housing crisis, which has been particularly keenly felt in and around Toronto and Vancouver, is easing. 

Montreal, for example, has been comparatively successful in building new housing stock in recent years, with rental units accounting for 88 per cent of housing starts in 2025. In Vancouver, where rental construction starts are nearly half the level of Montreal, the rental vacancy rate has nonetheless shot up more than 130 per cent, to 3.7 percent, between October 2024 and 2025.

The sudden increase in properties available will inevitably drive down rental prices, said Moffatt. “Vacancy rates were way too low for a long time, rents and prices are way too high, so they need to come down in order to get affordability,” he said. “In the long run, most high-rise developers, both condos and rental, recognize that investing in new projects is basically making a bet on the future of immigration policy. And since we have no idea what the federal government will do after 2027 on immigration, there’s a lot of wait-and-see going on.”

The throttling of immigration levels upended the housing market just as developers were putting shovels in the ground, according to Andrew Lutfy, the CEO of Groupe Dynamite and real estate developer behind Montreal’s Royalmount shopping mall. “It was violent,” said Lutfy of the cuts to immigration. “The development cycle from the time you say ‘Let’s do it’ to the time it actually takes to stabilize tenant occupancy to 90 per cent or more is between three to seven years,” he said. 

“Because the wheels were set in motion at a time when immigration was really high, you were able to make the numbers work,” Lutfy added. “But now the landscape has completely changed just as these projects are coming online.”