Canadian property tax calculator

A low rate is not a low bill, and the ranking everyone quotes is upside down

Hamilton charges 1.5572% and Vancouver charges 0.3364% — 4.6 times as much. Every "most expensive cities for property tax" list you have read is built on that gap, and every one of them is misleading.

A tax rate is not a price. It is a division: the council's budget divided by the total assessed value of everything in the municipality. A city of expensive houses needs a small fraction of each to raise what it needs; a city of cheaper houses needs a bigger one. The rate is a consequence of local house prices, not a statement about local politics.

So Vancouver's 0.3364% is the mark of a place where property is worth a great deal, and Hamilton's 1.5572% is the mark of a place where it is not. Put the same $750,000 through both and Vancouver charges $2,523 against Hamilton's $11,679 — but a $750,000 house is a modest one in Vancouver and a substantial one in Hamilton, so the comparison you actually want is between two houses you would actually live in, not two identical numbers.

Which is the whole argument for a calculator over a table. The only figure that means anything is your assessment times your city's rate, and this works that out line by line.

The same $750,000 in six cities

Cheapest bill first. These are the 2026 rates, each read off the by-law or rate schedule that approves it:

1. Vancouver — $2,523 a year, $210 a month, at 0.3364%.

2. Calgary — $4,987 a year, $416 a month, at 0.665%.

3. Toronto — $5,755 a year, $480 a month, at 0.7673%.

4. Edmonton — $7,773 a year, $648 a month, at 1.0364%.

5. Mississauga — $8,159 a year, $680 a month, at 1.0879%.

6. Kitchener — $10,545 a year, $879 a month, at 1.406%.

7. Hamilton — $11,679 a year, $973 a month, at 1.5572%.

The spread is $9,156 on identical assessed value, which sounds like a devastating indictment of Hamilton and is nothing of the kind — see above. Read each city's page for what its bill is actually made of, because the *composition* differs more than the total.

Nobody charges you one property tax

Every bill on this list is several taxes stacked on one assessment, and which ones depend on how the province organises its municipalities.

Single-tier, like Toronto. The city and the province, and nothing between them: city tax, the provincial education levy, and in Toronto's case a dedicated City Building Fund. Three lines.

Two-tier, like Kitchener. A city inside a region, and both levy. The Region of Waterloo charges 0.8418% against Kitchener's own 0.4112% — twice as much as the city. When you read that Kitchener raised taxes by two per cent, that is two per cent of the smaller share.

Area-rated, like Hamilton. Hamilton amalgamated six municipalities in 2001 and still bills transit, parkland and infrastructure separately in each of them, 2026 included. Which side of a boundary that stopped existing 25 years ago you live on changes your bill.

Multi-body, like Vancouver. Six separate authorities levy on the same assessment — the city, the province's school tax, TransLink, Metro Vancouver, BC Assessment, and the Municipal Finance Authority. The city keeps a little over half.

In Ontario one line is the same everywhere: the education levy of 0.153%, set by the province, identical in all 444 municipalities. It is the only part of an Ontario property tax bill your council does not control, and it appears at that exact figure in Toronto's rate table, Kitchener's schedule and Hamilton's by-law.

Your 2026 Ontario tax bill runs on what your house was worth in 2016

Not a typo, and not an approximation. Ontario property tax for 2026 is calculated on the assessed value at 1 January 2016 — 10 years ago. MPAC, the provincial body that values every property in Ontario, has not carried out a province-wide reassessment since 2016.

The 2020 update was postponed for the pandemic, and in August 2023 the province filed a regulation extending the postponement through the end of the 2021–2024 cycle. The postponement has outlived its reason by some margin, and the base has stayed where it was.

Two consequences that matter to you. What you paid for the house is irrelevant — buying in 2023 at 2023 prices does not change your assessment, which is still a 2016 figure. And the freeze is not neutral: neighbourhoods that rose faster than average since 2016 are undertaxed relative to the ones that rose slower, and every year the freeze continues the gap widens. When the reassessment finally lands it will move bills sharply in both directions without any council raising a rate.

So if you are checking an Ontario figure against your bill, use the assessed value on your MPAC notice, not what a realtor says the house is worth. In Alberta and British Columbia the question does not arise: both value at 1 July of the year before the tax year, so a 2026 bill there runs on a July 2025 market value.

Why your city may not be here

Six cities, not thirty, and the reason is worth stating because it is the same reason the rest of this site can be trusted.

