Canada has one set of mortgage rules and thirteen different answers to what it costs to close. This guide explains both — the federal rules on how much you must put down, and what each province charges in land transfer tax, gives back to first-time buyers, and adds in sales tax on a new build — and how to put your own numbers through the mortgage and closing-cost calculator that works it out for you.
What this calculator works out
It answers the two questions a buyer actually asks, and it answers them for three different down payments at once:
- What will the payment be? — and what will you still owe when the term ends and the rate is up for renewal.
- How much cash do I need to get to closing day? — down payment, land transfer tax minus any rebate you qualify for, the lawyer, title insurance, adjustments, moving, and the things paid earlier while the offer is still conditional.
It covers every province and territory in Canada, with Ontario as the starting point. It knows the federal mortgage rules and each province’s own transfer tax and first-time-buyer relief. Every figure was read from the government’s own page on 17 September 2026.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored anywhere. The whole calculation runs inside your own browser. There is no sign-in, no account and no form attached to it.
How much you have to put down
The minimum down payment in Canada is federal, so it is the same in every province:
- 5% of the first $500,000.
- 10% of the part between $500,000 and $1.5 million.
- 20% of the whole price at $1.5 million and above — because mortgage insurance is not available at all from that price, and without insurance no lender may go past 80%.
So a $850,000 home needs $60,000 down: 5% of the first $500,000, then 10% of the remaining $350,000. A $1,500,000 home needs $300,000.
Below 20% down the mortgage must be insured, and the premium is added to the mortgage rather than paid in cash — which is why the mortgage in the results is larger than the price minus your down payment. The premium is a percentage of the mortgage that steps up as the down payment falls, and it is the single clearest argument the calculator makes: put the three scenarios side by side and the cost of a smaller down payment stops being abstract.
A 30-year amortization with less than 20% down is only open to first-time buyers and to newly built homes, and it costs 0.20% more in premium. With 20% or more down, any buyer can choose 30 years. Tick the boxes at the top and the calculator applies the rule rather than leaving you to remember it.
Land transfer tax is not the same tax twice
Most closing-cost calculators quietly assume Ontario. Canada does not work that way, and the provinces disagree about the shape of the tax, not just the rate:
- Tiered on the price — Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba and Quebec. Each band of the price is taxed at its own rate.
- A flat percentage — New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island at 1%, Nova Scotia between 1.0% and 1.5% depending on the municipality.
- A second, municipal tax on top — the City of Toronto charges its own land transfer tax alongside Ontario’s, which is why Toronto is a separate choice in the drop-down rather than part of Ontario.
- No transfer tax at all — Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut charge a land titles or registry fee instead, which is measured in hundreds of dollars rather than tens of thousands.
Quebec and Nova Scotia set the tax municipally, so those two ask a second question. In Quebec, Montréal and Québec City levy their own higher scales — Montréal is the one municipality the province does not cap, and it runs to 4%. In Nova Scotia the deed transfer tax runs from 1.0% to 1.5%, and the named lower-rate municipalities are listed so you are not left guessing.
The difference is large enough to change what you can afford. The same $850,000 purchase attracts five figures of tax in Toronto and a few hundred dollars in Alberta. Put your price into the calculator and change the province to see it.
What first-time buyers actually get
“First-time buyer help” is five different things wearing one name, and which you get depends on where you buy:
- A capped refund of the transfer tax — Ontario refunds up to $4,000, and the City of Toronto up to $4,475 more on its own tax.
- A full exemption up to a price, then a taper — British Columbia exempts the whole tax to $500,000, and phases the relief out entirely by $860,000.
- A full exemption at any price — Prince Edward Island simply does not charge it.
- A tax credit instead of money at closing — Quebec refunds the welcome tax through a refundable credit of up to $5,875, phasing out from $750,000. Saskatchewan gives a non-refundable credit worth up to $1,575.
- Nothing — Manitoba has no first-time buyer rebate on its land transfer tax at all.
Two federal programs apply wherever you buy: the Home Buyers’ Amount, a $10,000 claim on your tax return worth roughly $1,400 off federal tax, and the FHSA and the RRSP Home Buyers’ Plan — $40,000 of tax-free saving and up to $60,000 each withdrawn from an RRSP.
British Columbia also has a newly built home exemption open to any buyer, not just first-timers, and you take that or the first-time buyer exemption — whichever is worth more. The calculator picks the better of the two for you and names which one it used.
Tick First-time home buyer and every one of these appears in the “Government rules and incentives that apply” list, with the amount worked out for your price rather than described in the abstract.
