Can you buy Property if you are not a Canadian Citizen?

If you’re not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and you’re looking at buying a home in Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Calgary, or Edmonton, there isn’t just one rule standing between you and closing day — in BC, there are two, stacked on top of each other. One decides whether you’re even allowed to buy. The other decides how much more it’s going to cost you if you are. Mix them up, and it can cost you five or six figures you weren’t expecting.

Two Governments, Two Different Rules

In BC, you’re dealing with two completely separate laws from two completely separate levels of government.

The federal government has the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act. That’s Ottawa’s law, and it’s an eligibility gate — it decides whether you can legally buy a given property at all.

The BC government has its own thing: the Additional Property Transfer Tax, which most people just call the foreign buyer tax. That law doesn’t stop you from buying anything — it simply adds a 20% surtax on top of the purchase price when it applies.

Alberta doesn’t have a provincial version of that tax at all. So depending on which province you’re buying in, you could be dealing with one layer of rules, or two.

Quick side note for context: BC isn’t the only province with a tax like this. Ontario has its own version, the Non-Resident Speculation Tax, on properties in the Greater Golden Horseshoe around Toronto. We’re keeping this article focused on BC and Alberta, since that’s where our advice is licensed — just know that property outside these two provinces likely comes with its own separate set of rules.

Permanent Residents Are Already In The Clear

Let’s start with the easiest case. If you’re a Canadian permanent resident, neither of these rules applies to you, anywhere in Canada. For mortgage qualification and real estate purchase purposes, a permanent resident sits on the exact same footing as a Canadian citizen — same qualification rules, no extra hoops.

The federal Act specifically defines “non-Canadian” as someone who is not a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident. PRs are written out of the ban entirely. The same logic applies to BC’s 20% tax — it targets foreign nationals and foreign corporations, not citizens or PRs. So with a PR card in hand, you can buy anywhere in the country, exactly the way a citizen can: no ban, no extra tax.

Where and How Long the Federal Ban Applies

For anyone who isn’t a citizen or PR — meaning you’re here on a work permit, a study permit, or some other temporary status — this is where it gets more layered.

The federal ban came into effect January 1, 2023. It’s been extended and currently runs until January 1, 2027, with no word yet on whether it will be extended again.

It doesn’t apply everywhere in Canada — only inside what Statistics Canada defines as Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations. In BC, that’s the Vancouver CMA, Victoria CMA, Kelowna CMA, and the Abbotsford-Mission CMA. In Alberta, that’s Calgary and Edmonton, plus Red Deer and Lethbridge.

Does that mean a non-citizen, non-PR buyer can’t purchase anything at all in those cities? Not quite — the ban is more specific than that. It only covers residential properties with three units or fewer: a typical single-family home, a duplex, or a triplex. It doesn’t touch buildings with four or more units, vacant land that isn’t zoned residential, commercial property, or recreational/resort property. Buying in a rural area outside those city boundaries also puts you outside the ban’s reach entirely.

Who Gets an Exemption From the Federal Ban

Even inside those cities, on a regular single-family home, there are real exemptions that let a lot of temporary residents buy anyway.

• Work permit holders: you need at least 183 days of validity remaining on your permit at the time of purchase, and you can’t have already used this exemption on a previous property during the ban.
• International students: the bar is stricter — you need five years of filed tax returns, physical presence in Canada of at least 244 days a year across those five years, and a purchase price under $500,000.
• Refugees and protected persons are exempt.
• Ukrainian nationals here under the federal humanitarian program are exempt.
• Diplomats are exempt.

There’s one more category worth flagging carefully: a non-Canadian spouse or common-law partner buying jointly with a Canadian citizen or PR may potentially qualify for an exemption. We want to be very careful with the word “potentially” here — this is not a green light to act on alone. Before you rely on this exemption, sit down with a real estate or tax lawyer and have them confirm it applies to your specific situation. This is one exemption where professional confirmation matters more than any other on this list.

BC’s Base Property Transfer Tax, First

Before getting into the 20% foreign buyer tax, it helps to understand the tax it sits on top of. Every property purchase in BC — citizen, PR, or foreign national, doesn’t matter — is subject to the regular Property Transfer Tax. It’s tiered:

That’s the baseline every buyer pays, before foreign buyer rules ever enter the picture. There are exemptions built into this base tax too — first-time home buyers and buyers of newly built homes can get relief up to certain price thresholds — worth its own conversation another time.

