What is land transfer tax and how much will I pay?
A provincial tax on the purchase price, charged at marginal rates that rise with price and paid by your lawyer on registration. Inside the City of Toronto a second municipal tax applies on top, which at ordinary prices is close to the provincial amount and at high prices is more.
The provincial tax is marginal, like income tax: each band of the price is taxed at its own rate, and the rates step up as the price rises. On a typical GTA purchase it is the largest single closing cost.
Toronto levies its own municipal land transfer tax on top of the provincial one, and the Toronto Municipal Code is where the city's schedule lives. Nobody here has read either the Code or the City of Toronto Act, so nothing in this answer reports what either of them provides. In the two band tables this app holds, the municipal bands track the provincial ones closely enough at ordinary prices that the common description, that Toronto doubles your land transfer tax, is roughly right. It stops being roughly right higher up: this app's own municipal table continues above three million dollars and its provincial table does not, so on an expensive property the municipal tax this app calculates exceeds the provincial one. Above that mark, check the Municipal Code rather than doubling the provincial figure.
Two identical houses, one in Toronto and one in Mississauga, differ by that entire amount in cash on closing day. This is a real reason the same money buys differently across a city boundary.
First-time buyers can claim a rebate against both, and the lawyer claims it on registration so you never front the money.
We do not quote the rate schedules here. A schedule copied into prose is a figure that goes wrong silently when the schedule changes. The calculator holds this app's own bands, carries the date it holds them as of, and shows its work; the statute and the Municipal Code are the authority for what applies to your purchase.
Answer it with your own numbers
You will need: purchase price, whether the property is in Toronto, first-time buyer status.
Calculate your land transfer tax exactlyAlso asked as
- Does Toronto have a double land transfer tax?
- How much is LTT in Ontario?
Next questions
Do I count as a first-time buyer for the land transfer tax rebate?
Only if you have never owned a home anywhere in the world, neither has your spouse while you were spouses, and you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. The spousal rule and the status rule each disqualify more people than they expect.
Ontario
How much cash do I actually need on closing day?
Your down payment plus closing costs, which this app's own estimate puts at roughly one and a half to three percent of the price outside Toronto and above four percent inside it, because Toronto charges a second land transfer tax.
Ontario
Do I pay extra tax if I am not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident?
Yes. Ontario's non-resident speculation tax applies province-wide to foreign nationals, foreign corporations and taxable trustees, at twenty-five percent of the purchase price, on top of land transfer tax and due in cash on closing.
Ontario