Canada tax brackets, 2015
Four federal brackets in 2015, topping out at 29.0% above $138,586, and a different provincial scale in each of the twelve jurisdictions the CRA publishes. These are the rates as they applied to that year’s return — not a calculator, because brackets alone cannot produce a tax bill.
The federal rates for 2015
Four brackets, one fewer than every year since — the 33% bracket did not exist yet, applied in slices. The first slice of taxable income is taxed at the lowest rate, the next slice at the next, and so on. Reaching the top bracket never meant the whole income was taxed at the top rate.
15% — on the first $44,701
22% — from $44,701 to $89,401
26% — from $89,401 to $138,586
29% — on everything above $138,586
The top rate of 29% started at $138,586 that year. Everyone in Canada paid these rates, whichever province they lived in — the federal half of an income tax bill does not vary by province, only the provincial half does.
How much you could earn tax-free in 2015
In 2015 the federal basic personal amount was $11,327. That is the figure behind "how much can you earn before paying tax", and for federal tax the answer that year was exactly that: $11,327.
It works as a non-refundable credit at the lowest rate, not as a bracket taxed at zero. $11,327 at 15% is $1,699 of tax cancelled — and because the first bracket is also taxed at 15%, the credit exactly wipes out the tax on the first $11,327 of income. The arithmetic lands in the same place as a zero-rate band, which is why people describe it that way, but it is not one: it does not move the brackets above it and it does not change anyone's marginal rate.
Up $189 on 2014's $11,138, which is indexation rather than a decision.
One figure, the same for everyone. The means-testing of the basic personal amount — where the amount shrinks as income rises — did not arrive until 2020, so in 2015 a person earning $40,000 and a person earning $400,000 claimed the same $11,327.
Read off Income Tax Folio S1-F4-C1, indexation amounts table.
Your province had its own amount on top of that, and for 2015 it is below.
And the provincial amount, which is nothing like uniform
Every province and territory sets its own basic personal amount on top of the federal one, and the gap between them is wider than anything in the rate tables. In 2015:
Alberta — $18,214. Federal and provincial together: $29,541.
Saskatchewan — $15,639. Federal and provincial together: $26,966.
Northwest Territories — $13,900. Federal and provincial together: $25,227.
Nunavut — $12,781. Federal and provincial together: $24,108.
Yukon — $11,327 — which is the federal figure exactly, because Yukon adopts it rather than setting one. Federal and provincial together: $22,654.
British Columbia — $9,938. Federal and provincial together: $21,265.
Ontario — $9,863. Federal and provincial together: $21,190.
New Brunswick — $9,633. Federal and provincial together: $20,960.
Manitoba — $9,134. Federal and provincial together: $20,461.
Newfoundland and Labrador — $8,767. Federal and provincial together: $20,094.
Nova Scotia — $8,481. Federal and provincial together: $19,808.
Prince Edward Island — $7,708. Federal and provincial together: $19,035.
Alberta exempted $10,506 more than Prince Edward Island that year — more than twice as much, on the same federal salary. Stack each on the federal $11,327 and the amount you could earn before any income tax at all ran from $19,035 to $29,541, depending only on which side of a provincial boundary you slept on 31 December.
Nova Scotia is worth a note for what it was about to become. In 2015 its amount was a flat $8,481, the lowest in the country. From 2018 it stops being a single figure: the province raises it to $11,481 and then claws it back at 6% of income above $25,000, back down to this same $8,481 by $75,000 — a claw-back aimed squarely at ordinary salaries.
Yukon does not set an amount of its own: it adopts the federal figure, which in 2015 was $11,327, and its Form YT428 simply prints that number. It has done this since 2006 — in 2005, the year before, the territory still had an amount of its own. From 2020 the form stops printing a figure at all and says "amount from line 30000 of your return", because by then the federal amount depends on income and there is no single number left to print.
Read off each province's own Form 428 for 2015, read from the PDF, on 2026-09-21.
And the provincial and territorial rates for 2015
Your province of residence on 31 December 2015 decided which of these applied — not where you worked, not where you were paid, and not where you lived in January.
Twelve jurisdictions, from the flattest to the steepest at the top:
New Brunswick — 6 brackets, from 9.68% to 25.75% above $250,000. Combined with the federal top rate: 54.75%.
