Calgary hits 20,000 secondary suite milestone
Posted Aug 12, 2025 2:25 pm.
Last Updated Aug 12, 2025 6:39 pm.
The City of Calgary says 20,000 secondary suites are now registered in the city.
The Secondary Suite Registry, which began in 2015 as a voluntary program, is a database meant to provide Calgarians with safe and legal housing options.
Homes that qualify as a secondary suite, such as basement suites, must have bedrooms with proper egress windows for emergencies, a separate bathroom and kitchen, and a separate entrance from the outside. A shared stairwell is also fine so long as each entrance remains private.
The City of Calgary says registering 10,000 suites took five years, while reaching the milestone from there took around two and a half years, reaching over 20,000 by mid-2025.
Additionally, the city says registrations have risen more than 60 per cent in 2025, and new homes with secondary suites built between 2022 and 2024 have more than tripled.
“Twenty thousand registered suites signals policy innovation, council commitment and resident action,” the city’s secondary suite program manager, Josh Howes, said in a release.
“Each registration represents a homeowner who has taken the time to meet the fire, building and land use requirements, creating a space that contributes to the safety and resiliency of the entire community.”
The city says the registry has been helped by the Secondary Suite Incentive Program, which began in 2024 as part of its housing strategy released that same year and approved the year before.
The online map on the city’s public registry shows most secondary suites are in the north, at just over 16,000, while the south has around 4,600.
This also comes as Calgary had one of the largest rental decreases in the country in July, according to a recent report.
Calgary had the highest rental rate decline across the three types of rooms in Canada, with three-bedroom rentals seeing the largest price drop at 15 per cent, now down to $2,387. The average for one-bedrooms is $1,689, while two-bedrooms are $2,074.
More information can be found on the City of Calgary website.