There is no national register of municipal tax rates. Each of the 3,700-odd municipalities in Canada sets its own in its own by-law, and publishing that by-law where a member of the public can read it is a courtesy, not an obligation. Toronto puts the table on a web page. Hamilton and Kitchener publish the full rate schedule as a PDF. Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver publish theirs as tables.

Others do not. Ottawa publishes an estimator that will tell you your own bill but never shows the rates behind it. Mississauga had published nothing later than 2025 when this was written. Both have a page on the plan here and neither has been built, because building it would mean inferring a rate from someone else's summary — and a figure inferred from a summary is exactly the thing this site exists not to publish.

They will appear when their 2026 documents do.

Where every rate on this page came from

Municipal rates are not published in one place, because no one body sets them. Each of these was read off the document that approves it, with the date it was read:

City of Toronto — Property tax rates and fees, 2026 Property Tax Rates — read 2026-09-07. https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/property-taxes-utilities/property-tax/property-tax-rates-and-fees/

City of Hamilton — By-law 26-064, To Set and Levy the Rates of Taxation for the Year 2026 — read 2026-09-07. https://www.hamilton.ca/sites/default/files/2026-04/26-064.pdf

City of Mississauga — By-law 0061-2026, Schedule A, 2026 Final Tax Rates and Levy — read 2026-09-08. https://www.mississauga.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/01132447/2026-Tax-Ratios-2026-By-law-0061-2026.pdf

City of Kitchener — 2026 Final Tax Rates — read 2026-09-07. https://www.kitchener.ca/media/1itfipd0/2026-rates-remediated.pdf

City of Calgary — Current property tax rates — read 2026-09-07. https://www.calgary.ca/property-owners/taxes/current-rates.html

City of Edmonton — Property tax breakdown, 2026 rates under Bylaw 21442 — read 2026-09-07. https://www.edmonton.ca/residential_neighbourhoods/property_tax_assessment/tax-breakdown

City of Vancouver — Residential property tax rates — read 2026-09-07. https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/residential.aspx

MPAC — The Assessment Cycle (2026 taxes on 1 January 2016 values) — read 2026-09-07. https://www.mpac.ca/en/UnderstandingYourAssessment/AssessmentCycle

Province of British Columbia — Home owner grant — read 2026-09-07. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/taxes/property-taxes/annual-property-tax/home-owner-grant

And what this does not cover:

— Only the cities whose own 2026 rate document could be read are here. Ottawa is the one large Ontario city missing: it publishes a property tax estimator that will give you your own bill, but its 2026 rates appear in none of its published tax policy reports — three of them, 91 pages between them, with not one rate in any. It is not shown rather than shown with a guess.

— Rebates, deferrals and grants are not applied. British Columbia's home owner grant, Ontario's senior and disabled homeowner relief, and Alberta's deferral programmes all reduce what you actually pay, and each has its own application.

— Local improvement charges, business improvement area levies and garbage or water charges appear on the same bill in several of these cities and are not property tax. They are not included here.

— The figure assumes the ordinary residential class. Farm, managed forest, multi-residential and new multi-residential are taxed at different rates in every city on this list.

— British Columbia charges an additional school tax on residential property assessed above $3 million, and it is not applied here.

Questions

How is property tax calculated in Canada?

Assessed value multiplied by the rate your municipality set for your property class, plus any separate levies on the same assessment — a provincial education levy everywhere, and in some cities transit, parkland or regional levies charged as their own lines. There is no federal property tax and no national rate.

Which Canadian city has the lowest property tax rate?

Of the six here, Vancouver, at 0.3364% against Hamilton's 1.5572%. That is not the same as the lowest bill: a low rate usually means high property values, since the rate is the council's budget divided by everything it can tax.

Why is my assessed value so much lower than what my house is worth?

If you are in Ontario, because the assessment is a 1 January 2016 value. MPAC has not run a province-wide reassessment since 2016; the update was postponed for the pandemic and the postponement extended by regulation. In Alberta and British Columbia the valuation date is 1 July of the previous year, so the gap there is months, not 10 years.

Does buying a house change my property tax?

Not the assessment, in Ontario — the price you paid does not reset it, because the valuation date is fixed for everyone. What can change is the rate, every year, when the council passes its budget.

Is the education levy the same across Ontario?

Yes. 0.153% for residential property, set by the Province of Ontario and identical in every municipality. It is the one line on an Ontario bill your city council has no say over.

Are these the official rates?

They are the rates published by each city for 2026, read off the by-law or rate schedule and dated on this page. Your own bill is the authority for your own property, and rebates, grants and deferrals are applied separately and are not included here.