Hunt Ontario · The official source
Classification and licence
What is the classification of coyotes in Ontario?
“Wolves and coyotes are considered furbearing mammals.”1 Ontario says it in one sentence and then treats the two animals as a single regulatory unit throughout — the season table, the tag and the closures are all shared. If you read a rule that says “wolf or coyote,” it means both.
That pairing is the key to Ontario, and it exists for a reason worth understanding: the Eastern wolf. Ontario has a wolf that is genuinely hard to distinguish from a large coyote in the field, the two hybridize, and the province’s most restrictive coyote rules are protections for the wolf rather than for the coyote. Everything unusual on this page traces back to it.
Is a hunting licence required to hunt coyotes in Ontario?
Yes, and it is a specific stack of four things:2
- Outdoors Card — $8.57, valid three calendar years
- Small Game Licence — resident $22.76, or $68.28 for three years
- Wolf/Coyote Tag — resident $10.05, but only in the WMUs that require one
- Proof of firearm accreditation, if hunting with a gun
Note what that means: in the WMUs where no tag is required, a resident is hunting coyotes for $31.33 all in and there is no bag limit. Ontario is one of the cheapest places in Canada to hunt them, provided you are in the right half of the province.
Season, north and south
What is the season for coyote hunting in Ontario?
Ontario runs two entirely different regimes, split by Wildlife Management Unit.3
| WMUs | Open season | Tag | |
|---|---|---|---|
| North | 1A, 1C, 1D, 2–10, 11A, 11B, 12–41, 42, 46–50, 53A, 53B, 54–58 | 15 September – 31 March | Wolf/Coyote Tag required |
| South | 43–45, 59–74, 75, 76–95 | All year | None |
In the tagged north the tag is also dated: a 2026 Wolf/Coyote Tag covers 15 September to 31 December, and a 2027 tag covers 1 January to 31 March. A single season therefore spans two tag years.
Several WMUs carry asterisks, meaning there are geographic townships inside them where the season is closed outright. The list runs to more than eighty township names — Airy, Alice, Anson, Anstruther, Bruton, Burleigh, Cardiff, Cavendish, Harcourt, Harvey, Minden, Monmouth, Murchison and so on. If your WMU is asterisked, check the township before you hunt it.
What is the bag limit for coyotes in Ontario?
It depends which half you are in, and the tag is the limit.
In the tagged WMUs, residents and non-residents may buy a maximum of two Wolf/Coyote Tags per calendar year.2 Each tag accounts for one animal, so two is the annual ceiling — and once both are used you are finished with wolf and coyote until January.
In the untagged southern WMUs there is no tag and no stated limit. Year-round season, no ceiling.
Non-residents
Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in Ontario?
Yes, unguided, and this is the most accessible coyote hunting in Canada for an American.
Ontario’s season table says “Resident and non-resident — open season” for both zones, and non-residents may buy tags on the same two-per-year basis as residents.3 There is no guide requirement, no hunter-host scheme, and no big game licence prerequisite. That is a sharp contrast with Alberta and Manitoba, both of which require a guide or host, and with Saskatchewan, where the routes in are resident-only.
The costs are where the asymmetry shows up:4
- Non-Resident Small Game Licence — $121.52, against $22.76 for a resident
- Non-Resident Wolf/Coyote Tag — $255.57, against $10.05 for a resident
That tag is a twenty-five-fold markup and the largest single non-resident premium anywhere in this series. But you only need it in the northern WMUs.
Hunt the southern WMUs and there is no tag at all — so a visiting American pays the Outdoors Card plus the non-resident Small Game Licence, about $130, and hunts year-round with no tag, no guide and no bag limit. That is a genuinely good deal, and it is buried in a table rather than stated anywhere.
The federal side — the firearm declaration, the $25 fee, and what a past conviction does at the border — is on the Canada regulations index.
Night, lights and optics
Can you hunt coyotes at night in Ontario?
No, and Ontario adds a duty the other provinces do not.
“You may only hunt from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset (exceptions: night raccoon hunting and spring hunting hours for wild turkey). If you are in an area usually inhabited by wildlife during the period from half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise, you must unload and encase any firearms in your possession.”5
Read the second sentence carefully, because it is not a hunting rule — it is a possession rule. After dark, in country where wildlife lives, an unloaded rifle on the seat is not enough. It has to be encased, and Ontario defines that as enclosed on all six sides. Driving home at dusk with a cased-but-open gun is the offence.
Ontario does permit night hunting for raccoon, with dogs and under conditions, and a raccoon hunter may use a light subject to restrictions. None of that extends to coyote, and using a raccoon exemption to hunt coyotes at night would be hunting a closed species at a closed time.
Can you use night vision or thermal in Ontario?
The summary does not name night vision, thermal or infrared. As in Manitoba, there is no lawful night hunt for a coyote for the optic to serve, and the encasement duty above means you should not be carrying a loaded firearm in the dark at all. Do not read the silence as permission — ring the MNR if you need a definitive answer for daytime use.
Firearms, and a calibre cap
What firearms are allowed for coyote hunting in Ontario?