Nova Scotia — 5 brackets, from 8.79% to 21% above $150,000. Combined with the federal top rate: 50%.
Manitoba — 3 brackets, from 10.8% to 17.4% above $67,000. Combined with the federal top rate: 46.4%.
British Columbia — 6 brackets, from 5.06% to 16.8% above $151,050. Combined with the federal top rate: 45.8%.
Prince Edward Island — 3 brackets, from 9.8% to 16.7% above $63,969. Combined with the federal top rate: 45.7%.
Saskatchewan — 3 brackets, from 11% to 15% above $125,795. Combined with the federal top rate: 44%.
Yukon — 5 brackets, from 6.4% to 15% above $500,000. Combined with the federal top rate: 44%.
Newfoundland and Labrador — 5 brackets, from 7.7% to 14.3% above $175,000. Combined with the federal top rate: 43.3%.
Northwest Territories — 4 brackets, from 5.9% to 14.05% above $131,641. Combined with the federal top rate: 43.05%.
Ontario — 5 brackets, from 5.05% to 13.16% above $220,000. Combined with the federal top rate: 42.16%.
Nunavut — 4 brackets, from 4% to 11.5% above $138,586. Combined with the federal top rate: 40.5%.
Alberta — 5 brackets, from 10% to 11.25% above $300,000. Combined with the federal top rate: 40.25%.
So the spread between the two ends of the country was 14.5% of every dollar at the top of the scale — New Brunswick at 54.75% against Alberta at 40.25%.
Quebec is not in that list either, and its absence is not an oversight. The Canada Revenue Agency does not publish Quebec's rates in this table; it links to a Revenu Québec document instead, because Quebec administers its own income tax. So the count runs three ways: twelve jurisdictions on this page, twelve that the CRA publishes, and thirteen that Canada actually has.
The 2015 tax tables in full, one jurisdiction at a time
Alberta, 2015 — 5 brackets:
10% — on the first $125,000
10.5% — from $125,000 to $150,000
10.75% — from $150,000 to $200,000
11% — from $200,000 to $300,000
11.25% — on everything above $300,000
British Columbia, 2015 — 6 brackets:
5.06% — on the first $37,869
7.7% — from $37,869 to $75,740
10.5% — from $75,740 to $86,958
12.29% — from $86,958 to $105,592
14.7% — from $105,592 to $151,050
16.8% — on everything above $151,050
Manitoba, 2015 — 3 brackets:
10.8% — on the first $31,000
12.75% — from $31,000 to $67,000
17.4% — on everything above $67,000
New Brunswick, 2015 — 6 brackets:
9.68% — on the first $39,973
14.82% — from $39,973 to $79,946
16.52% — from $79,946 to $129,975
17.84% — from $129,975 to $150,000
21% — from $150,000 to $250,000
25.75% — on everything above $250,000
Newfoundland and Labrador, 2015 — 5 brackets:
7.7% — on the first $35,008
12.5% — from $35,008 to $70,015
13.3% — from $70,015 to $125,000
13.8% — from $125,000 to $175,000
14.3% — on everything above $175,000
Northwest Territories, 2015 — 4 brackets:
5.9% — on the first $40,484
8.6% — from $40,484 to $80,971
12.2% — from $80,971 to $131,641
14.05% — on everything above $131,641
Nova Scotia, 2015 — 5 brackets:
8.79% — on the first $29,590
14.95% — from $29,590 to $59,180
16.67% — from $59,180 to $93,000
17.5% — from $93,000 to $150,000
21% — on everything above $150,000
Nunavut, 2015 — 4 brackets:
4% — on the first $42,622
7% — from $42,622 to $85,243
9% — from $85,243 to $138,586
11.5% — on everything above $138,586
Ontario, 2015 — 5 brackets:
5.05% — on the first $40,922
9.15% — from $40,922 to $80,847
11.16% — from $80,847 to $150,000
12.16% — from $150,000 to $220,000
13.16% — on everything above $220,000
Prince Edward Island, 2015 — 3 brackets:
9.8% — on the first $31,984
13.8% — from $31,984 to $63,969
16.7% — on everything above $63,969
Saskatchewan, 2015 — 3 brackets:
11% — on the first $44,028
13% — from $44,028 to $125,795
15% — on everything above $125,795
Yukon, 2015 — 5 brackets:
6.4% — on the first $44,701
9% — from $44,701 to $89,401
10.9% — from $89,401 to $138,586
12.8% — from $138,586 to $500,000
15% — on everything above $500,000
What changed between 2014 and 2015
Ottawa did not move. The federal rates in 2015 were the same 15%, 22%, 26%, 29% as in 2014. The thresholds rose with inflation — that happens every year and is not a policy decision — but no rate changed.
