An unfolding effort to simplify Toronto’s business licensing regime promises reduced paperwork and a more technologically proficient process, but comes with at least one new user fee and a potential new set of administrative monetary penalties (AMPs) for those who run afoul of the rules. Earlier this summer, City Council endorsed a proposed strategy to revise business registration requirements and speed up the back-and-forth of applications and approvals.
That includes a reduction in the amount of information that applicants will be required to submit and outright elimination of some antiquated licence categories. However, the City will continue to issues duplicate licenses — and extract licensing fees — for some provincially regulated trades while it considers next steps. As well, a new signage stipulation for short-term paid visitors’ parking at multifamily residential buildings could create costs and/or exposure to fines for some landlords and condominium corporations.
The Municipal Licensing and Standards division prepared the action plan and timetable for completion of objectives in response to Toronto Council’s directives to:
- review existing regulations for business licensing and procedures governing the Toronto Licensing Tribunal;
- reduce burden on local businesses;
- address problematic establishments; and
- support public health and safety.
This is also meant to align with the City’s commitment to nurture investment, employment growth and economic resilience. The new action plan applies to 61 types of licences and permits that are authorized under the City of Toronto Act and regulated via the municipal licensing bylaw.
“Typically, municipalities license and regulate businesses or trades where there is a clear municipal purpose to do so and where they are not otherwise licensed or regulated by other levels of government or regulatory bodies,” advises a report to City Council from the executive director of Toronto’s Licensing and Standards division.
At roughly halfway through 2025 (June 17), the division had issued or renewed more than 23,700 licences to business corporations and 8,830 licences to individuals. Recently, it has also outperformed the expectation of the City’s service standard that licences should be issued within 20 business days of submission of a complete application — achieving an average of 10 businesses days for new issuances and eight businesses days for renewals in 2024.
Inputs and technology
To streamline the process further, future applicants will no longer be required to provide a list of the fees and services associated with their business. Nor will they be expected to work for just one employer or undergo a medical exam. Staff conclude that the required information does not “add value” to the screening process, while the latter conditions restrict free movement of labour and are not applicable for determining an applicant’s merits.
This is to be combined with ambitious upgrades to the licence application portal, which will eliminate many of the time-consuming manual exercises City staff must now perform. Recent improvements in data integration allow for licence renewals without the resubmission of documents and information that is unchanged from the previous year. It’s anticipated applicants will be able to review and edit their applications online and directly communicate with staff by early 2026.
“Because the public-facing licence application portal is not yet fully integrated with the back-office technology, staff must still download application documents manually and conduct extensive data entry, which contributes to prolonged processing times experienced by applicants,” states the report to City Council. “Upgrades will reduce the back-and-forth currently and often required to correctly complete a licence application. Additionally, applicants will be able to check the status of their application(s), receive notifications for renewal, pay their licence/permit invoice and/or renew their licence(s) and/or permit(s) through the portal.”
Although future application processes will primarily rely on email communication and web-based conveyance of documents, businesses licences will still be issued through the mail.
Zoning clearance reinforcement
On the procedural front, the plan targets the zoning clearance process that the Toronto Building department conducts to ensure business establishments are compliant with zoning bylaws. This is typically required for new businesses or when a new or existing business operator is making significant alterations to a site.
Direct sign-off from the Building department is likely to be required if a new business use is a commercial parking lot, public garage, entertainment/amusement or eating/drinking venue, adult personal services provider or in-home professional services provider. Last year, 795 business licence applicants were subject to the process, which took Building department staff an average of 24 business days, or approximately five weeks, to complete.
In future, the plan calls for better integration of the two processes and departments, with dedicated staff assigned within the Building department to specifically focus on business licensing reviews. A new applicant user fee, initially pegged at $239.11 per review, is proposed to offset additional labour costs, with a suggested Jan. 1, 2026 date for introduction.