Buying new: the HST or GST nobody budgets for
A resale home carries no sales tax. A newly built one does — 13% HST in Ontario, 15% in New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador, 14% in Nova Scotia, 5% GST plus 9.975% QST in Quebec, and 5% GST in the western provinces and the territories.
Several rebates come back against it, and they stack:
- The federal New Housing Rebate returns 36% of the 5% GST, to a maximum of $6,300, phasing out entirely by $450,000.
- The federal First-Time Home Buyers’ GST rebate adds up to $50,000 more, in full to $1 million and nothing at $1.5 million.
- Ontario removes the whole 8% provincial part up to $1.5 million, to a maximum of $80,000, reducing to $24,000 at $1.85 million, for agreements signed between 1 April 2026 and 31 March 2027.
- Quebec rebates half the QST to a maximum of $9,975, and Nova Scotia gives first-time buyers 18.75% of the provincial part back, to $3,000.
The practical trap is which price you were quoted. Builders normally advertise an all-in price with the tax and the rebate already inside it, so entering that price as if it were pre-tax overstates what you owe by tens of thousands. Tick Newly built home and the calculator asks you which one you have, then shows the price before tax, the tax, each relief, and what is actually left to pay.
What closing day actually costs
The down payment is the number everyone plans for. It is rarely the number that catches people out. Alongside it, on or before closing, sit:
- Land transfer tax, less any rebate — usually the largest single item after the down payment, and in Toronto it is charged twice.
- The lawyer’s fee, disbursements and registration, and title insurance.
- Adjustments — property tax and utilities the seller has already paid past the closing date, repaid to them.
- Home insurance, which the lender requires in place on closing day, and moving.
- Provincial sales tax on the mortgage insurance premium where it applies — Ontario 8%, Quebec 9%, Saskatchewan 6%. This one surprises people, because the premium itself goes into the mortgage but the tax on it is payable in cash.
- Paid before closing, usually while the offer is still conditional: the home inspection, the appraisal, and a condo status certificate.
The calculator fills in typical amounts for all of these and then lets you type over every one of them, separately for each scenario, as your real quotes come in. The bottom line it works towards is “total cash needed to buy” — the figure worth checking against your account before an offer, not after.
Filling in the property
| Purchase price | The price you expect to pay. Buying new from a builder? See the next section before you type it. |
| Where you are buying | Your province — or City of Toronto, listed separately because Toronto charges a second land transfer tax on top of Ontario’s. Quebec and Nova Scotia add a municipality box underneath, because in those two the tax is set by the municipality. |
| Payment frequency | Monthly through to weekly. The two accelerated options are the ones that pay the mortgage off years early — switch between accelerated bi-weekly and monthly and watch “paid off in”. |
| Mortgage term | How long the rate is locked in, usually 5 years. This is not the amortization. It decides the “balance at end of term” figure. |
| First-time home buyer | Changes the rebates, the programs list and whether a 30-year amortization is open to you. |
| Newly built home | Turns on the HST question and the new-home rebate figures. |
If you ticked “newly built home”
A box appears asking whether the price above is:
- Builder’s all-in price (HST included) — the usual case. Builders normally quote a price with the tax and the rebate already inside it.
- Before HST — only if your builder quoted a pre-tax price.
Choosing the wrong one moves the result by tens of thousands, so check the agreement of purchase and sale rather than guessing. The results table then shows the price before tax, the tax, the federal and provincial relief, and what you actually pay.
The Bank of Canada box
Prime comes first, then the Bank of Canada’s posted averages.
These are benchmarks, not offers. Prime is the rate every variable mortgage is priced against. The posted averages are what the chartered banks advertise before discounting, so almost nobody pays them. They sit in their own box, outside the rate drop-down, precisely so they cannot be mistaken for a rate you could take. Each line carries the date it was read.
The three scenarios, and the rates
Scenario A, B and C are the same purchase with three different down payments — 10%, 15% and 20% to begin with. Change any of them, and change the rate or the amortization independently if you want to compare a fixed against a variable.
| Down payment (%) / ($) | Type into either; the other follows. Typing dollars locks the dollar figure, so changing the price afterwards moves the percentage rather than the amount. |
| Pick a lender’s rate… | Published lender rates, lowest first, each naming the lender, the product and the date it was read. Choosing one fills the rate box below it. |
| Interest rate | Or type your own here. Choose “Type my own rate in the box below” at the top of the drop-down to leave this box yours. |
| Amortization | 10 to 30 years. The calculator warns you when a combination is not permitted rather than quietly calculating something you could not get. |
About those lender rates: they are the lenders’ own published rates, read on the dates shown, plus rates entered by A. Q. Mufti. They are not offers and nobody is approved at them. Your rate depends on the lender, the property and you. Confirm any rate with the lender or a licensed mortgage agent.
