The question comes up at about one showing in ten. A condo in Willoughby, or a house with a suite in Grandview Heights, and the buyer asks whether they can put it on Airbnb. The answer is rarely a flat yes or no. Three sets of rules apply, written by three different bodies, and the strictest wins.
Layer one, the province
British Columbia passed the Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act on October 26, 2023. It defines a short-term rental as accommodation provided to members of the public for money for a period of less than 90 consecutive days. That number matters. A 90 day booking sits outside the Act, an 89 day booking inside it.
The main provincial rule is the principal residence requirement. Where it applies, a short-term rental is limited to the host's principal residence, the place they actually make their home day to day, plus one secondary suite or accessory dwelling unit on the same property.
It applies here. The province's list, current as of June 1, 2026, includes Langley (City), Langley (Township), Surrey and White Rock, each as a separate entry. The threshold is a population of 10,000 and over. The list can change each year, because a council can opt in, or opt out on a rental vacancy test.
One exemption is narrower than people assume. Farm land carrying Class 9 assessment is exempt from the requirement. Agricultural Land Reserve designation on its own is not, and plenty of Campbell Valley and Fort Langley property sits in the ALR without farm class. That is separate from what the ALR lets you build on an acreage.
The registry, and the clause that matters on a sale
Since May 1, 2025 every host and every platform operating in the province has to be registered. Registration is per unit, not per property. The annual fee is $100 if the unit is the host's principal residence, or $450 if it is not, including a secondary suite or coach house. Each suite and each accessory dwelling unit needs its own registration, whether or not the main house has one. Registration runs one year, and a change has to be reported within 14 days, including whether the property is still the host's principal residence.
Here is the clause that catches people in a transaction. A new registration is required if the short-term rental offer has a new property host. The registration does not come with the house. If a seller tells you the place is a registered short-term rental, what exists is their registration, not yours.
Two other changes matter. Legal non-conforming use protection no longer applies to short-term rentals, so an operation that predates a bylaw is not shielded by having been there first. And platforms now give local governments listing data every month, so enforcement no longer waits on a complaint.
The penalties sit in a schedule to the regulation. A host who fails to register faces an administrative penalty of up to $5,000 for a first contravention, $7,500 for a second and $10,000 for a third or later one.
Layer two, the municipality, and they are not the same
Surrey has the clearest rules of the three, and on one point they are stricter than the province's. In Surrey only the property owner may host, and the owner must live at the property as their primary residence, in the same dwelling unit as the rental or in another unit on the same lot. Tenants cannot operate one at all. The provincial rule would let a tenant short-term rent the home they live in. Surrey does not.
Surrey also limits the housing types: a single family dwelling and up to one secondary suite, coach house or garden suite, a townhouse unit, or an apartment unit with one lock-off suite. A business licence is required before you begin operating, at $358 a year plus any applicable application fees.
The Township of Langley is a different situation, and no listing description will tell you this. The Township's zoning bylaw, Bylaw 2500, carries no short-term rental use in its definitions or its general provisions. Its one set of conditions for paid overnight accommodation outside a hotel sits inside the definition of agricultural use: a bed and breakfast of no more than three sleeping units, specifically permitted by the Agricultural Land Commission, one per legal parcel, on a lot of at least 1.7 hectares (4.2 acres), owner occupied, and licensed.
The same bylaw's accessory home occupation rules are worth reading before anyone plans on suite income. A home occupation is not permitted within a secondary suite, and the owner has to live in the same dwelling as the occupation. Whether the Township treats a short-term rental as a home occupation is a question for its planning staff, and the one to ask before you count the revenue.
White Rock I cannot tell you about. The city's website returned an access error on every page I tried this week, so I have no current bylaw to quote. Ask the city before assuming its rules match Surrey's.
Layer three, the strata, which is usually the one that stops you
If you are buying a condo or a townhouse, read the bylaws first. Since November 24, 2022 a strata corporation cannot have a bylaw restricting or banning long-term rentals. Many owners heard that and concluded rental restrictions were finished. They were not. A strata can still limit or ban short-term rentals by a 3/4 vote of owners, and the province's guidance says strata bylaws can be more stringent than the legislation. A short-term rental is treated as a licence to occupy and a commercial use, not a tenancy, so the 2022 change does not reach it.
The fines are not token amounts. Since November 30, 2018 a strata has been allowed to fine up to $1,000 a day for breaching a short-term rental bylaw, raised from $200 a week because the old figure deterred nobody. The bylaw has to state its maximum, and that maximum cannot exceed $1,000 a day. It is the only strata fine set that high.
The province does not pass platform data to strata corporations, so a strata enforces on its own evidence. The Township says itself that a stricter strata bylaw takes precedence over Township bylaws on most property use questions, so in a strata the bylaw is the first document. The post on the White Rock condo market covers what else to read before you commit.
What this does to the numbers
Most people who raise this with me are looking at apartments. The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board's September 2026 figures put the Langley apartment benchmark at $525,900, down 9.2 per cent over twelve months, and the combined South Surrey and White Rock apartment benchmark at $544,400, down 7.7 per cent.
Softer prices make a nightly rate model look better on paper. The trouble is that the model usually assumes a use the building does not allow. When a purchase only works with short-term income, the deciding document is the strata bylaw, not the spreadsheet. If the plan is long-term rental income instead, the ground is steadier, and in the Township the question becomes how many units your lot allows.
What I check before you write an offer
Four things, and they take about a day. The strata bylaws and the Form B, for a short-term accommodation clause and the fine it names. The municipality, for whether a licence is required and which housing types it permits. Whether any suite is actually permitted, because the Township requires a building permit for every secondary suite and an unpermitted suite is not a unit you can register. And the seller's registration, which does not transfer. All four fit inside a normal subject period, part of what subject removal in BC is for.
I work Langley, South Surrey and White Rock, and I can run those checks before your subject removal date rather than after it. If you already own, the same rules decide what you can honestly advertise when you sell a property with people living in it.
Sources
Province of British Columbia short-term rental pages at www2.gov.bc.ca, for the principal residence requirement, the community list current as of June 1, 2026, the opt-in and opt-out provisions, the farm Class 9 exemption, the registry start date and the end of non-conforming use protection. The Short-Term Rental Accommodations Regulation, B.C. Reg. 268/2023, at bclaws.gov.bc.ca, for the registration period, the 14 day reporting rule, the per suite and new host requirements, the fees and the Schedule 4 penalties. The province's strata short-term rental bylaws page for the 3/4 vote, the fine ceiling and the November 24, 2022 change. City of Surrey short-term rentals page at surrey.ca. Township of Langley Zoning Bylaw 2500, Section 100, at tol.ca. Fraser Valley Real Estate Board September 2026 statistics package at fvreb.bc.ca. Checked October 28, 2026. Not legal advice. Confirm your own address with your municipality and your strata.