Most of my buyers ask me about the purchase price, the mortgage rate, and the closing costs. Far fewer ask me about property tax, and yet it is the bill that arrives every single year for as long as they own the home. I wrote about this on my old website back in 2008, with a warning I still believe: when you are buying a home, property tax is nearly as important an issue as the price. Let me show you why, with the current numbers in front of us.
Why property tax deserves a place in your buying decision
The purchase price is paid once. Property tax is paid every year, and it follows the home, not you. Two houses listed at the same price in two different municipalities can carry annual tax bills that differ by thousands of dollars, and over a decade of ownership that gap is real money, the kind that quietly changes what you can afford.
It matters at resale too. A home in a high-rate municipality can give a future buyer pause, the same way it should give you pause now. So this is not an after-thought to sort out with your lawyer at closing. It belongs in the comparison you make before you offer.
How property tax is actually calculated
Your annual tax is a simple multiplication:
Assessed value × total residential tax rate = annual property tax
The total residential rate is itself built from three parts. In a two-tier region like York or Peel, you pay a local portion (your city or town), a regional portion (York Region, Peel Region), and a province-set education portion that is the same everywhere (0.153% in 2025). Toronto is a single-tier city, so it has no separate regional line, but it adds a small City Building Fund levy.
Hold on to that middle piece, the regional portion, because it turns out to be the part that explains most of the difference between one GTA municipality and another.
How the GTA municipalities compare in 2026
Here are the current published residential rates. I have labelled each with its tax year, because most municipalities pass the new year’s rate as a council by-law in the spring; as of mid-2026, Richmond Hill is the only one of these with a final 2026 rate published, so the others show their most recent final (2025) rate.
| Municipality | Tax year | Residential rate | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| Markham | 2025 | 0.700278% | York |
| Vaughan | 2025 | 0.732687% | York |
| City of Toronto | 2025 | 0.754087% | (single-tier) |
| Richmond Hill | 2026 | 0.760104% | York |
| Aurora | 2025 | 0.850893% | York |
| Newmarket | 2025 | 0.891649% | York |
| Mississauga | 2025 | 1.033864% | Peel |
| Brampton | 2025 | 1.200644% | Peel |
Rates from each municipality’s published tax-rate page (City of Toronto, Richmond Hill) and the shared York Region and education components, which I cross-checked against each town’s figures.
The honest version of “the 905 is more expensive”
When I first compared GTA tax rates in 2008, the easy story was “Toronto is cheap, the suburbs are dear.” In 2026 that story is only half true, and I would be doing you a disservice to repeat the half that has gone stale.
The part that still holds: the regional tax level drives the spread. Peel Region (Mississauga, Brampton) levies far more than York Region, which is why a Brampton homeowner pays meaningfully more per dollar of assessed value than a homeowner in Toronto or York. If you are choosing between, say, Vaughan and Brampton, the regional difference is the headline.
The part that has changed: inside York Region, several towns now sit at or below Toronto’s rate. Markham and Vaughan both come in under Toronto, and Richmond Hill, my own home base, is within a hair of it. Toronto is no longer “the cheapest in the GTA”; it is competitive, in the middle of the York pack. So if someone tells you to buy in the 416 to save on property tax versus York Region, the current numbers do not back that up. The real saving is staying out of the higher-levy regions, not crossing the Toronto boundary.
The number that surprises almost everyone: your bill is built on a 2016 value
Here is the part I make sure every buyer understands, because it is genuinely counter-intuitive.
You would assume your property tax is based on what your home is worth today. It is not. Ontario has postponed its province-wide reassessment every year since 2020, and the 2026 tax year still uses the assessed value as of January 1, 2016. That is about ten years old. A home selling today for $1.5 million may still be assessed near its 2016 value, often comfortably under $1.1 million.
This matters in two practical ways:
- Do not estimate your tax by multiplying the rate by your purchase price. That overstates the real bill, sometimes badly, because the rate is applied to the lower 2016 assessment, not your 2026 price. When a listing quotes “annual taxes,” that figure is tied to the current assessment; ask your agent or lawyer to confirm it rather than recomputing from the sale price.
- A renovation or addition can raise your assessment even while the general freeze holds, because MPAC can update the recorded details of a specific property. If you are buying a recently and heavily renovated home, the listed tax figure may not reflect a coming reassessment of those improvements.
There is an old joke I posted years ago about how a house looks different to everyone in the transaction: the owner sees a castle, the buyer sees the flaws, the lender sees the loan, the appraiser sees the comparables, and the municipal assessor sees a number all his own. The joke has a real point. The assessor’s number is not your purchase price and not the appraiser’s value; in 2026 it is a 2016 snapshot. Knowing that keeps you from over-budgeting your taxes, and from being surprised when a neighbour’s near-identical home carries a different bill.
If you think your assessment is wrong
Because the assessment is frozen at 2016, most successful challenges today are not about “the market moved.” They are about errors in the recorded facts of your property: the wrong square footage, an incorrect lot size, a finished-basement flag that should not be there. If something looks off, you can file a Request for Reconsideration with MPAC at no cost, and if you disagree with the outcome, appeal to the Assessment Review Board. Start at MPAC’s site to see how your home was assessed and what details they have on file.
The teacher’s summary
Property tax is the quiet line in the cost of owning, and it deserves a look before you offer, not after. Three things to carry with you:
- Compare the total residential rate between the municipalities you are weighing, and remember the regional levy, not the city name, is what usually moves the number. Peel runs high; Toronto and the York towns run close together.
- Do not compute your tax from the purchase price. It is built on a frozen 2016 assessment, so ask for the actual current figure.
- If the recorded details of a home look wrong, the reconsideration process is free and worth using.
If you are comparing homes across a few municipalities and want the real annual-cost picture, send me the addresses. I will pull the current assessed values and tax figures, lay them side by side with the purchase prices, and give you my honest read of what each one really costs to own. No cost, no obligation, and no pressure to go further than a conversation.