Reading the results
Payments at a glance gives the headline for each scenario: the payment, the mortgage, the cash needed.
Side by side is the full table, in groups:
- Property — the price, and for a new build the whole tax working.
- Mortgage — down payment, the legal minimum, the insurance premium (or “not needed” at 20% or more down), the mortgage, the payment, and how long it really takes to pay off.
- Over the term — what you pay before renewal, and the balance at end of term: the number most buyers have never been shown.
- Over the full amortization — total interest and total of all payments.
- Cash needed at closing, paid before closing, and all cash you need at the bottom.
Government rules and incentives that apply lists what your entries qualify you for, and what you would get if they changed. Mortgage balance over time plots the three against each other — hover or tap any point. The amortization schedule can be read by year or by every single payment, for any scenario, and Download CSV hands you the whole thing as a spreadsheet.
Every cost row is yours to change
Lawyer’s fee, disbursements, title insurance, tax and utility adjustments, home insurance, moving, inspection, appraisal, status certificate — each is a box you can type over, separately for each scenario, as your real quotes arrive. Two “miscellaneous” rows take anything else; type your own description into the label.
The amounts filled in are typical, not promises. Replace them the moment you have real numbers, and the cash total at the bottom becomes genuinely yours.
Installing it as an app
The app version lives at aqmuftirealty.com/mortgage-app/. It installs straight from the browser — no app store, no account, nothing to pay.
- iPhone or iPad (Safari): open the address, tap Share, scroll down, tap Add to Home Screen, then Add.
- Android (Chrome): open the address, tap the ⋮ menu, tap Install app (or Add to Home screen), then Install.
- Windows or Mac (Chrome or Edge): open the address and click the install icon at the right-hand end of the address bar — or the ⋮ / … menu, then Install AQM Mortgage Calculator. It then opens in its own window and appears in the Start menu or Launchpad.
Once installed it opens full screen with no browser bar, and the icon sits with your other apps. There is nothing to update: the tax rules and the lender rates are fetched rather than built in, so it picks up a change the moment it ships.
Using it with no signal
The app keeps a copy of itself, so it opens and calculates with no connection at all — on a plane, in a basement, at an open house with no bars.
Rates are treated differently on purpose. The app always tries the network first, because a stale rate shown as a current one is the single failure worth designing against. When you are offline a yellow strip appears at the top saying so, and every rate still carries the date it was read — so an old figure tells you it is old rather than pretending.
If something looks wrong
| A red note under a scenario | That combination is not allowed, or something is missing: below the minimum down payment for the price, a 30-year amortization with under 20% down when you are not a first-time buyer or buying new, 20% required because the price is $1,500,000 or more, or simply no interest rate entered yet. |
| “out of date” beside a rate | Nobody has re-read that lender’s published page in over two weeks. Treat it as indicative and confirm it. |
| A yellow strip at the top of the app | You are offline. Everything still calculates; the rates are the last ones downloaded. |
| It looks nothing like your lender’s figure | Check the payment frequency and the amortization first — accelerated payments and 25 against 30 years are the two settings that move the number most. Canadian fixed-rate mortgages also compound semi-annually and lenders round differently, so small differences are normal. |
| “This calculator needs JavaScript switched on.” | Exactly that — the calculation runs in your browser, so it cannot run without it. |
What it deliberately does not do
It is a planning aid. It is not a mortgage approval, a rate offer or a quote, and it is not financial, mortgage, legal, tax or insurance advice. It does not model rate changes part-way through a term, prepayments, porting a mortgage, HELOCs, or rental and multi-unit purchases. Land transfer tax is shown for a property with one or two single-family homes.
Your actual payments, premium, taxes, rebates and closing costs depend on your lender, your insurer, your own circumstances and the final terms of your purchase. Before you decide anything, check every figure with a licensed mortgage agent or your lender, a real estate lawyer, and an accountant or tax advisor.
Try it with your own numbers
Put your price and your province into the calculator, or install it as an app so it is on your phone at the next showing. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Questions about any of it — A. Q. Mufti, Sales Representative, RE/MAX Real Estate Centre Inc., Brokerage. Get in touch.