Mostly anything — with one restriction that runs the opposite way from what an American hunter expects:
“There are no special firearm restrictions, other than a maximum calibre restriction, when hunting only for wolf or coyote. You cannot carry or use a rifle of greater calibre than a .275-calibre rifle, except a muzzle-loading gun, in the geographic areas of Brant, Chatham-Kent, Durham, Elgin, Essex, Haldimand, Halton, Hamilton, Huron, Lambton, Middlesex, Niagara, Norfolk, Northumberland, Oxford, Peel, Perth, Toronto, Waterloo, Wellington or York.”1
That is a maximum, not a minimum. Most jurisdictions set a floor to ensure a humane kill; Ontario sets a ceiling in its most densely populated counties, because the concern there is what happens past the animal rather than to it.
The practical effect for a coyote hunter is mild, because the calibres you would actually choose are all comfortably under it — .223, .22-250, .243, .204 Ruger. What it rules out is the deer rifle: a .270 Winchester fires a .277-inch bullet and is over the cap, as is anything in .30. If you were planning to walk out with the same rifle you shoot deer with, check the county first. The rifle comparison covers what to use instead.
Note also that those named counties are in the southern, year-round, no-tag half of the province — so the cheapest and most open coyote hunting in Ontario is also the ground with the calibre cap on it.
One more clause worth knowing: if you are hunting wolf or coyote while hunting another species, you must not be in possession of a firearm that is prohibited for that other species.
Calls
Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in Ontario?
Yes. The only electronic-call prohibition in the summary is written for wild turkey: “It is illegal to use live decoys or electronic calls while wild turkey hunting in Ontario.”6
Coyote is not a wild turkey, so the rule does not reach it and no exception is needed.
That makes five provinces and five different mechanisms for the same practical answer. British Columbia names coyote as an exception to a general ban. Alberta names it and specifies the permitted sounds. Saskatchewan scopes the ban to waterfowl. Manitoba scopes it to big game, which coyote is not. Ontario scopes it to wild turkey. Anyone reading only the first clause of any of those five would get the answer wrong. See the best coyote call for what to run.
Park closures, and the Eastern wolf
Where can you not hunt coyotes in Ontario?
Two layers, and the first is the one that catches people:
“It is illegal to hunt or trap wolf or coyote in the areas within and surrounding Algonquin Provincial Park, Killarney Provincial Park, Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Provincial Park and Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park to help protect Eastern wolf.”2
Note “within and surrounding.” The closure is not the park boundary — it extends beyond it, and it exists to protect a wolf population from hunters who cannot reliably tell a wolf from a coyote. That is also the reason for the long township closure list attached to the season table.
More generally, “wolves and coyotes cannot be hunted in provincial parks or Crown Game Preserves.”1
After the shot
What do you have to do after killing a coyote in Ontario?
More than anywhere else in Canada, and two of these are easy to get wrong:1
- The tag stays on — where a tag is required, it must remain attached to the animal until the pelt has been skinned off the carcass and is being frozen or has been sent for tanning
- Mandatory hunter reporting — Ontario requires a report; check the timelines in the summary's reporting section
- You may not waste the pelt — it is illegal to abandon a furbearing mammal's pelt or allow it to spoil or be destroyed
That last one is a real obligation rather than an ethical suggestion. Ontario treats the coyote as a fur resource, and leaving one where it fell is an offence.
Exporting a furbearing mammal from Ontario requires an Export Licence for Furbearing Mammals. Coyote is not CITES-listed, unlike the wolf it is regulated alongside — so a coyote pelt does not need the federal permit a wolf pelt does.
Coyotes in Ontario
Where are the coyotes, and what about the Eastern wolf?
The regulatory geography tells you the distribution. The southern WMUs are open all year with no tag and no limit — that is farmland, and it is where coyotes are abundant enough that Ontario sees no reason to meter the harvest. The northern WMUs are tagged and seasonal because that is where the wolves are, and a tag is how the province limits wolf mortality without closing coyote hunting altogether.
The Eastern wolf is the animal the whole structure is built around. It is smaller than a grey wolf, hybridizes with coyotes, and in the field a large Eastern wolf and a large coyote are genuinely difficult to separate — which is why a single tag covers both species, why four parks and their surrounds are closed, and why the township list exists.
If you cannot positively identify the animal in the closure zones or the tagged north, do not shoot. Shooting a wolf you believed to be a coyote is the mistake this entire regime is designed to prevent, and the tag will not save you inside a closed area.
Footnotes
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Ontario Hunting Regulations Summary 2026–2027 — Wolf and Coyote, furbearing mammals, tagging and firearms Printed page 85 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
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Ontario Hunting Regulations Summary 2026–2027 — Wolf and Coyote Hunting Requirements and Regulations Printed page 84 ↩ ↩2 ↩3
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Ontario Hunting Regulations Summary 2026–2027 — Wolf and coyote seasons Printed page 84 ↩ ↩2
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Ontario Hunting Regulations Summary 2026–2027 — Hunting licence fees Printed page 14 ↩
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Ontario Hunting Regulations Summary 2026–2027 — General Regulations, hunting hours Printed page 29 ↩
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Ontario Hunting Regulations Summary 2026–2027 — Wild Turkey Hunting Regulations Printed page 89 ↩
This information is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. This website has no affiliation with any department of the above-mentioned state. Coyote hunting laws can change frequently and vary by locality — always verify the most current regulations directly with your state's wildlife agency or local authorities before hunting. Last updated: August 2026.