Airbnb Marketing
in Golden & Kicking Horse

What the Law Requires in Golden & Kicking Horse

British Columbia's Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act carries a principal-residence requirement: where it applies, a host may rent out only the home they live in, along with a single secondary suite or accessory dwelling on that lot. It reaches municipalities of at least 10,000 residents and smaller ones within 15 km of a larger municipality, while most regional district electoral areas are exempt unless their board opts in, and none of this footprint is caught. In the province's lists, current as of June 1, 2026, the Town of Golden is an exempt municipality and Kicking Horse Mountain Resort an exempt ski resort area, and Electoral Area A doesn't appear among the regional district areas where the requirement applies, though the CSRD's Area B, around Revelstoke, does. A council or regional board can ask to opt in by February 28, with the change taking effect November 1, but no request can change the exempt status of a resort area. The Province calls its rule a minimum and says local bylaws may be stricter, and in Golden they are: when the provincial rules came out in October 2023, the Town noted that its own bylaws already contained a principal-residence requirement.

Exempt or not, every host in the valley registers with the Province. Since May 1, 2025, short-term rental hosts in B.C. have had to be registered, and the registration number goes on every listing, beside the Town's licence number wherever a licence is required. Registration costs C$100 a year when the unit is in the host's own home, spare bedrooms or the whole house while the host is away, and C$450 a year for anything else, a secondary suite or a second property in an exempt area included, plus a C$1.50 service fee, and the fee isn't refunded if the application is denied. In Golden that means uploading the Town licence with the application and again at each yearly renewal, which can be filed from 40 days before the registration expires, and keeping the listing's address identical to the registered one, because the platforms check each number against the provincial registry. Platforms also take down a listing when a local government asks and send listing data to the Province every month. The Province's compliance and enforcement unit monitors listings, issues compliance orders and administers penalties, and the Act lifted the ceiling on a regional district's bylaw fines from C$2,000 to C$50,000 and on local ticket fines from C$1,000 to C$3,000 per infraction for each day it continues.

Inside town limits, the Town of Golden licenses every short-term rental and bed and breakfast under Bylaw No. 1438, 2020, with the zones set by Zoning Bylaw No. 1294, 2011, and it uses no caps or quotas: the Town looked at quotas, caps and lotteries, found them too complicated to run, and left the resident and zone rules to hold the numbers down. There are three licence types. A bed and breakfast, in the R1, R1S, R1D, R2, R2A, R5 and C5 zones, rents up to three bedrooms for six guests at most inside a single detached home or half a duplex where the operator lives as a permanent resident, at C$125, C$175 or C$225 a year for one, two or three bedrooms. A residential STR, in R1S, R1D, R2, R2A, R5 and C5, rents a secondary suite in a single detached home while the permanent resident lives in the other unit, or one half of a duplex with the operator in the other half, again with three bedrooms and six guests at most; the suite has to meet Part 9 of the B.C. Building Code and hold an occupancy permit, the Town's guidance says the operator must be living on the property during the rental period, and the licence costs C$175, C$225 or C$275 a year. A commercial STR, in the C1, C2, C3, C4 and C6 zones, needs no resident operator, only the landlord's or the strata's consent where it applies, and allows three rooms and eight guests, at C$200, C$250 or C$300 a year. Neither a B&B nor a residential STR can take in a whole single detached house, sit in a multi-family residential building or a manufactured home zone, or operate on a lot with a detached secondary dwelling such as a carriage house, which the Town's FAQ says rules out the use in every building on that lot.

The Town's operating rules are just as specific. Parking means two on-site spaces for the residence plus one for each B&B or STR room, with tandem stalls allowed, while commercial-zone rentals follow the zone's own parking rules. The operator or a responsible person must be reachable 24 hours a day during a rental and answer a nuisance complaint within two hours, a sign visible from the street shows the business name and contact details, and the adjacent neighbors receive the operator's contact information. The licence number goes in every listing, advertisement and piece of marketing, and inside the entryway the licence hangs with a floor plan that marks the alarms, extinguishers and exits, each approved bedroom, its beds and any sofa beds. Licensing begins with a life-safety inspection of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, railings, exits, the range hood and bathroom exhaust, and extinguishers rated 2A:10B:C or better; an annual inspection and declaration form is due within three months of the licence and every year after it, as is proof that the MRDT has been remitted, and the Licence Inspector and the fire department may inspect from time to time. Applications go first come, first served and can take months. The Town opened with a period of education and voluntary compliance; after it, enforcement can bring daily fines of up to C$500 and a request, through the provincial portal, that the platforms remove a listing, though the Town has said it won't ask for removals until its application backlog has progressed.

Past town limits, in Electoral Area A and on the mountain, the Town's bylaw doesn't apply, and the Columbia Shuswap Regional District's land-use bylaws decide whether a property can take short-term guests. In March 2025 the CSRD reminded operators that a provincial registration number doesn't replace zoning that permits the use, encouraged owners to confirm with its planning staff that a short-term rental is permitted on their property, and said staff can set out the options where a rental isn't permitted, among them a temporary use permit, which in the CSRD is generally valid for three years with the possibility of one renewal. It also warned that non-compliant listings will be taken off the platforms and that the provincial program carries fines. The provincial changes now let regional districts license short-term rentals the way municipalities do, so ask the CSRD whether a licence has been added for your area, and read the strata bylaws and the title for covenants before you buy. Field and the rest of Yoho National Park sit under Parks Canada and outside the tax area described below; this page doesn't cover their rules.

Taxes stack on every booking. The guest pays 8% PST on short-term accommodation and the 3% Municipal and Regional District Tax, both on the full price including any cleaning fee, and 5% GST where it applies. B.C.'s regulation designates the MRDT for the Town of Golden and Electoral Area A, outside Yoho National Park, sends it to the Tourism Golden Association and sets a repeal date of July 1, 2027 for the designation, so watch for its renewal. On Airbnb, the platform charges and remits PST and MRDT on B.C. stays of up to 26 nights, and collects GST itself for hosts who haven't given it a GST registration number. A host who lists only through platforms that collect needn't register for PST, but one who also sells on their own website must register, collect and remit both taxes on those sales, and stays jointly liable for tax a platform fails to send in; the C$2,500 small-seller exemption only covers hosts who don't list on a platform at all. For GST, a host stops being a small supplier once taxable sales top C$30,000, in a single calendar quarter or across four consecutive ones, and must then register. Ottawa adds an income-tax cost to any gap: for tax years after 2023, the CRA denies a short-term rental's expenses, in proportion to the days it fails a provincial or local registration, licence or permit requirement, with relief for 2024 where the rental was compliant by December 31, 2024. This is orientation for owners, not legal advice; confirm each point with the Town of Golden's licensing staff or CSRD planning, a B.C. real-estate lawyer and your accountant before you buy or list. Cavmir's role ends at the marketing; the Town licence or CSRD approval, the provincial registration and every tax return are the owner's to manage, with the help of local professionals.