A dead tree in the backyard feels like an easy call. It’s dead. Surely the city doesn’t need to weigh in. Vaughan homeowners get this wrong in both directions. Some skip the permit because the tree is obviously dead, and land on the wrong side of a by-law that was rewritten from scratch in 2025. Others assume “dead tree” means “arborist report,” pay for one, and didn’t need to. Vaughan runs a permit built for exactly this situation, and it drops the report requirement that trips people up in other municipalities.
The Dead, Hazardous, or EAB Permit Skips the Arborist Report
Vaughan’s online portal splits tree permits into four application types. The one that matters here is the Dead, Hazardous, or Emerald Ash Borer-Infected Tree Permit, and it does not require an arborist report. The other three cover different jobs: a Construction (or Infill) Permit, a Residential Removal Permit for personal or aesthetic removals, and a Tree Preservation Permit, which is about protecting trees during development rather than taking one down.
An arborist report is otherwise a discretionary ask. The Director of Forestry can require one, but it is not baked into every application. If your tree is dead, visibly hazardous, or infested with emerald ash borer, you can apply directly for the removal permit without commissioning a report first. Skip the permit application altogether, though, and you’re still in violation. The tree being dead doesn’t put it outside the by-law. It just changes which application form you fill out. One thing to watch on timing: a Tree Removal Permit issued under the current by-law is good for six months from the date of issuance, so there’s no advantage in filing long before you can get the work booked.
Emergency Work Is Exempt, and the Bar Is High
The no-permit path for a hazard is narrower than most homeowners assume. Emergency Work is exempt from the Tree Removal Permit requirement outright, under section 4.0(4)(a) of By-law 177-2025. The by-law defines it as work necessary to stop an immediate threat to life or property.
Neither the by-law nor the City’s 2025 Tree Protection Protocol requires any after-the-fact filing once that work is done. No form to submit, nothing on the books that says you owe the City paperwork once the danger is gone. Keep your own record anyway, photos, dated notes, whatever shows why the tree was an immediate threat. That’s prudence on your part, not something the by-law asks for.
The gap between “dead” and “immediate threat to life or property” is where people get tripped up. A dead tree standing quietly at the back of the lot, not leaning over anything, not dropping limbs, is dead but not an emergency. That tree needs the Dead/Hazardous/EAB permit, not the emergency exemption.
Pruning Doesn’t Need a Permit Either, Within Limits
Pruning comes up on the same site visit, usually floated as a way to avoid the paperwork. The by-law defines pruning as removing no more than 25 percent of a tree’s live branches or limbs, done in accordance with good arboricultural practice. A bigger cut still counts as pruning if it’s carried out as part of an annual pruning program. Section 4.0(4) confirms that neither pruning a tree nor removing its dead branches requires a Tree Removal Permit.
Go past that 25 percent mark outside a planned annual program, and the work stops counting as pruning under the by-law’s own definition. At that point it falls back into “injure” or “destroy,” and the permit requirement is back on the table.
Not Every Dead Tree Is the City’s to Regulate
There’s a wrinkle specific to Vaughan’s northern and river-valley areas. York Region’s Forest Conservation By-law 2013-68 regulates Woodlands, defined as at least one hectare with at least 1,000 trees of any size per hectare (or graduated lower counts at larger diameter thresholds). Vaughan’s by-law carves those Woodlands out of its own scope entirely. A dead tree standing inside a Regional Woodland, somewhere near Kleinburg or along the Humber River valley, may fall under York Region’s regime instead of the City’s Dead/Hazardous/EAB permit.
Vaughan did reclaim jurisdiction over the smaller category, Woodlots (0.2 to 1 hectare, with at least 50 trees over 20 cm Diameter per 0.2 hectare), repealing the older by-law that had ceded that ground to the Region. A Woodlot-scale stand of trees is back under the City’s own by-law. Only the larger Woodlands stay with York Region. If your dead ash sits somewhere that might qualify as either, a site inspection can settle it before you file anything.
Measuring the Tree Determines Which Rules Apply
Diameter is measured at 1.37 metres above existing grade, outside the bark. Multi-stem trees get their own formula: square the diameter of each of the three largest trunks, add the three results, then take the square root of that total. If the tree has already been cut down to less than 1.37 metres in height, the City measures Base Diameter at the ground instead.
On private property, the 20 cm threshold is what pulls a tree into the by-law at all. On public land, the rule is different and stricter: any tree with 50 percent or more of its main stem on Public Lands is protected regardless of size, no diameter cutoff at all. Our guide on measuring a tree correctly walks through the technique in more detail, since getting the diameter wrong can put a borderline tree on the wrong side of the threshold.
Size adds another gate. Vaughan’s by-law calls any tree of 80 cm Diameter or more a Significant Tree, and section 6.0(2) of the current consolidation lists “the Tree is not a Significant Tree” among the findings the Director of Forestry has to make before the City can issue a permit. Heritage Trees sit in the same list, meaning trees designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act or recognized through Forests Ontario’s Heritage Tree Program. A dead tree above 80 cm is not a routine file.
What Removal Without a Permit Actually Costs
Vaughan’s 2025 rewrite added an Administrative Monetary Penalty track, a ticket-style system that lets a By-law Enforcement Officer issue a penalty without going to court. For a private tree, destroying it without a permit runs $900 to $2,700 depending on diameter, on a tiered schedule that climbs at 20-30 cm, 31-40 cm, 41-50 cm, and over 50 cm. Injuring a private tree without a permit is a flat $750. Working inside a Tree Protection Zone without authorization is $2,700.
The AMP track didn’t replace the older Provincial Offences Act route. Both are still available to the City, and its own tree by-law page states fines up to $10,000 for a first offence, up to $25,000 for a repeat one, and up to $100,000 for a corporation. Removing a genuinely dead tree the correct way, through the Dead/Hazardous/EAB permit, costs a fraction of any of those numbers, and it keeps an enforcement officer out of your driveway. For the replacement math that follows a removal once it’s approved, our post on replanting versus cash-in-lieu across the GTA breaks down how the per-tree fees stack up.
Where This Comes From
Vaughan consolidated its tree rules into By-law 177-2025, enacted and effective June 24, 2025, which repealed six older by-laws: 052-2018, 258-83, 95-2005, 185-2007, 205-2007 and 229-2005. Two things pushed the rewrite. Ontario’s More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 stripped land-use planning responsibilities from York Region, which changed the ground the old by-law was written for. The other push came from inside the City: Strategy 12 of the Council-endorsed Urban Forest Management Plan, a 20-year plan aiming at 25 percent canopy cover by 2051. The AMP dollar figures are newer still. Schedule 1 was replaced outright by By-law 251-2025 on November 25, 2025.
Getting the Right Permit the First Time
If you’ve got a dead, hazardous, or ash-borer-infested tree in Vaughan, apply under the permit built for it. A Residential Removal Permit is the wrong form, and an arborist report nobody asked you for is money gone. The Arborist Group prepares site documentation and permit applications for Vaughan homeowners, including confirming whether a property sits inside a Regional Woodland or Woodlot before you file. Our tree removal report service covers the site visit and paperwork end to end. Contact us with the tree’s location and what’s wrong with it, and we’ll confirm which of Vaughan’s four permit types actually applies before you spend money on anything else.