Start your survey
Have you been invited to participate in this survey via email or mail? To log in to the survey, complete the following steps.
Step 1: Visit the electronic questionnaire portal and select Start my survey.
Step 2: Enter your secure access code (you will find this code in the invitation letter or email you previously received from Statistics Canada).
Step 3: Complete the survey.
Are you missing your secure access code, or do you need help?
Phone:
1-877-949-9492
(TTY: 1-800-363-7629)
Monday to Friday (except holidays) from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern time
If you use an operator-assisted relay service, you can call us during regular business hours. You do not need to authorize the operator to contact us.
Email:
This survey collects information about housing needs and experiences from a sample of Canadian households. Data from the Canadian Housing Survey will be used to help understand and address issues such as access to affordable housing, and to improve housing conditions.
This survey will help answer questions on topics such as housing affordability challenges facing Canadians, parts of the population who have experienced situations such as homelessness and forced moves, and the types of neighbourhoods Canadians want to live in. The survey will also provide insights into how housing outcomes vary across different sociodemographic groups.
Collection period:
From October 26, 2026 to March 31, 2027
Collection methods:
Electronic questionnaire and telephone interview
Survey participation:
Voluntary
Confidentiality
Data are collected under the authority of the Statistics Act, Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985, Chapter S-19. Your information will be kept strictly confidential.
Data sharing agreements and record linkage
Record linkage
To enhance the data from this survey and to reduce the response burden, Statistics Canada will combine the information you provide with information from the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB) and personal income tax data.
Statistics Canada may also combine the information you provide with data from other surveys or administrative sources.
Topics covered in the survey
The survey asks questions about
- Housing needs and conditions
- Social and affordable housing
- Subsidized housing
- Housing demand and household situations
- Housing aspirations
- Indicators related to moving
- Dwelling and neighbourhood satisfaction
- Homelessness
- Forced moves
- Socio-demographic characteristics
Published data
Statistics Canada publishes the results of its surveys in many formats. To find all the documents related to this survey, follow the links below and type the name of the survey in the search engine located at the left of your screen to filter the results.
Data: You will find tables, profiles of a community or region, thematic maps, public use microdata files, and data visualization tools.
Analysis: You will have direct access to Stats in brief (e.g., releases from The Daily, fact sheets), articles and reports, and journals and periodicals.
To see results from the Canadian Housing Survey (CHS), please visit on the following links:
- Cycle 1:
- First results from the Canadian Housing Survey, 2018
- One in ten Canadian households living in core housing need in 2018
- Results from the new Canadian Housing Survey, 2018
- First-Time Homebuyers in Canada, 2018
- Canadian Housing Survey, 2018: A portrait of renter households living in social and affordable housing
- A portrait of Canadians who have been homeless, 2022
- Cycle 2:
- Cycle 3:
- Housing affordability in Canada, 2022
- Exiting homelessness: An examination of factors contributing to regaining and maintaining housing
- Why do people move within Canada? A study on the reasons for internal migration and mobility using the Canadian Housing Survey
- Why do people move in Canada? (infographic)
- Cycle 4:
Survey-specific questions
- Why should I participate?
- Why are you collecting this information and what will it be used for?
- What type of housing does the survey cover?
- When will the results for the survey be available?
- Why does Statistics Canada want to know personal information such as my age, gender or postal code?
- How will you safeguard the confidentiality of my information?
Why should I participate?
Your participation in this survey is voluntary. However, it is important in order to create a complete and accurate picture of housing in all regions of Canada. Your responses ensure that your type of household—single individuals, lone-parent families, retired couples, etc.—is well represented in the survey results and in the decisions that are made using those results.
Why are you collecting this information and what will it be used for?
Results from the Canadian Housing Survey (CHS) help provide a comprehensive picture of the state of housing in Canada, and fill important housing-related data gaps to support the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s National Housing Strategy (NHS).
The CHS is conducted biennially in partnership with the CMHC to support the development of the NHS. The CHS collects information about the housing needs and experiences of Canadians. The collected information supports policy decisions to improve housing conditions and access to affordable housing.
What type of housing does the survey cover?
We use the term “housing” to refer to where you live and that includes various types of structures and arrangements. Please speak to us about that place you call home (whatever that might be!) by participating in our survey.
When will the results for the survey be available?
Survey results are planned to be released in 2028. Once the survey data are verified and analyzed, the results are published in various formats. Survey highlights are published in Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin The Daily.
Why does Statistics Canada want to know personal information such as my age, gender or postal code?
When your data reaches Statistics Canada—whether from surveys or administrative sources—some of it is used to create a demographic profile. Then, we remove personal identifiers and only retain information such as age, gender, and geographical location. This data is merged with that of other people who share the same demographic profile (for example, groupings based on the same age, gender, or geographical location).
Even if questions related to personal information may seem irrelevant to the subject of the survey, they provide a deeper knowledge of respondents' characteristics, which allows us to create a representative sample of the Canadian population. By analyzing this large database, researchers are able to observe emerging patterns and trends and provide important information to governments, non-profit organizations, researchers, and the wider public.
How will you safeguard the confidentiality of my information?
As with all Statistics Canada surveys, any information provided will remain confidential pursuant to the Statistics Act. Statistics Canada takes the privacy of Canadians very seriously. Published data can never identify you or your household.
To find out more about the measures in place to safeguard the confidentiality of your information, visit Statistics Canada's Trust Centre.