Two weeks before it was set to kick in, the province hit pause. On Friday, September 18, Premier David Eby announced that the PST expansion on professional services scheduled for October 1, 2026 is on hold.
If you own commercial property, lease space or are working on a development, this matters. If you’re buying or selling a home, the short version is simple: nothing changes for you. Here’s the full picture.
What Was Supposed to Happen on October 1
Budget 2026 planned to add the 7% PST to a list of services that don’t carry it today. For real estate, the key ones were:
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Non-residential real estate services. Commissions on buying, selling and leasing commercial property (office, retail, industrial and similar), plus property management and strata management for those properties.
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Architectural, engineering and geoscience services. PST would have applied to 30% of the fee, which works out to an effective 2.1% on the full invoice.
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Accounting and bookkeeping, plus security and private investigation services.
What the Province Announced
The expansion to accounting, architectural, engineering, geoscience, non-residential real estate and security services is paused. The province’s PST page now says so, and businesses that already registered to collect the new tax are being told to cancel those registrations.
The government pointed to tariffs and trade disruption as the reason. “There’s a time to stay the course and there’s a time to adjust. This is a time to adjust,” Premier Eby said. The province estimates the pause will save businesses, local governments and individuals about $260 million in 2026-27 alone. The pause came with a $90 million tariff relief package for BC businesses.
This Is a Pause, Not a Repeal
This is the part to keep in mind. The expansion is still part of Budget 2026. It hasn’t been cancelled. The province plans to hold it back through a temporary regulation and hasn’t set a new start date. The province says the pause will stay in place until the trade disruption is over.
So plan for today, but don’t assume it’s gone for good.
What It Means for You
Buying or selling a home
No change. Residential real estate commissions were never part of the expansion. GST still applies to commissions as it always has, and your closing costs are the same as they were last week.
Commercial owners, investors and landlords
If you’re selling an industrial building, leasing out retail space or selling a commercial investment, the 7% PST that was about to land on commissions won’t apply on October 1. The same goes for property management and strata management fees on commercial buildings. On a commercial deal, 7% on the commission is real money, and for now it stays in your pocket.
One note: the tax only reached non-residential property. Apartment buildings and farm property were never included.
Developers and land owners
Early-stage soft costs like engineering, geotechnical and architectural reports would have gone up by an effective 2.1%. Those studies come at the riskiest point in a project, before any revenue, so the hold helps.
What We’d Do Right Now
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Check your invoices. If a service provider added PST for work after October 1 based on the old plan, ask them to reissue the invoice.
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Keep it in your pro forma. If you’re running numbers on a multi-year development or commercial hold, it’s worth modelling what happens if the expansion comes back later.
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Talk to your accountant. We’re real estate advisors, not tax advisors. Your accountant can tell you exactly how this affects your situation.