Your removal permit gets approved with a replanting condition attached, and the city can hold a dollar figure until the new trees prove they survived. Most homeowners expect the cheque back without asking. In Mississauga, Richmond Hill and Toronto, the release step is yours to start, by phone or by form, and the city does not open it for you. Markham, the fourth, leaves both the amount and the conditions to the Administrator.
Mississauga Ties the Deposit to a Fixed Rate, Then Waits for Your Call
Mississauga’s Private Tree By-law protects trees 15 cm DBH or greater, and removing one means replacing at a ratio of one tree per 15 cm removed. A 45 cm tree needs three replacements.
Replanting on private property comes with a security deposit, and Mississauga never publishes what it costs. The permit page says only that “the amount will be determined by the City.” Schedule D of the Parks, Forestry and Environment Fees and Charges does carry a per-tree figure, $901.67 (tree removed from private property, diameter 15 cm or greater), but read the line it sits on: “Replacement for tree removed from private property with a Diameter of 15cm or greater.” That is the replacement charge you pay when the trees cannot go in the ground on your lot. It is not the deposit. A tree removed from public property uses an appraised value under the Public Tree By-law instead.
Mississauga has no release form or portal. The city’s stated standard is that the tree needs to be healthy one year after planting, and getting the refund started means calling 311 (905-615-4311 if you’re outside city limits) to request the inspection. Nobody calls you.
Complete applications take 30 business days to review. Where there’s no room to replant on the lot, cash-in-lieu applies, and the city frames that payment as buying replacement trees planted on City property rather than a contribution to a general fund.
Richmond Hill Calculates Security Off Its Own Tariff
Richmond Hill’s Tree Preservation By-law No. 19-25, now part of Municipal Code Chapter 1015, requires a permit for private trees more than 15 cm DBH and replaced the older By-law 41-07. Replacement quantities step up with the size of the tree removed: 15 to 20 cm needs one replacement, 21 to 40 cm needs two, climbing to seven replacements at 101 cm and up.
The security deposit isn’t a separate number the city picks. Section 6.2(c) sets it as the number of proposed replacement trees multiplied by the current Tree replacement fee in the Tariff of Fees By-law, which sits at the per-tree rate in the 2026 tariff (see Richmond Hill’s permit guide for the amount). That’s also the cash-in-lieu rate, so forfeiting the deposit and paying cash-in-lieu land on the exact same dollar figure by design.
Getting it back runs through a specific form, “Tree Replacement - Notice of Fulfillment,” filed through the city’s online forms portal. The bylaw itself sets only a permit expiry, twelve months from issuance and extendable to a two-year maximum. The real requirement lives on the form’s own page and in the permit condition letter. Replanting has to happen within one year of permit issuance, using stock a minimum of 6 cm diameter, in a species whose mature size and stature match what came out. The replacement goes on the same property. Once the City verifies the condition, it closes the permit file.
Neither the bylaw nor the form states a survival percentage or monitoring period for release. Richmond Hill’s “Dead Tree” definition, less than 10% live tissue, exists to identify exempt dead trees during permit review. It is not the bar for getting your deposit back.
Removing more than 20% of a tree’s live tissue in twelve months, or working inside the tree protection zone, counts as an Injury under the bylaw and needs its own permit.
In Markham, the Administrator Sets the Number
Markham’s Tree Preservation By-law 2023-164 protects private trees at 20 cm DBH or greater, measured at 1.37 m, and replaced By-law 2008-96 when it took effect on December 13, 2023. A permit application is required even for a tree already confirmed dead, dying, or hazardous. That’s where Markham parts company with Toronto, which exempts confirmed-dead trees outright.
Markham’s 2026 fee schedule (By-law 2012-137) lists cash in lieu for a replacement tree at a full indexed value and a half indexed value: $687 (replacement tree, full indexed value); $343.50 (replacement tree, half indexed value). It lists no security or deposit rate. Permit conditions run on the Progressive Aggregate Caliper Method: DBH multiplied by a health-and-structure factor a Qualified Tree Expert sets, producing a number of conditional replacement trees rather than a flat ratio. Both the security deposit and the exact replacement rate are discretionary conditions the Administrator sets under section 12(d) and (e), and no dollar figure is published for the security.
Offence penalties under 2023-164 apply on conviction and per day for a continuing offence, with no total cap (see Markham’s permit guide). Species and stock size are a separate fight once the replanting plan goes in. Our post on what actually gets a replacement tree approved covers that one.
Toronto Splits Street Trees From Backyard Trees
Toronto runs two separate tracks here, and they get mixed up constantly. Chapter 813 covers private-property trees at 30 cm DBH or greater, measured at 1.4 m. Where a lot physically cannot fit the replacement trees, the city can accept cash-in-lieu at $583 per tree under section 813-20B.
The named deposit, the “Tree Planting Guarantee Deposit” at $583.00 per tree, attaches to trees planted on a City street or inside a Ravine Protected Area (stewardship and naturalization plantings use a different formula: 120% of estimated implementation cost, or an area-based rate with no estimate). Release depends on the City confirming, two years after planting, that the trees are healthy and in a state of vigorous growth. Toronto’s two-year vigorous-growth standard is not in Chapter 813. It sits in the tree and ravine permit application guidance.
That confirmation does not happen on its own. The applicant files a Guarantee Deposit Refund Request form with colour photos to the local Tree Protection and Plan Review office. The cheque goes back to whoever originally paid it. If the trees die or fail inside the two-year window, the City keeps the deposit and expects a healthy replacement in the ground by the deadline.
Private replanting is not automatically deposit-free, though. Under the City’s Tree Protection Policy and Specifications, Urban Forestry may request a tree planting security equal to the cost of planting plus two years of maintenance, as a check on compliance with an approved landscape or replanting plan. Paying cash-in-lieu is not a way around that security. The cash payment is only on the table when replacement planting is physically impossible on the site.
Amendments in force since September 1, 2026 added a Distinctive Tree category and extended permit protection regardless of size to trees planted through enforcement actions or development approvals. Separately, a February 2026 staff report replaces the flat 5:1 contravention ratio with a diameter-based one from 5:1 up to about 23:1, set by operating procedure rather than in the bylaw, effective September 1, 2026. Our permit changes post covers those in full. Council has endorsed lowering the private threshold from 30 cm to 20 cm, but that change waits on an implementation report due to committee in 2027 and isn’t in force yet.
Set a Release Reminder When You Plant
Put the release date in a calendar the day the trees go in. Our tree removal report service documents the replanting condition against the exact bylaw section your permit cites, so the release paperwork matches what the city asked for rather than what the letter implied. Contact us with your city and permit number and we’ll tell you what your release process requires before the deadline arrives.