The Underused Housing Tax is gone, and so is the return
Reviewed by EverStone CPA · August 2026
The Underused Housing Tax has been eliminated effective the 2025 calendar year. No UHT is payable and no UHT return is required for 2025 or later years.
How it works
The Underused Housing Tax was an annual federal tax on residential property considered vacant or underused. Its real burden was never the tax — most affected owners owed nothing. It was the filing requirement.
A corporation, partnership or trust holding residential property generally had to file a UHT return whether or not any tax was payable, and the penalties for not filing were substantial even where the tax owing was nil.
The tax has been eliminated effective the 2025 calendar year. No UHT is payable and no UHT return is required for 2025 or later years.
It is worth being clear about why so many owners owed nothing. The tax targeted property that was genuinely vacant or underused, and a home occupied by the owner, rented out, or lived in by a family member generally fell within an exemption. But claiming an exemption still required filing a return to claim it — which is how a tax aimed at empty homes became a paperwork obligation for owners of occupied ones.
That is the distinction that made the UHT unusual. For most affected owners the tax payable was nil and the compliance risk was not, because the penalty attached to the missing return rather than to any unpaid tax.
How it applies to you
Corporations, partnerships and trusts holding residential property — the group that mostly owed nil but was still required to file, and was exposed to penalties for missing a return that would have shown no tax.
This removes an annual compliance obligation entirely. For a holding company with a single residential property, it removes a filing that existed purely to declare that nothing was owed.
How to calculate it
Which years are affected:
| Step | Detail |
|---|---|
| 2022, 2023 and 2024 | obligations stand — tax, filing, penalties and interest all still apply |
| 2025 onward | no tax, no return |
The elimination is not retroactive. If a required return for 2022, 2023 or 2024 was never filed, that exposure still exists, and the penalties and interest for those years continue to apply. Removing a tax going forward does not clear what accrued before.
What changed
The UHT caught a large number of owners who owed nothing but still had to file, with substantial penalties for not filing. Both the tax and the filing obligation are now removed.
What to do
Confirm the earlier years are clean before treating this as closed. The most likely problem is an owner who never realised they had to file at all, since the obligation caught structures rather than obviously affected properties.
A nominee corporation holding a family property is the classic case: nothing owed, filing required, no one aware of it.
Where a past year was missed, addressing it deliberately is better than waiting. Penalties for a nil-tax return can be large relative to the tax at stake, which is precisely nothing.
The practical point. Obligations for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 calendar years are not erased by this, and the penalties and interest for failing to file or pay in those years continue to apply. If a required return for an earlier year was never filed, that exposure still exists.
The terms used on this page
- Underused Housing Tax
- An annual federal tax on vacant or underused residential property, now eliminated from 2025.
- Nil return
- A return showing no tax owing. Under the UHT it was still required, and penalties applied for not filing it.
Where this comes from
Every figure on this page is taken from the source below, not from interpretation:
General information, not tax advice. This page explains a change in general terms. It cannot account for your circumstances and does not create a professional relationship. Confirm anything that affects a decision — book a free consult.