Where GTA industrial rents, vacancy and cap rates sit in 2026

The owners we speak with hold the same kinds of assets: small-bay industrial condos bought a decade ago, a multi-unit plaza inherited from a parent, a freestanding building with a long-standing tenant. Their question in 2026 is whether the market has finished correcting, and what the asset actually earns against what it is worth.

CBRE Canada's third-quarter industrial figures, published 1 October 2026, put the Toronto-area availability rate at 5.0 percent, unchanged for a fourth consecutive quarter. Net absorption was just under 2.0 million square feet in the quarter and 5.0 million square feet year to date. The average asking net rent was $16.07 per square foot, down 3.1 percent from a year earlier, a smaller decline than the 4.8 percent year-over-year drop CBRE reported for Toronto in its second-quarter national figures of 6 July 2026. These are Toronto-region figures, not Halton or York Region figures.

Supply is the part still in motion. CBRE's third-quarter report counted roughly 9.0 million square feet under construction in the Toronto area, with 2.4 million square feet delivered in the quarter, 45.1 percent of all completions in Canada. It observed that leasing in newly completed buildings has been strong, but that pre-leasing in the development pipeline remains limited.

Colliers measures the market differently and reads tighter. Its second-quarter 2026 national snapshot, released 9 July 2026, put Toronto industrial vacancy at 2.2 percent, the lowest of any major Canadian market, against a national rate of 3.3 percent. Susan Thompson, Colliers' Director of Research for Canada, said in that release that "the industrial market continues to tighten across much of the country, particularly for larger occupiers." The gap between the two readings is largely definitional: availability counts space being marketed, vacancy counts space physically empty.

CBRE's Canadian Cap Rates & Investment Insights for the second quarter of 2026, published 21 July 2026, put Toronto industrial cap rates at 5.00 to 5.25 percent for Class A and 5.25 to 6.00 percent for Class B. Neighbourhood retail was 5.50 to 6.50 percent, strip retail 4.75 to 5.75 percent, and multifamily high-rise 3.85 to 4.75 percent for Class A and 4.15 to 5.15 percent for Class B. The national all-property average was 6.58 percent, down three basis points on the quarter. These are Toronto-wide ranges; CBRE does not publish Oakville, Mississauga, Vaughan or Aurora separately. Its Toronto commentary noted that "market activity is very asset specific and income growth is a critical factor for investment capital."

Altus Group's Toronto market update, revised 4 August 2026, recorded nearly $10.2 billion of GTA investment in the first half of 2026, up about 35 percent from a year earlier. Industrial led at roughly $3.6 billion, up 38 percent. Retail was the exception at about $926 million, down 30 percent, which Altus attributed in part to "a broader pause among private and corporate buyers." Altus did not publish a figure for private buyers' share of volume, so we cannot report one. The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25 percent on 2 September 2026, noting that "exports and business investment were up sharply" in the second quarter, with its next decision due 28 October 2026.

Sub-market detail is thinner. CBRE's GTA Industrial Market Report carrying fourth-quarter 2025 statistics, released in early 2026, showed GTA West (which includes Mississauga and Halton) with availability of 6.4 percent and an average asking lease rate of $16.56 per square foot, and Toronto North at 4.3 percent, a figure CBRE said was driven largely by Markham rather than Vaughan. The same report noted that 11 of 25 buildings delivered in the quarter arrived fully vacant, seven of them larger than 100,000 square feet. None of the CBRE, Colliers or JLL reports we reviewed publishes a GTA series for buildings under 50,000 square feet, so a Halton or Vaughan small-bay vacancy figure cannot be sourced and we do not state one.