Canadian tax brackets by year

Every Canadian tax year from 2000 to 2024

2000 is not an arbitrary starting line. It is the year the Canadian income tax changed shape: before it, most provinces did not publish brackets because they did not have any — they charged a percentage of your federal tax. Four of them were still doing it in 2000, and none was by 2001.

2000 — three federal brackets, top rate 29% above $60,009. The seam: five provinces with rates of their own, four still charging a share of federal tax.

2001 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $100,000. Ottawa changed its rates; 8 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2002 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $103,000. 4 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2003 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $104,648. 2 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2004 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $113,804. 3 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2005 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $115,739. Ottawa changed its rates; 1 jurisdiction changed its own.

2006 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $118,285. Ottawa changed its rates; 1 jurisdiction changed its own.

2007 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $120,887. Ottawa changed its rates; 4 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2008 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $123,184. 3 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2009 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $126,264. 3 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2010 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $127,021. 4 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2011 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $128,800. 2 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2012 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $132,406. 1 jurisdiction changed its own.

2013 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $135,054. 2 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2014 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $136,270. 3 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2015 — four federal brackets, top rate 29% above $138,586. 4 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2016 — five federal brackets, top rate 33% above $200,000. Ottawa changed its rates; 4 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2017 — five federal brackets, top rate 33% above $202,800. 2 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2018 — five federal brackets, top rate 33% above $205,842. 2 jurisdictions changed theirs.

2019 — five federal brackets, top rate 33% above $210,371. Nothing changed anywhere but the thresholds.

2020 — five federal brackets, top rate 33% above $214,368. 1 jurisdiction changed its own.

2021 — five federal brackets, top rate 33% above $216,511. 1 jurisdiction changed its own.

2022 — five federal brackets, top rate 33% above $221,708. 1 jurisdiction changed its own.

2023 — five federal brackets, top rate 33% above $235,675. 1 jurisdiction changed its own.

2024 — five federal brackets, top rate 33% above $246,752. 1 jurisdiction changed its own.

Ottawa moved its rates in five of these 25 years

Not once, and not constantly: 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2016. Every other year, the federal rates were exactly what they had been the year before and only the thresholds moved — and thresholds move by indexation, which is arithmetic rather than a decision.

2001 was the structural one. 3 brackets became 4: the old top band was split, and both lower rates were cut at the same time, from 17% to 16% and from 25% to 22%.

2016 was the other one, and it moved in both directions at once — the part that gets forgotten. The same budget that created the 33% bracket above $200,000 cut the second one from 22% to 20.5%. A middle income paid less; a high one paid more.

And 2006 is the curiosity. It is the only year in 25 when the lowest federal rate went up — 15% to 15.25% — and it went back down to 15% the following year. Two budgets, opposite directions, eighteen months apart. Nobody remembers it because the figure it changed was a quarter of a percentage point.

The top rate itself is the flattest line in the whole dataset: 29% from 2000 to 2015 without moving, then 33% from 2016 to 2024 without moving. Sixteen years and nine, and one step between them.

The provinces were busier. 23 of the 24 comparable years saw at least one province or territory change a rate or restructure its brackets; the exception is 2019, when not one of them touched a rate.

The amount you could earn before paying any federal tax

The brackets say what each slice of income costs. The basic personal amount says where the first slice starts being taxed at all, and it moved more than the rates did:

2000 — $7,231.

2001 — $7,412.

2002 — $7,634.

2003 — $7,756.

2004 — $8,012.

2005 — $8,648.

2006 — $8,839.

2007 — $9,600.

2008 — $9,600.

2009 — $10,320.

2010 — $10,382.

2011 — $10,527.

2012 — $10,822.

2013 — $11,038.

2014 — $11,138.

2015 — $11,327.

2016 — $11,474.

2017 — $11,635.

2018 — $11,809.

2019 — $12,069.

2020 — $13,229, falling to $12,298 once net income passes $214,368.

2021 — $13,808, falling to $12,421 once net income passes $216,511.

2022 — $14,398, falling to $12,719 once net income passes $221,708.

2023 — $15,000, falling to $13,520 once net income passes $235,675.

2024 — $15,705, falling to $14,156 once net income passes $246,752.

From $7,231 in 2000 to $15,705 in 2024 — up 117.19% across the period, against brackets whose thresholds only ever tracked inflation.

The jump is 2020, and it was a policy decision rather than indexation. In December 2019 the government legislated an increase to $15,000 by 2023, phased in: $12,069 in 2019 became $13,229 in 2020, then $13,808 in 2021, $14,398 in 2022, $15,000 in 2023, indexed from there.

And the same change made the amount means-tested for the first time. In the 5 years since, the basic personal amount shrinks on a straight line between the 29% and 33% bracket thresholds, down to a floor. So there are two basic personal amounts in every year from 2020 onwards, and which one is yours depends on your income — a detail the rate tables give no hint of.

Each year's page works out the figure for that year, including the reduction where it applies.

What you could actually earn tax-free, 2001 to 2024

The federal amount is only half the answer. Add each province's own and you get the real threshold — the income below which no income tax is due at all, to anyone. For 2024:

Alberta — $37,590 ($15,705 federal + $21,885 provincial).

Nunavut — $34,472 ($15,705 federal + $18,767 provincial).

Saskatchewan — $34,196 ($15,705 federal + $18,491 provincial).

Northwest Territories — $33,078 ($15,705 federal + $17,373 provincial).

Manitoba — $31,485 ($15,705 federal + $15,780 provincial).

Yukon — $31,410 ($15,705 federal + $15,705 provincial).

Prince Edward Island — $29,205 ($15,705 federal + $13,500 provincial).

