OMVIC’s Annual Report: What the latest updates mean for you

OMVIC’s 2025 annual report highlights a year of progress in maintaining a fair, safe and informed motor vehicle sales marketplace in Ontario. Through education, oversight and enforcement, OMVIC continues to strengthen consumer protection and support professionalism across the industry.

Here’s a message from our CEO about how OMVIC has supported industry professionalism in the past year, and where we go from here:

Enhancing education for dealers and salespeople

Part of our commitment to dealers and salespeople is to lead the way in impactful, proactive, and innovative regulation of the motor vehicle sales industry.

We had a big year, laying the foundation for OMVIC’s new continuing education requirement. We met with approximately 1,000 registrants across Ontario ahead of the program’s launch in April 2026 to share information and receive feedback. The program is designed to help dealers and salespeople stay current on compliance requirements, strengthen professionalism, and keep pace with evolving industry and consumer expectations.

Keep in mind that OMVIC uses dealership inspections to educate and enhance consumer trust. When the public knows OMVIC registered dealers are inspected regularly, people have greater confidence in industry professionalism when making a purchase. In 2025, the Inspections team exceeded targets, completing over 2,500 inspections, which represents an increase of 11% year over year.

OMVIC is here to support dealers and salespeople through continued learning. In 2025, our team held 48 educational webinars for dealers and salespeople, on topics including advertising rules and disclosures compliance. OMVIC continues to offer a variety of webinars for dealers and salespeople, so you can keep up-to-date.

Improving oversight and enforcement to ensure fairness

Industry oversight remains a critical component of OMVIC’s mandate to protect trust in the registered vehicle sales marketplace and ensure fairness across dealers and salespeople. Enforcement efforts intensified throughout the year, reflecting OMVIC’s zero-tolerance approach to non-compliance and its commitment to using every available tool to safeguard consumers and uphold professionalism.

The results are in:

• OMVIC more than doubled its proposals to revoke, refuse, or suspend registrations, rising from 34 in 2024 to 79 in 2025. This total included 26 immediate temporary suspension orders in 2025 up from the 3 temporary suspensions issued in 2024.
• A total of 2,332 charges were laid against dealers, salespersons, and unregistered, illegal sellers, resulting in $1.9 million in fines under the Provincial Offences Act.
• $825,552 was returned to consumers through dealer compensation or refunds.
• $1.5 million in consumer claims paid from the Motor Vehicle Dealers Compensation Fund.
• The number of mystery shops conducted increased by 25% across the province.

Oversight is critical to protecting dealers and salespeople who follow the rules, and teaching others how to become compliant. Through strong enforcement, education, and improved service delivery, we remain focused on protecting consumers and supporting a fair, transparent, and accountable motor vehicle marketplace.

Learning more

OMVIC is committed to keeping dealers and salespeople updated about our progress and working together to enhance consumer confidence and industry professionalism. To learn more about our steps forward last year, you can visit our microsite to learn more.