“Adding dedicated staff to complete zoning reviews for Municipal Licensing and Standards’ business licence applicants is expected to improve customer experience, streamline licensing and improve service standards,” the report to City Council maintains. “New business processes and performance standards will be established as part of this change and will be closely monitored and evaluated to ensure such goals are met.”
Duplicate regulation continues
Other attempts to rein in licensing requirements have been less aggressive than originally contemplated. In 2024, City staff identified 21 categories of businesses that could potentially be deleted from the licensing bylaw, but that had shrunk to a list of just seven by the time Council approved the plan last month.
Beginning in 2026, practicing and prospective building cleaners, chimney repairpersons, builders of radiation fallout shelters, school bus drivers, collectors of second-hand goods, non-resident travelling salespeople and operators of boats-for-hire will no longer be required to have a municipal business licence.
Such endeavours are already provincially regulated or deemed unlikely to be commercially in demand. In 2024, the City collected about $5,575 in licence fees from 13 business operators representing six of the soon-to-be-deleted categories. No licences were issued to builders of radiation fallout shelters.
The larger portion of the 21 flagged business categories — including plumbing, heating, drain, insulation and paving trades, temporary sign installers and driving instructors and schools — remain on the municipal books for now. The staff recommendation to postpone action, which Council has now approved, was made with input from an online survey conducted in the winter of 2025, which elicited nearly 600 responses from potentially affected licence holders and other identified stakeholders.
“Results indicated mixed support for municipal deregulation of the identified trades even though most are already regulated by the Province,” the report to City Council notes. “In 2025, staff will continue to review such licence types to identify ways to reduce regulatory burden for these trades while still meeting the municipal purposes of mitigating potential community nuisance issues, supporting public health and public safety and protecting consumers.”
Multifamily visitors’ parking addressed
Along with adopting the new action plan, Council has also approved an amendment to the licensing bylaw that has repercussions for multifamily buildings with paid visitors’ parking. The bylaw will be revised to require signs at each applicable pay station within the parking area and to disallow exterior signage. That’s reflective of Toronto’s residential zoning requirements, which prohibit commercial parking lot operators from posting signs to advertise its availability in residential areas.
The amendment has generated some concern from those who will have to interpret and apply it. Letters from the Toronto Police Services’ parking enforcement unit and one of the firms licenced as a private parking enforcement agency (PPEA) decry Toronto staff’s lack of consultation prior to presenting the recommendation for Council’s deliberation.
“Without proper stakeholder consultation this remedy is limited and will lead to confusion and additional problems not considered when this was drafted,” warns Derrick Snowdy, president of Alpha Parking Solutions.
Potential enforcement options
Looking at enforcement more broadly, staff is continuing to explore the potential of transitioning from the fine system under the Provincial Offences Act (POA) to the administrative monetary penalties (AMP) option that the City of Toronto Act authorizes. That would allow for escalating fines for subsequent (second and third) infractions versus the POA’s set menu of fine amounts, which typically range from $100 to $1,000 for Part 1, or ticketed, offences. However, there is still much work to be done on that file.
“To date, the City of Toronto has implemented an administrative penalty system for parking infractions and automated enforcement, such as red-light cameras and automated speed enforcement. Significant resource impacts are associated with any future projects that need careful consideration and multi-year phasing and planning,” the report to City Council acknowledges.
A proposed “regulatory sandbox” may be a reality sooner. This would allow for temporary licences and permits for new types of products, services and business models that aren’t addressed in the licensing bylaw and that the City has little or no previous experience regulating. Businesses, consumers and regulators could all get a chance to see and experience the impact of the new offerings in marketplace and forge rules accordingly. If Council agrees, that’s tentatively scheduled for introduction in 2027.
“Municipal Licensing and Standards will recommend any necessary bylaw changes to provide licences or permits on a temporary basis and to test and evaluate new business models,” the report to Council states. “The Division will also propose a set of principles, guidelines and tests, which will help the City of Toronto determine whether a municipal purpose exists for regulating permanently any new business model in question.”