New Brunswick — $28,749 ($15,705 federal + $13,044 provincial).

British Columbia — $28,285 ($15,705 federal + $12,580 provincial).

Ontario — $28,104 ($15,705 federal + $12,399 provincial).

Nova Scotia — $27,186 ($15,705 federal + $11,481 provincial).

Newfoundland and Labrador — $26,523 ($15,705 federal + $10,818 provincial).

$11,067 between the two ends of the country, on a threshold nobody campaigns about and few people could name. And it moves: provincial amounts are set one legislature at a time, so a jurisdiction can jump in a single year in a way the rate tables never do.

All ten years are here, and reaching them took two different sets of documents. Provincial basic personal amounts are not published in one place. From 2021 the CRA gives them in the T4032 payroll tables, province by province and year by year; before that they appear only on each province's own Form 428. The figures here for 2001 to 2020 were taken from those forms — seventy-two PDFs, one per province per year — and read individually.

Each year's page carries the full list, with the two jurisdictions whose amount is not a single figure — Nova Scotia claws its back between $25,000 and $75,000, and Yukon, from 2006 onwards, simply uses the federal one.

A quarter of a century seen from each province

Ottawa moved its rates in a handful of years. The provinces did not behave anything like as uniformly, and comparing the top provincial rate in 2001 with the one in 2024 is the quickest way to see it. 2001 rather than 2000, because 2001 is the first year all twelve set rates of their own:

Alberta — 10% to 15%, up 5%. 1 brackets then, 5 now, with a rate or structure change in 2 of the 23 years since.

Nova Scotia — 16.67% to 21%, up 4.33%. 3 brackets then, 5 now, with a rate or structure change in 2 of the 23 years since.

British Columbia — 16.7% to 20.5%, up 3.8%. 5 brackets then, 7 now, with a rate or structure change in 7 of the 23 years since.

Newfoundland and Labrador — 18.02% to 21.8%, up 3.78%. 3 brackets then, 8 now, with a rate or structure change in 9 of the 23 years since.

Prince Edward Island — 16.7% to 18.75%, up 2.05%. 3 brackets then, 5 now, with a rate or structure change in 1 of the 23 years since.

Ontario — 11.16% to 13.16%, up 2%. 3 brackets then, 5 now, with a rate or structure change in 5 of the 23 years since.

New Brunswick — 17.84% to 19.5%, up 1.66%. 4 brackets throughout, with a rate or structure change in 10 of the 23 years since.

Yukon — 13.34% to 15%, up 1.66%. 4 brackets then, 5 now, with a rate or structure change in 1 of the 23 years since.

Northwest Territories — 13.05% to 14.05%, up 1%. 4 brackets throughout, with a rate or structure change in 2 of the 23 years since.

Manitoba — 17.4% to 17.4%, unchanged. 3 brackets throughout, with a rate or structure change in 7 of the 23 years since.

Saskatchewan — 16% to 14.5%, down 1.5%. 3 brackets throughout, with a rate or structure change in 4 of the 23 years since.

Nunavut — 13.05% to 11.5%, down 1.55%. 4 brackets throughout, with a rate or structure change in 0 of the 23 years since.

9 finished the period taxing top incomes more heavily than they started it and 2 less heavily, with 1 exactly where they began. So much for a single national direction of travel.

1 never touched a rate at all: Nunavut. Its thresholds moved with inflation like everyone else's, but no government there changed a rate in 23 years of comparisons.

At the other end, New Brunswick changed a rate or restructured its brackets in 10 of those 23 years — more than anywhere else, and it now runs 4 brackets against the 4 it had in 2001.

None of which shows up in a single year's table. It is the reason this index exists rather than 25 unconnected pages.

These pages publish tables, not tax bills

None of these years has a calculator, and that is a decision rather than an omission. The federal basic personal amount is now here, year by year, because it could be read — but the provincial ones could not, and neither could the provincial credits, Ontario's surtax or the CPP and EI ceilings, all of which differed in each of these years.

Pair 2001 brackets with 2026 personal amounts and you get a figure that is confidently wrong, which is worse than no figure. So these pages show what was published and point at what was not.

The current year is a different matter: the 2026 brackets come with every piece, and the income tax calculator uses all of them.

Where these 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

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.

Questions

How far back do Canadian tax brackets go online?

The CRA publishes them as a single readable table back to 2015. Before that they are inside each year's income tax package — a separate form for every province and every year — which is where the 2000 to 2014 figures here were read from. Going back past 2000 stops being useful, because most provinces did not have brackets of their own: they charged a percentage of your federal tax instead.

When did Canada introduce the 33% tax bracket?

In 2016, on taxable income above $200,000. The same change cut the second federal bracket from 22% to 20.5%, so it raised tax at the top and lowered it in the middle at the same time.

Have federal tax rates changed recently?

Not since 2016. The federal brackets have been 15%, 20.5%, 26%, 29%, 33% throughout, and across all 25 years on this site the rates moved in only 5: 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2016. What moves every year is the thresholds, indexed to inflation — which is why you can pay more tax on the same real income without any rate changing.

When did the provinces start setting their own tax rates?

Around 2000. Until then a province charged a percentage of the federal tax you had already calculated — Newfoundland took 62% of it, Prince Edward Island 57.5%, Saskatchewan 48%, Alberta 44% — so it could not choose its own bracket shape, only scale Ottawa's up or down. All four had moved to rates of their own by 2001.

Why do these pages not calculate tax?

Because the brackets alone cannot. The basic personal amount, provincial credits, Ontario's surtax and the CPP and EI ceilings all changed year to year and none of them appears in the CRA's rate table. A calculation built on brackets alone would be wrong in a way that looks right.