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Ottawa Rental Market Data 2026 | Average Rent & Vacancy Rates

Updated

Ottawa rental market data

Ottawa’s rental figures cover the Ontario side of the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area only. Gatineau, across the Ottawa River, is surveyed as a separate market and follows Quebec’s rent rules, so it is not mixed in here. In CMHC’s October 2025 count of purpose-built apartments in buildings of three or more units, Ottawa’s vacancy rate was 3.0%, up from 2.6% a year before, and the average 2-bedroom rent was $1,926. In units surveyed both years, 2-bedroom rents rose 3.4%. The hub page explains how CMHC and Statistics Canada measure these rents.

Average rent by bedroom type

Unit typeAverage rent paid, all tenants (October 2025)Average asking rent, new tenants (second quarter of 2026)
Bachelor / studio$1,337$1,550
1 bedroom$1,604$1,900
2 bedroom$1,939$2,360
3 bedroom+$2,247$2,740

The first column is CMHC's average for occupied units in apartment buildings of six or more units, so it includes long-term tenants paying below-market rents. The second is Statistics Canada's average of listed rents, closer to what you'd be quoted if you moved now.

A listed 2-bedroom in Ottawa asked $2,360 a month in the second quarter of 2026, $421 more than the average 2-bedroom tenant was paying in October. That spread is the cost of arriving now rather than having signed years ago.

Rent and vacancy by neighbourhood zone

CMHC splits the Ontario part of the metro area into survey zones. The table shows the zones that make up the former City of Ottawa, the suburban and rural zones, and CMHC’s combined groups (October 2025, apartments in structures of three or more units).

AreaVacancy rateAverage 2-bedroom rentAverage rent, all unitsApartments surveyed
Downtown2.7%$2,024$1,67410,449
Sandy Hill/Lowertown3.3%$2,120$1,8207,535
Glebe/Old Ottawa South2.3%$2,074$1,8974,180
Alta Vistanot published$1,900$1,7288,842
Carlington/Iris1.9%$1,673$1,5287,862
Chinatown/Hintonburg/Westboro North3.3%$2,154$1,7938,993
New Edinburgh/Manor Park/Overbrook2.2%$1,986$1,7584,131
Westboro South/Hampton Park/Britannia1.3%$1,664$1,5175,903
Hunt Club/South Keys0.9%$1,768$1,5972,664
Former City of Ottawa (the zones above)2.8%$1,917$1,70360,559
Vanier2.3%$1,518$1,4574,987
Gloucester North/Orléansnot published$1,886$1,7344,011
Eastern Ottawa surrounding areasnot published$2,181$2,1401,714
Nepean3.9%$1,851$1,7546,694
Western Ottawa surrounding areas3.1%$2,495$2,2972,646
Western areas with North Grenville, Arnprior and Carleton Place2.8%$2,310$2,1164,195
Ottawa, Ontario part of the CMA3.0%$1,926$1,72782,160

Source: CMHC Rental Market Report data tables, Ottawa workbook, Tables 1.1.1 to 1.1.3. “Not published”: CMHC suppressed the figure or rated it poor (use with caution).

The Western Ottawa surrounding areas had the highest average 2-bedroom rent of the zones and Vanier the lowest, $977 a month apart. Hunt Club/South Keys had the lowest vacancy rate among zones with a published figure, 0.9%. In Sandy Hill/Lowertown, the university neighbourhood that CMHC singles out, vacancy went to 3.3% from 1.9%, while Nepean, the suburban zone with the most surveyed apartments outside the old city, sat at 3.9%.

What CMHC says is moving Ottawa rents

CMHC’s 2025 Rental Market Report describes an Ottawa market that loosened a little, mostly at the expensive end:

  • New buildings sit empty longest. Apartments built after 2015 had a vacancy rate of 6.7% (up from 5% a year earlier), 2.2 times the rate for all units. CMHC links the easing to new completions and to fewer international migrants, students in particular, along with higher unemployment in the area.
  • Cheap units are still scarce. Apartments in the lowest rent quartile kept a vacancy rate under 1%, while vacancy rose in the higher-rent quartiles.
  • Moving costs more than staying. CMHC found vacant units 13% more expensive than occupied ones, and 17% for units with two or more bedrooms, which it says has kept tenant turnover historically low. CMHC also links Ottawa’s slower rent growth partly to Ontario’s guideline for sitting tenants, 2.5% for the year, on units first occupied on or before November 15, 2018.
  • Rented condos are the premium option. Condo apartments rented out by their owners had a vacancy rate of 0.6%, against 3.0% for purpose-built units, and CMHC puts their 2-bedroom rents almost 30% higher. The rented condo supply grew 10% against 4.7% for conventional rentals, as unsold new condos were rented instead; CMHC counted 11,537 of them.

New tenants vs sitting tenants

CMHC’s turnover table separates units that changed hands in the past year from units whose tenant stayed. A 2-bedroom that turned over rented for $2,155 on average in October 2025; one with the same tenant, $1,848. That is $307 a month, or $3,684 over a year’s lease. For a 1-bedroom the gap was $223. The new-tenant 2-bedroom average moved +1.7% from a year earlier, and the sitting-tenant average +3.9%.

Vacancy rate trend

Ottawa vacancy rate, apartments in buildings of 6+ units (CMHC, October each year)

Source: CMHC Rental Market Survey via Statistics Canada table 34-10-0127.

The income an Ottawa 2-bedroom takes

CMHC considers housing affordable when it costs less than 30% of before-tax household income, counting the rent (or mortgage payments, property tax and condo fees) plus electricity, heat, water and other municipal services. The figures here count the rent alone, so with utilities the income needed is higher. At Ottawa’s average 2-bedroom rent of $1,926, a household would need $77,040 a year to stay under that line. The census put the median income of all households in the Ontario part of Ottawa-Gatineau, owners and renters together, at $102,000 for 2020, so the requirement is 24% below that median. The income is for 2020 and the rent from the latest survey; incomes have risen in dollars since.

Someone signing a new lease at the asking rent of $2,360 would need $94,400, 7% below the median. CMHC’s report lists Ottawa among the markets where the rent-to-income ratio worsened in 2025. The rent affordability calculator runs the same test on your own income.

How Ottawa compares

On CMHC’s three-units-and-over survey, Ottawa’s average 2-bedroom rent of $1,926 was 5% above Ontario’s $1,827 and 24% above the national $1,550. That is the second-highest of Ontario’s 16 surveyed centres and the fifth-highest of the 43 metro areas in CMHC’s table with a published rent. Across the river, Gatineau’s 2-bedroom averaged $1,460, 24% below Ottawa’s.

Ottawa’s vacancy rate was below Ontario’s 3.2% and below Canada’s 3.1%. Its turnover rate, the share of units with a new tenant during the year, was 15.4%, against 12.8% nationally.

Rules on rent increases in Ottawa

Ontario's rent increase guideline is 2.1% for 2026 (units first occupied after November 15, 2018 are exempt). Rent can go up once every 12 months, with at least 90 days' written notice. In Ontario the only deposit a landlord can collect is a rent deposit, no more than one month's rent (or one rent period, if that is shorter); it must be applied to the last rent period before the tenancy ends, and the landlord pays interest on it every year at the rent increase guideline rate.

The guideline history and exemptions are on the Ontario rental market page; the Ontario tenant rights guide covers evictions, repairs and the Landlord and Tenant Board. Other provinces’ caps are compared in rent increase rules by province, and getting a deposit back explains deposit rules across Canada.

Sources

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