And 4 of the 12 provinces and territories on this page changed a rate, a bracket count or the whole system:
Alberta — it went from one brackets to five.
New Brunswick — it went from four brackets to six.
Newfoundland and Labrador — it went from three brackets to five.
Yukon — it went from four brackets to five.
Thresholds are left out of that list on purpose. Almost every jurisdiction indexes its brackets to inflation, so almost every threshold moves every year, and a list of them would bury the handful of changes that were actually decisions.
What this page deliberately will not do
It will not work out what you owed in 2015, and the reason is worth more than a calculator would be.
A tax bill is not the brackets. It is the brackets minus the basic personal amount, minus the provincial credits, plus Ontario's surtax where it applies, alongside CPP and EI with their own ceilings — and every one of those figures was different in 2015 from what it is now. The CRA's rate table carries none of them.
So a calculator built on this page would take the one piece of 2015 that is published, pair it with 2026 values for everything else, and produce a number that looks authoritative and is wrong. That is a worse outcome than no number at all, and it is the commonest way historical tax pages mislead.
What the table is genuinely good for: checking a rate you half-remember, seeing which bracket a figure fell into, and comparing 2015 with the year before or after. For an actual figure, the 2026 calculator has every piece it needs — basic amounts, surtax, contributions and all.
And if you are reassessing a 2015 return, the authority is your own notice of assessment and the CRA, not this page or any other. 9 years on, the figures here are a reference, not a filing.
The years either side
The federal top rate across every year on this site, so you can see where 2015 sits:
2000 — 3 brackets, top rate 29% above $60,009.
2001 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $100,000.
2002 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $103,000.
2003 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $104,648.
2004 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $113,804.
2005 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $115,739.
2006 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $118,285.
2007 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $120,887.
2008 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $123,184.
2009 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $126,264.
2010 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $127,021.
2011 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $128,800.
2012 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $132,406.
2013 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $135,054.
2014 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $136,270.
2015 — 4 brackets, top rate 29% above $138,586 ← this page.
2016 — 5 brackets, top rate 33% above $200,000.
2017 — 5 brackets, top rate 33% above $202,800.
2018 — 5 brackets, top rate 33% above $205,842.
2019 — 5 brackets, top rate 33% above $210,371.
2020 — 5 brackets, top rate 33% above $214,368.
2021 — 5 brackets, top rate 33% above $216,511.
2022 — 5 brackets, top rate 33% above $221,708.
2023 — 5 brackets, top rate 33% above $235,675.
2024 — 5 brackets, top rate 33% above $246,752.
Read down that list and the federal top rate is 29% for sixteen straight years and 33% for the nine after it. The thresholds, meanwhile, moved every single year — the point at which the top rate begins rose from $60,009 in 2000 to $246,752 in 2024. Almost all of that is indexation doing its work rather than a government doing anything.
Next to this one: 2014 and 2016. And the current year, in full, at 2026 tax brackets.
Where the 2015 figures came from
CRA — All years tax rates and income brackets, federal and provincial or territorial, 2015 onward — read 2026-09-21. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/tax-rates-brackets/all-years.html
Every rate and threshold on this page was taken from that table and checked for internal consistency before publication: each bracket's ceiling has to be the next one's floor, rates have to rise, and the first bracket has to start at zero. Any table that failed those checks would not be here.
