Ontario property tax calculator

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.

Ontario sets one line of your bill and your council sets the rest

The education levy is 0.153% for residential property, fixed by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Finance, and identical in all 444 municipalities. It appears at that figure in Toronto's rate table, in Kitchener's rate schedule and in Hamilton's levying by-law — three documents, three cities, one number.

Everything else is municipal, and how many lines it takes depends on how your municipality is organised. Single-tier cities like Toronto levy alone. In a two-tier county or region, both levy: in Kitchener the Region of Waterloo takes 0.8418% against the city's 0.4112%, so the regional share is twice the city's. And Hamilton area-rates several services by former municipality, a quarter of a century after amalgamating them.

Which is why "the Ontario property tax rate" does not exist as a number. What exists is one provincial line that is the same everywhere, and a municipal stack that is different in every one of the 444.

Ontario cities on the same $750,000

2026 rates, each read off the city's own document:

1. Toronto — $5,755 at 0.7673%.

2. Mississauga — $8,159 at 1.0879%.

3. Kitchener — $10,545 at 1.406%.

4. Hamilton — $11,679 at 1.5572%.

Hamilton charges 2.0 times Toronto's rate. And since both are taxing a 2016 valuation, the comparison is at least consistent — every Ontario assessment is frozen at the same date, which is the one useful side effect of the freeze.

What it does not tell you is what you would pay, because a house that assessed at $750,000 in Toronto in 2016 is a very different house from one that assessed at $750,000 in Hamilton.

What is not in the figure

Ontario municipalities must offer relief programmes and most offer several, none of which is applied above. Tax deferrals and cancellations for low-income seniors and low-income people with disabilities are mandatory across the province, administered municipality by municipality with different thresholds and different deadlines. Charity rebates apply to registered charities in commercial and industrial classes. Vacant and excess land subclasses carry their own reduced rates.

All of it is claimed, not automatic, and all of it moves in the same direction: the figure here is what is levied, and what you pay is that or less.

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

What is the property tax rate in Ontario?

There is no single Ontario rate. The province sets the education portion at 0.153%, identical everywhere; your municipality sets the rest, and the total ranges from 0.7673% in Toronto to 1.5572% in Hamilton among the cities here.

Why is Ontario still using 2016 assessments?

The 2020 province-wide reassessment was postponed during the pandemic, and in August 2023 the government filed a regulation extending the postponement through the end of the 2021–2024 cycle. MPAC's current position is that 2026 taxes continue to be based on fully phased-in 1 January 2016 values.

Will my taxes jump when Ontario reassesses?

They will move — in both directions. A reassessment does not raise the total a council collects; it redistributes it. Properties that rose faster than the provincial average since 2016 will pay more, those that rose slower will pay less, and the longer the freeze runs the larger both moves become.

Who decides the education portion of my Ontario bill?

The Province of Ontario, through the Ministry of Finance. At 0.153% residential it is the same in all 444 municipalities and the one line your council does not control.

Does Ontario have a property tax cap?

Not for residential property. Capping and clawback rules apply to the multi-residential, commercial and industrial classes; the residential class is taxed on the full assessed value at the full rate.