If your permit came back with a replanting condition, the natural next question is which species Urban Forestry will sign off on. Toronto doesn’t publish an answer. It has no approved or banned list for private property, and nothing that names cedars or Japanese maples. What the city does put in writing is a minimum size, a two-year maintenance obligation, and a requirement that your species selection get sign-off through the replanting plan itself.
Without a published list, “will this species pass” is a judgment call. The size standard is the clearest signal of what Urban Forestry screens for.
Where the Replanting Requirement Comes From
Three separate situations create a replanting obligation, and they don’t all run through the same section.
A standard removal permit under Chapter 813 carries a condition at §813-20.A: replacement trees must be planted and maintained in good condition for two years, to the satisfaction of the Executive Director, following a landscaping and replanting plan the city approves. If your property sits in a ravine or natural feature area, §658-6.B carries the same structure: a plan reviewed to the Executive Director’s satisfaction, the same cash-in-lieu formula, and a security deposit of up to 120 percent of total planting cost.
Unauthorized removal works differently. If Urban Forestry issues an Order to Comply after a contravention, the compensation planting isn’t set through §813-20 at all. Under Chapter 813 the City’s contravention page sets a flat 5:1 ratio. A diameter-based ratio from 5:1 up to about 23:1 has applied since September 1, 2026. In ravine areas the diameter table already applies. That is higher than a typical permit condition (see the cash-in-lieu breakdown). A tree removed without a permit generates a bigger replanting obligation than the same tree removed with one.
What Toronto Writes Down
The how-to-apply page states two concrete requirements for the landscaping and replanting plan: a minimum 50 millimetre caliper for deciduous replacement trees, and a minimum height of 1.75 to 2.5 metres for conifers. It also asks for a planting timeline, the next spring or fall planting window.
If §813-20.F trees die or decline within the two-year window, you replace them again, to the same standard, and Urban Forestry expects to inspect once the planting is done under §813-20.G. If the property can’t accommodate the required number of trees, the city will take cash-in-lieu instead: $583 per tree, defined as 120 percent of the cost to plant and maintain a tree for two years. There’s no separate published rate for ravine replacements. The same 120 percent formula applies under §658-6.B.
Under §813-12.F, a replacement tree you plant as a Chapter 813 permit condition is protected in its own right, regardless of size. That rule used to sit in §813-20.H. By-law 402-2026 deleted it there and moved it into §813-12, next to the other condition-planted-tree protections, from September 1, 2026.
Species Selection Is a Case-by-Case Call
Neither §813-20 nor §658-6 names a single species, and neither chapter mentions “native” or “invasive” anywhere in the text. What decides species is the landscaping and replanting plan itself, reviewed and approved to the Executive Director’s satisfaction on a per-application basis.
Ravine and natural feature areas are the one place species gets specified outside the plan review. Urban Forestry’s arborist report guidelines state that native trees and shrubs must be planted in ravines and natural areas to help maintain biodiversity. For everything outside ravine boundaries, the same guidelines only encourage a diverse mix of large-growing shade species. That guidance is not bylaw text.
There’s a separate list that occasionally gets mistaken for a replanting standard: the city’s street-tree species list, covering species like sugar maple, red oak, honey locust, and ginkgo. That list is scoped explicitly to city road-allowance planting. It has nothing to do with what you plant on your own property under a Chapter 813 condition.
If you want an unofficial answer sheet anyway, the closest thing the city publishes is its own Tree Plant Palette, standard drawing T-850.026-3 in the Engineering and Construction Services planting details (Rev 0, September 2021). It’s the recommended plant list the city uses for its own planting work: a species table with native status, size class, and hardiness noted per tree, plus per-species restrictions, like keeping horsechestnuts, buckeyes, and northern catalpa away from ravines and natural areas, and a flagged invasive potential on honeylocust ‘Skyline’ and the lindens. It is not a private-permit standard, and the drawing itself requires Urban Forestry approval for every tree before installation. Proposing from this palette asks the reviewer to approve something the city already plants.
