Rent data · Hamilton
Average rent in Hamilton
Every rent figure on this site comes from a public survey, with its geography and period attached. There is no listing data here — and no neighbourhood-level rent, because no public source measures rent at that scale.
October 2025 averages
What this figure is, in Hamilton
CMHC surveys Hamilton as part of the Hamilton census metropolitan area, which also takes in Burlington and Grimsby. That is wider than the city, and the areas it adds are generally more expensive, so the published average sits a little above what a comparable unit inside Hamilton itself tends to cost.
The bigger gap is between the survey and the market. CMHC measures what sitting tenants pay in purpose-built buildings, and a large share of Hamilton’s rental stock is neither — it is flats inside pre-war houses and units in buildings that predate the survey’s definitions. Expect an advertised rent on a recently turned-over unit to run above the figures here.
CMHC Rental Market Survey (October of each year), via Statistics Canada Table 34-10-0133-01. Figures are the average rent of occupied row and apartment structures of three units and over in the Hamilton census metropolitan area (Hamilton, Burlington and Grimsby) — not advertised rents, and not specific to any one neighbourhood or school.
How it has moved
The last 8 survey years for the Hamilton census metropolitan area (Hamilton, Burlington and Grimsby).
| Year | Bachelor | One bedroom | Two bedroom | Three bedroom + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $1,078 | $1,402 | $1,659 | $1,866 |
| 2024 | $1,035 | $1,413 | $1,636 | $1,851 |
| 2023 | $1,022 | $1,366 | $1,619 | $1,698 |
| 2022 | $947 | $1,198 | $1,438 | $1,567 |
| 2021 | $930 | $1,143 | $1,364 | $1,557 |
| 2020 | $899 | $1,096 | $1,292 | $1,457 |
| 2019 | $827 | $1,021 | $1,223 | $1,407 |
| 2018 | $807 | $970 | $1,162 | $1,373 |
Bachelor
+77.3%
$608 in 2015 → $1,078 in 2025
One bedroom
+69.1%
$829 in 2015 → $1,402 in 2025
Two bedroom
+59.5%
$1,040 in 2015 → $1,659 in 2025
Who rents in Hamilton
The 2021 Census counted every household, not just purpose-built buildings — so this is the fullest picture of renting in the city, even though it is a few years old.
Affordability, as StatCan measures it
Source: 2021 Census of Population — Statistics Canada Table 98-10-0255-01. Adapted under the Statistics Canada Open Licence. Shelter cost includes rent plus utilities; the 30% threshold is StatCan's affordability indicator for private households with income greater than zero.
By unit size
1-bedroom
1-bedroom rent in Hamilton
One-bedroom apartments are the backbone of Hamilton's purpose-built rental stock, and most of them sit in the lower city where the older apartment blocks are. Age and what is included in the rent vary more here than the headline average suggests.
2-bedroom
2-bedroom rent in Hamilton
Two-bedroom units cover the widest range in Hamilton: 1960s apartment blocks, upper duplexes in converted houses, and newer builds downtown. They are the most common unit size in the survey, which is why the two-bedroom average is the most quoted and the least specific figure in the city.
3-bedroom
3-bedroom rent in Hamilton
Three-bedroom rentals in Hamilton are mostly whole houses and townhouses rather than apartments, so they turn over less often and are concentrated away from the core. Purpose-built three-bedroom apartments are comparatively rare here.
Where renters live in Hamilton
The survey has no neighbourhood detail, but the census does: these are the areas with the highest share of renter households.
What this page will not tell you
- What a specific home rents for today. Survey averages lag the market and describe occupied units.
- Rent in one neighbourhood or near one school. No public source measures rent at that geography, so this site does not publish one.
- Whether anything is available. Availability lives with listings, not with survey data.
Keep researching
Where this page’s data comes from
- CMHC average rents for areas with a population of 10,000 and over (Table 34-10-0133-01) (opens Statistics Canada (data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's Rental Market Survey) in a new tab) — Statistics Canada (data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's Rental Market Survey). October 2023, 2024 and 2025 surveys. Updated annual (each survey is released in the following winter). Retrieved September 4, 2026. Statistics Canada Open Licence (opens Statistics Canada (data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's Rental Market Survey) in a new tab)Source: Statistics Canada, Table 34-10-0133-01 (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Rental Market Survey). Adapted under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
- Census 2021 — shelter cost and tenure by census subdivision (Tables 98-10-0254-01 and 98-10-0255-01) (opens Statistics Canada in a new tab) — Statistics Canada. 2021 Census (May 2021). Updated every five years. Statistics Canada Open Licence (opens Statistics Canada in a new tab)Source: Statistics Canada, Census of Population, 2021 (Tables 98-10-0254-01 and 98-10-0255-01). Adapted under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Full method notes, refresh cadence and the list of data this site deliberately does not publish are on the data page.