The basic personal amount comes from different documents again, because the CRA publishes it nowhere near the rate table:
CRA — Income Tax Folio S1-F4-C1, Basic Personal and Dependant Tax Credits, indexation amounts table (2015 and 2016) — read 2026-09-21. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/technical-information/income-tax/income-tax-folios-index/series-1-individuals/series-1-individuals-1/income-tax-folio-s1-f4-c1-basic-personal-dependant-tax-credits.html
CRA — Form 5000-S1, Schedule 1 Federal Tax, and each province's Form 428, for the 2013 and 2014 brackets and amounts, read from the PDFs in layout mode — read 2026-09-21. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/tax-packages-years.html
CRA — Form 5000-S1, Schedule 1 Federal Tax, line 300 (2017 and 2018 editions) — read 2026-09-21. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/5000-s1/5000-s1-18e.pdf
CRA — Form 5000-R, Income Tax and Benefit Return, line 30000 (2019 to 2022 editions) — read 2026-09-21. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/5000-r/5000-r-22e.pdf
CRA — Indexation adjustment for personal income tax and benefit amounts, non-refundable tax credits (2023 and 2024) — read 2026-09-21. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/frequently-asked-questions-individuals/adjustment-personal-income-tax-benefit-amounts.html
CRA — Form 428 for each province and territory, one per year (2015 to 2020), and T4032 Payroll Deductions Tables, previous-year editions (2021 to 2024) — read 2026-09-21. For 2015 the figures come from each province's own Form 428 for 2015, read from the PDF. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/tax-packages-years.html
And what this does not cover:
— Quebec is not here. The CRA does not publish Quebec rates in this table — it links to a Revenu Québec document instead — so these pages cover twelve jurisdictions rather than thirteen, and say so rather than quietly listing twelve and calling it Canada.
— No tax is calculated on these pages, and that is deliberate. The basic personal amount, Ontario's surtax, the provincial credits, CPP and EI all change from year to year as well, and none of them is in this table. A figure worked out from the brackets alone would be wrong, and confidently wrong is the worst kind.
— Rates and thresholds are as published for the tax year, not as they may later have been amended. Where a province legislated a change part-way through a year, the CRA table shows the rate that applied to the return for that year.
— For tax years before 2015 there is no single CRA table: the rates live inside each year's income tax package, one form per province per year. Those forms were downloaded and read individually — the federal Schedule 1 and every provincial Form 428 back to 2000 — and validated the same way as the later years. Two gaps survived that work and are named rather than filled: the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon have no 2000 or 2002 Form 428 on canada.ca and no copy in the Internet Archive, so those three jurisdictions are absent from those two years and the pages say which.
— In 2000 four provinces had no tax brackets at all. Alberta, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan still charged a percentage of the federal tax you had already calculated rather than setting rates of their own, so their rows in the 2000 table give that percentage instead of a scale. By 2001 all four had moved to rates of their own. This is a fact about the tax, not a hole in the data.
Where to go next
Questions
- What were the tax brackets in Canada in 2015?
- Federally, four: 15% on the first $44,701; 22% from $44,701 to $89,401; 26% from $89,401 to $138,586; 29% above $138,586. Each province and territory then applied its own scale on top, and your province of residence on 31 December 2015 decided which.
- What was the highest tax rate in Canada in 2015?
- The federal top rate was 29% above $138,586. Combined with the provincial top rate the highest was New Brunswick at 54.75% and the lowest Alberta at 40.25%.
- What were the Ontario tax brackets for 2015?
- Five of them: 5.05%, 9.15%, 11.16%, 12.16%, 13.16%, the top one starting at $220,000. Ontario also charged a surtax on its own provincial tax that year, which is not in the CRA's rate table and therefore not on this page.
- Can I use this to work out what I owed in 2015?
- Not in full. The federal side is closer than it was — the brackets and the basic personal amount of $11,327 are both here — but the provincial credits, Ontario's surtax and the CPP and EI ceilings for 2015 are not, and your province's own basic personal amount is not either. Use this to check a rate or a threshold, not to produce a bill. For a real calculation use the 2026 calculator, which has every piece.
- How much could you earn tax-free in 2015?
- $11,327 federally — the same figure whatever you earned, since the amount was not means-tested until 2020. It is a non-refundable credit at 15% rather than a zero-rate band, which comes to the same thing on that first slice of income. Adding each province's own amount, the real threshold ran from $19,035 in Prince Edward Island to $29,541 in Alberta.
- Why is Quebec missing from the 2015 table?
- Because the Canada Revenue Agency does not publish it. Quebec administers its own income tax, and the CRA's all-years table links to a Revenu Québec document rather than listing Quebec rates. This page covers twelve jurisdictions, which is what the CRA publishes, rather than presenting twelve as if it were all of Canada.
- Did tax rates change in 2015?
- Yes. The federal rates were unchanged. Provincially, Alberta, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Yukon each changed a rate or a bracket count.