Development projects running through planning approval, rather than a homeowner permit, fall under the Toronto Green Standard instead, where the native-species math is stricter and written down: minimum 50 percent native plants for on-site landscaping, 100 percent native in ravine or natural heritage system areas, no invasive species at all. That’s a Tier 1 development requirement, not something that reaches an ordinary Chapter 813 removal permit.
Why Cedar and Japanese Maple Stock Gets Rejected
Toronto has no written line that says cedars or Japanese maples don’t count as replacement trees. What it has is the 50 millimetre caliper and 1.75 to 2.5 metre height floor, and nursery-typical cedar or ornamental Japanese maple stock often won’t clear it, or won’t read to a reviewer as the large-growing shade tree the guidelines describe. A rejection comes from the size standard and the reviewer’s read of your plan, not a species name on a list.
Compare that to Mississauga, which spells the exclusion out directly. Under its current Private Tree Protection By-law (0021-2022), the replacement spec calls for a shade-bearing tree of a native species, at least 1.8 metres tall for a conifer or at least 6 centimetres in diameter for deciduous, and Mississauga’s rule states plainly: ornamental trees and shrubs, including but not limited to Japanese maples, cedars, and junipers, aren’t suitable replacements. Vaughan does the same for one specific case. Under Tree Protection By-law 177-2025, cedar hedge trees will not be considered as a tree replacement species.
How the GTA Compares
Three neighbouring cities publish more than Toronto does, each differently.
Mississauga ties replacement count to diameter at a finer interval than Toronto: one replacement tree for every 15 centimetres of diameter removed, so a 45 centimetre tree requires three. It also names ornamentals, cedars and junipers as unsuitable replacements.
Vaughan uses a tiered schedule instead of a continuous ratio. Under By-law 177-2025, a removed tree 20 to 30 centimetres in diameter requires one replacement, 31 to 40 centimetres requires two, 41 to 50 requires three, and anything over 50 requires four. Small deciduous, multi-stem, and ornamental flowering trees count for two replacements each rather than one, on top of the cedar hedge exclusion above. Replacement stock has to meet a minimum 200 centimetre height for conifers or 50 millimetre caliper for deciduous, close to Toronto’s own floor.
Markham goes further than either. Its by-law (2023-164) uses what it calls an Aggregate Caliper Method: diameter at breast height is replaced centimetre for centimetre with caliper trees measured in 5 centimetre units, with a Progressive Aggregate Caliper Method applying depreciation factors for a tree’s health and structure. Markham also maintains an approved list, the Conditional Replanting Tree Selection List, and the city states plainly that all conditionally planted trees must come from it. That list includes genera like Acer, Betula, Gymnocladus, and Quercus. Nothing in Toronto’s bylaw or application pages does the equivalent.
What Changed on September 1, and What Didn’t
Toronto’s tree bylaw amendments took effect on September 1, 2026, and the species-and-size rules weren’t part of what changed. The 50 millimetre caliper and 1.75 to 2.5 metre standard stays exactly as written. The two-year maintenance obligation carries over unchanged. The $583 cash-in-lieu figure, set at 120 percent of two years’ planting and maintenance cost, stays too. A rate revision was floated during the review and deferred to a 2027 study.
The contravention side is separate. Under Chapter 813 the City’s contravention page still states a flat 5:1 ratio. A February 11, 2026 staff report replaces it with a diameter-based ratio from 5:1 up to about 23:1 for the largest trees, effective September 1, 2026. The City has not published the table. Ravine contraventions under Chapter 658 already use a diameter table. If you’re dealing with a contravention rather than a standard permit condition, budget for a steeper obligation than the old flat rate.
Getting Your Replanting Plan Approved on the First Pass
Our tree removal permit reports include the replanting plan as part of the submission package, with species and size proposals built to match what Urban Forestry screens for. Contact us with your property address and the permit or Order to Comply reference number, and we’ll confirm scope before the site visit.