The 7-Day N4 Notice in Ontario: The Rules Since September 21, 2026

What the 7-Day N4 Actually Changes

An N4 (Notice to End a Tenancy Early for Non-payment of Rent) gives the tenant a deadline: pay the full arrears by the termination date, or the landlord can file an L1 application with the Landlord and Tenant Board. For an N4 served on or after September 21, 2026 that termination date must be at least 7 days after the notice is given, down from the 14 days an N4 served before that date required.

That is the whole change: the termination-date math. Hand an N4 to a tenant on October 1, 2026 and the earliest valid termination date is October 8 rather than October 15. Mail it instead and the 5 deemed-service days push that to October 13. In practice it means you can file your L1 one week sooner, which (with LTB scheduling backlogs measured in months) trims a week off the front of a long process rather than transforming it.

What Does Not Change

Which Rule Applies to Your N4: The Decision Table

The dividing line is the date you serve the notice, not the date of the arrears or the termination date:

The N12 Timing Question: 60 Days and Pay, or 120 Days and Do Not

The same September 21 date brought a second change that involves real money: the one-month compensation on an N12 is waived when you give at least 120 days notice instead of the usual 60. That is the only thing the waiver adds: every N12 already has to end on the last day of a rental period, or the end of a fixed term, under RTA s.48(2), and a notice that misses that boundary is void whatever the notice length. The waiver does not apply to an N13.

If you are planning a personal-use eviction this year, that creates a genuine timing trade-off. On a $2,000/month unit:

The arithmetic: Option B saves $2,000 in compensation but adds about 60 days of tenancy. Whether that is a good trade depends on whether the unit earns or costs you money during those extra 60 days. If the tenant keeps paying $2,000/month while you wait, the rent you collect during the extra wait outweighs the compensation you saved; a unit where rent has stopped, or where you are carrying bridge housing costs for the incoming family member, tips the math the other way. And if your own timeline is fixed (a relative arriving in October), the calendar decides for you, not the compensation.

Whichever option you pick, factor in one more deadline: effective September 21, 2026, you have 60 days from the termination date on the notice to actually take occupancy. Miss it, and a T5 application triggers a rebuttable presumption the notice was given in bad faith, which you can answer at the hearing. This one does not reach a purchaser's-use N12.

Fixed-Term Leases Still Go Month-to-Month

This one is worth stating plainly, because a lot of coverage from late 2025 got it wrong and some of it is still circulating: Bill 60 does not end the automatic conversion of a fixed-term lease to a month-to-month tenancy. Nothing about that changes on September 21, 2026.

The original bill, introduced in October 2025, did propose ending it. That section drew heavy public opposition and the government removed it before the bill passed. Bill 60 as enacted contains no provision on fixed-term renewal or continuation, and the Housing Minister confirmed the government would not pursue it. So the long-standing RTA position stands: when a fixed term ends, the tenancy continues month-to-month on the same terms, and the lease expiring is not by itself a ground to end it.

The practical consequence for landlords: do not plan a renewal, a rent reset or a turnover around the lease end date on the assumption that the tenancy simply terminates. It does not. Ending a tenancy still requires a ground under the RTA and the right notice, and acting as though the tenancy expired invites a bad-faith application, now against maximum fines of $100,000 for an individual and $500,000 for a corporation.

For how fixed-term leases actually work, see our fixed-term lease guide.

What To Check On Every N4 Now

Our N4 notice generator picks the notice period and the form version from the service date you enter, so the notice it produces is always built on the rule in force on the day you serve, and it adds the deemed-service days for your delivery method.

Official Sources

Verify against the primary sources; this change has attracted a lot of secondhand reporting with wrong dates:

• LTB Operational Update: Legislative Changes at the LTB (Tribunals Ontario, June 30, 2026). Sets out the July 1 changes and says the rest of Bills 60 and 97 take effect in September 2026. The September items are itemized in the September 21, 2026 update below, and the specifics below come from the bill text itself.
• LTB Operational Update: Legislative Changes Effective September 21, 2026 (Tribunals Ontario, September 21, 2026). Itemizes the September tranche, including the 7-day N4 and the mandatory N4 (2026/09) form.
• LTB Forms, Filing and Fees (Tribunals Ontario). Lists the N4 (2026/09) form, effective September 21, 2026, which is the version now required.
• Bill 60, Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025 (Legislative Assembly of Ontario). The amending statute.
• Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (ontario.ca). Current consolidated text, including the amended s.59(1) 7-day rule.

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