Property Taxes In The GTA. Where Do You Pay The Least and The Most

Property Taxes In The GTA. Where Do You Pay The Least and The Most

When aspiring homebuyers plan a budget for their home purchase, they need to be aware that they will have to maintain the property. Property taxes are among the most significant regular maintenance costs, so let's see how they work across GTA and how much it costs to own a home in different GTA areas. Is it everywhere the same? No. Property taxes differ from town to town, and the difference can be thousands of dollars from one city to another. Let's take a closer look at what you can count on in the GTA.

Toronto

With the highest property prices in the GTA and the highest population in the GTA and Canada, Toronto homebuyers can at least count on saving in property taxes, with Toronto having the lowest property tax rates in the GTA. The densest GTA city keeps property taxes at 0.6%.  Similar tax rates are found in Vaughan, Oakville, Milton, and Richmond Hill.

Mississauga

With a 0.8% property tax rate, Mississauga is somewhere in the middle, but the city also comes with lower home prices than Toronto. The average home price in Toronto is currently over $800,000, while in Mississauga, it's around $720,000-$750,000. If we'd apply the 0.8% property tax rate to Mississauga's average home price, property taxes would come around to $6,000 annually. In line with Mississauga's property tax rate are cities like Newmarket, Burlington, Aurora, Caledon, etc.

Brampton

Brampton is more affordable than Mississauga and Toronto, but it has one of the highest property tax rates in the GTA with 1.3%. If we take the average Brampton home price, close to $700,000, the annual tax sum will be over $7,000 for an average home. Other cities with similar tax rates are Innisfil Oshawa, Orangeville, Brantford, etc.

The highest GTA property taxes are in Windsor with a 1.7% rate, followed by Thunder Bay, North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie (1.5%). Compared to Toronto, a $500,000 home in Windsor will cost you almost $9,000 in property taxes, while a home of the same price in Toronto would incur about $3,000 in annual taxes.

It's easy to see that the higher the property tax rates in a city, the lower the home price. The cities with higher tax rates usually have fewer residents and less industrial and commercial properties, so they, kind of, rely more on residential property taxes to fill the local revenue budget. For comparison, Toronto has far more industrial and commercial buildings and more sources to charge taxes. Brampton and other cities with higher property taxes have to make up for having fewer revenue sources than its bigger GTA counterparts.

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