Exactly Where BC’s 20% Tax Applies

On top of that base tax, BC layers the Additional Property Transfer Tax — but only in specific circumstances. First: it doesn’t apply province-wide. It only applies if the property sits inside one of five specific regions:

• Metro Vancouver Regional District
• Fraser Valley Regional District
• Capital Regional District (Greater Victoria)
• Central Okanagan Regional District (Kelowna)
• Regional District of Nanaimo

Buying outside those five — say, in the Kootenays, northern BC, or the Cariboo — means this additional 20% tax simply doesn’t apply, even to a non-citizen, non-PR buyer. You’d still pay the regular tiered tax above, just not the extra layer. But anywhere inside Greater Vancouver, Victoria, or Kelowna specifically, you’re inside the zone where this additional tax is in effect, stacking directly on top of the base tax.

The Part That Actually Surprises People

Clearing the federal exemption does not mean you’re done. In BC specifically, you can be 100% exempt from the federal ban and still get hit with the 20% provincial tax, because the two are evaluated completely independently of each other.

Picture this: you’re on a work permit with 183-plus days remaining, you qualify for the federal exemption, and you’re legally allowed to buy that condo in Vancouver. Great — but BC’s Additional Property Transfer Tax doesn’t care that you cleared the federal test. It only cares whether you’re a citizen or PR. You’re neither, so you’re still a foreign national in the eyes of that tax, and the 20% surtax lands on your share of the property’s value, on top of the regular transfer tax, if you’re buying inside one of those five regions.

There’s a bit of relief built in: if you become a citizen or PR within a year of the purchase and meet the other conditions, you can apply to get that 20% back. And if you’re a confirmed BC Provincial Nominee, you’re exempt from the 20% tax already, even before your PR comes through.

A quick word on what that actually means, since a lot of people hear “BC Provincial Nominee” without knowing the specifics. The BC Provincial Nominee Program (BC PNP) is the province’s own economic immigration program, letting BC nominate workers and entrepreneurs who meet its labour market and economic needs for a fast-tracked path to permanent residence. There are two main streams: Skills Immigration, for qualified workers with the right experience, education, and often a job offer already lined up in BC; and Entrepreneur Immigration, for business owners establishing or buying into a business here. Once the province formally nominates you and you hold that nomination certificate, you’re a “confirmed” BC Provincial Nominee — and that status alone triggers this tax exemption, even before your federal permanent residence application finishes processing. Refugees and protected persons are also exempt from this 20% tax, same as on the federal side.

Don’t Try to Engineer Your Way Around This on Your Own

Some buyers try to get around the 20% tax by putting most of the ownership on title in a Canadian citizen or PR’s name — say, 99% to the Canadian resident, 1% to the temporary resident — thinking that shrinks the foreign buyer’s taxable share down to almost nothing. Don’t build that structure yourself off a read of the BC government’s website and assume you’re compliant.

BC has anti-avoidance rules built directly into this legislation, and it audits these files for up to six years after closing. If the government decides an ownership split doesn’t reflect economic reality — meaning the non-resident is really the one financing and controlling the property — it can deny the exemption entirely and reassess the file as though the full 20% always applied. This isn’t hypothetical: there are real cases of buyers receiving a Notice of Assessment years after closing, plus interest, for exactly this kind of structuring.

If you’re even considering allocating title percentages to manage this tax, that conversation needs to happen with a real estate lawyer before you close — not after, and not based on your own read of a government FAQ page. 

Alberta Is a Different Conversation Entirely

Flip over to Calgary and Edmonton, and the conversation changes completely — Alberta has no provincial foreign buyer tax whatsoever, and no base tiered transfer tax structured like BC’s either. There’s no 20% layer waiting for you after you clear the federal test.

So for a temporary resident buying in Calgary or Edmonton, there’s really only one hurdle: the federal ban and its exemptions. Clear the 183-day work permit threshold, or the international student criteria, and you’re through — no surtax on top of it.

This is honestly one of the most misunderstood differences between the two markets. People assume the rules are basically the same across Canada, and they’re really not — buying the same type of property, as the same type of buyer, can look completely different depending on which side of the Rockies you’re on.

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