My week at City Hall started with conversations about the 2026 FIFA World Cup. As you may know, Toronto is one of 16 North American cities that will host matches during the next Cup. We’ll have six games played here between June 12 and July 2, 2026. That may feel like a long ways off, but there’s a lot of work to do if we want these matches to go off without a hitch and deliver the maximum benefit possible for Torontonians.
Former Mayor John Tory signed the agreement for Toronto to participate in the 2026 World Cup last term. Now, it’s up to our current Mayor and Council to make the World Cup a success. There is huge potential for these matches to deliver serious benefits for Toronto. These six matches are projected to attract 300,000 visitors, generate $393 million in GDP in our city alone, and create over 3,500 jobs for hardworking Torontonians. We’ll also see lasting community benefits from our investments, such as improved playing facilities, coaching and organizing capacities, and local interest in soccer, especially for young people.
This economic boost is especially important for our tourism sector, which has still not fully recovered from the pandemic. While we’re seeing promising trends—tourism is up 6% compared to this time last year—it still hasn’t bounced back to 2019 levels. The World Cup presents an incredible opportunity to help achieve full economic recovery, and even economic growth, for the tens of thousands of folks who work in hospitality and hospitality-related industries.
Of course, we know that executing our World Cup duties will be no small feat. As Budget Chief and the Mayor’s Economic Development & Culture Champion, I’m Chairing the sub-committee that is tracking the World Cup work to ensure cost control and financial accountability. Our main task at this point in the planning process is to carefully watch the budget and ensure we’re delivering within our allocated funding.
I think every Torontonian wants to deliver good value for our dollars and a great event. We all want to look back and remember that World Cup fever took hold, everyone caught the spirit, and our economy seriously benefitted. Let’s take a look at how we’re going to get there within our FIFA budget.
To meet all the technical requirements laid out by FIFA, we’re looking at a final budget of $380 million to host six matches. The Provincial and Federal governments have both agreed to fund a portion of the cost—the Province is kicking in $93 million and the Federal government is contributing $108 million. They made these funding commitments when Toronto was only slated to host five matches, which would have left the City with about $100 million to cover on our own. That number bumped up to $180 million when Toronto took on a sixth match and after the FIFA guidelines became fully known.
My committee has met with staff in every department related to hosting the FIFA World Cup to make each portion of the budget as lean as possible. Another sub-committee, the FIFA Champions committee, is developing a fundraising model to raise the additional $80 million needed to make this event a success. A good portion can be achieved through corporate fundraising, and our FIFA Champions are ready to go out with a package for Toronto-based companies to become partners in the games. To make up the rest, staff are proposing a temporary increase to our hotel tax, known as the Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT).
This increase makes sense given Council and the Mayor’s request to avoid any additional impacts on local taxpayers, but it does carry some risk. I’ve written about the MAT in the past when discussing Toronto’s tourism industry. Alongside the regular 13% HST on a hotel room, visitors pay an additional 6% MAT. The revenue generated from the MAT is shared between the City and our tourism corporation, Destination Toronto. The MAT isn’t only collected on hotels—it’s also collected on short-term rental services like Airbnb, and those funds come directly to the City to help cover the cost of bylaw enforcement to monitor short-term rental properties.
So what does this mean for the World Cup? City staff have proposed adding an additional 2.5% to the MAT from June 1, 2025 to and July 31, 2026 so that visitors can help pick up the cost of the World Cup here in Toronto. The risk with this move is that visitors may be left with the impression that the high MAT rate is permanent. As the FIFA sub-committee Chair, I moved a motion on behalf of the tourism sector to allow businesses to display the temporary FIFA increase as a separate line on room receipts. This will make it clear to visitors the higher tax rate isn’t permanent. This may seem like a small thing, but travellers take note of these rates and take them into account when considering where to host their next business event. Toronto needs to put our best foot forward to help secure the long-term economic benefits that can come from hosting the World Cup.
Alongside the FIFA event budget, the City is switching into high gear on state-of-good-repair and capital improvements to ensure we are ready for the influx of visitors that will come to watch the matches. I know that road paving, sidewalk reconstruction, and transit creation can all be a headache. We began pushing an accelerated construction agenda last summer and will continue in summer 2025 so that we can be well and truly ready for a fabulous World Cup celebration in 2026. I know the amount of construction is hard to bear, but we will get to enjoy all the benefits long after the World Cup is over.
It's also important to remember that the fun part of hosting the World Cup comes closer to the event date. In the year before we kick off FIFA 2026, you’ll see the focus shift towards bringing spirit and celebration to the forefront. So what can you do to get into the spirit? Don’t wait until the World Cup begins in a year and a half. Watch a few matches here and there so you can learn the ins and outs of “the Beautiful Game”. All the while, you can rest assured I’ll be monitoring the FIFA Budget closely and ensuring we’re on track for a smooth and smart delivery of the 2026 World Cup.