A $900,000 Ontario purchase closes with about $23,701 due on top of the price, and about $38,292 inside Toronto. Every line itemised, with the source for each figure and which ones you can avoid.
Written by Hamidreza Etebarian on
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A $900,000 purchase anywhere in Ontario closes with roughly $23,701 due on top of the price, and the same purchase inside the City of Toronto closes with roughly $38,292. Land transfer tax is the biggest line in both numbers, but it is not the only one, and almost every other line falls due the same day. Zealty shows 65,440 active listings across Ontario right now, 8,681 of them in Toronto (Zealty active listing count, pulled September 28, 2026). Here is every cost in the stack, where each figure comes from, and which ones you can avoid.
Ontario charges land transfer tax on a marginal scale: 0.5 per cent up to $55,000, 1.0 per cent from there to $250,000, 1.5 per cent to $400,000, 2.0 per cent to $2,000,000, and 2.5 per cent above $2,000,000 on property with one or two single family residences (Ontario Ministry of Finance, Calculating Land Transfer Tax, retrieved September 28, 2026). On $900,000 that comes to $14,475.
Buy inside the City of Toronto and you pay a second tax on the same transaction. The municipal brackets mirror the provincial ones up to $2,000,000, so the Toronto buyer pays $14,475 again, plus a Municipal Land Transfer Tax Administration Fee of $102.56 plus HST, which is $115.89. Above $3,000,000 the municipal rates climb past the provincial ones under the graduated high-value schedule effective April 1, 2026, reaching 8.60 per cent over $20,000,000 (City of Toronto, MLTT Rates & Fees, retrieved September 28, 2026). Our Toronto land transfer tax guide works the full bracket math at several price points.
First-time buyers get money back on both. Ontario refunds up to $4,000 (Ontario Ministry of Finance, Land Transfer Tax Refunds for First-Time Homebuyers, retrieved September 28, 2026), and Toronto rebates up to $4,475 (City of Toronto, MLTT Rebate Opportunities, retrieved September 28, 2026). Both require you to be at least 18, a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and never to have owned a home anywhere in the world. A spouse who owned one while married to you disqualifies the claim.
Your lawyer's fee for a straightforward purchase is commonly quoted between $1,200 and $1,800, and disbursements add several hundred more: registration charges, a title search, software fees, couriers and searches ordered from the municipality and the utilities. Budget $2,200 all in and ask for the quote as one number, because a low advertised fee with open-ended disbursements is the usual closing-day surprise. These are market prices, not statutory rates.
Title insurance is a one-time premium, usually $300 to $500 at this price, covering title defects, fraud and some survey problems. You buy it through your lawyer at closing. Your lender will require a policy on the mortgage, so your real choice is about the owner's coverage, not whether a policy exists.
A condo purchase adds a status certificate, which reports the unit's fee arrears, the corporation's reserve fund position, any looming special assessment and any litigation. Ontario caps the charge at $100 including all applicable taxes, and the corporation has ten days to produce it (Condominium Authority of Ontario, Status Certificates, retrieved September 28, 2026). Rush delivery costs extra. Your lawyer should read it before your condition period expires.
A home inspection on a typical Ontario house runs $400 to $700, more for a large or older property. A lender appraisal runs $300 to $500 and is sometimes waived on an insured mortgage, because the insurer's automated valuation is enough. Both are estimates.
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Adjustments are not a fee. They are a reimbursement, and they catch buyers out because nobody mentions them until the statement of adjustments arrives. If the seller already paid the year's property tax and you close on September 1, you owe back the share covering September 1 to December 31. On a $4,200 annual bill that is 122 days, or $1,404. The same applies to prepaid utilities, prepaid condo fees and the fuel left in a rural property's tank.
The amount depends on the property and the closing date, so ask your lawyer for a draft statement before closing day.
A resale home does not attract HST. The sale of used housing that has not been substantially renovated is an exempt supply, so the 13 per cent never touches the price (Canada Revenue Agency, GST/HST Memorandum 19-2-1, Residential Real Property, Sales, retrieved September 28, 2026).
A new build is different. HST at 13 per cent applies, though builders usually quote a price with the tax and the new housing rebate folded in and the rebate assigned to them. The federal portion of that rebate phases out between $350,000 and $450,000 of fair market value and is gone above $450,000, while the Ontario portion is capped at $24,000 (Canada Revenue Agency, RC4028 GST/HST New Housing Rebate, retrieved September 28, 2026). At $900,000 a repeat buyer is left with the Ontario cap and nothing else. Confirm in the agreement of purchase and sale whether the price includes HST, because if it does not, the tax is a six-figure line on closing day.
First-time buyers now have a second rebate. The first-time home buyers' GST/HST rebate returns the full federal five per cent, up to $50,000, on a new home valued at or under $1 million, and it tapers to nothing at $1.5 million (Canada Revenue Agency, First-time home buyers' GST/HST rebate, retrieved September 28, 2026). On a $900,000 base price that is roughly $45,000, by far the largest saving in this article. The conditions are strict. Your agreement of purchase and sale with the builder has to be dated on or after March 20, 2025 and before 2031, you have to be the first person to live in the home, and neither you nor your spouse can have lived in a home you owned in the current calendar year or the four before it. The rebate covers the federal portion of the HST only, so the Ontario eight per cent and its $24,000 cap are unchanged.
Put less than 20 per cent down and your mortgage has to be insured, and in Ontario that premium is taxed. Retail Sales Tax at eight per cent applies to premiums paid under taxable insurance contracts (Ontario Ministry of Finance, Retail Sales Tax, Insurance and Benefits Plans, retrieved September 28, 2026). The eight per cent is due in cash at closing, because the tax cannot be added to the loan amount (CMHC, Premium Information for Homeowner and Small Rental Loans, retrieved September 28, 2026). The premium is financed into the mortgage. The tax on it is not.
The minimum down payment on a $900,000 home is 5 per cent of the first $500,000 plus 10 per cent of the rest, or $65,000 (Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, Down payment, retrieved September 28, 2026). That leaves an $835,000 mortgage at roughly 92.8 per cent loan-to-value, inside CMHC's 90.01 to 95 per cent band at a 4.00 per cent premium, or $33,400. Eight per cent of that is $2,672, due on closing. A buyer putting 20 per cent down pays none of it.
A local move with movers for a two-bedroom or three-bedroom home commonly runs $1,000 to $2,500, more in peak season and more again over distance. Budget $1,500 and count it in the closing stack, because it lands the same week as everything else.
Assume a condo, the minimum down payment, a September 1 closing and a $4,200 annual tax bill the seller already paid.
That is $23,701 outside the City of Toronto. Inside Toronto, add the municipal land transfer tax of $14,475 and the $115.89 administration fee, and the total becomes $38,292. A first-time buyer claiming both refunds pays $19,701 outside Toronto and $29,817 inside it.
No figure above is derived from British Columbia data. Our BC closing costs breakdown runs the same exercise under British Columbia's property transfer tax, and the two stacks do not map onto each other.
Four lines are fixed the moment you sign. Land transfer tax is charged on registration, with no way around it beyond the first-time buyer refunds. Adjustments are money the seller already spent on your behalf. Legal fees are unavoidable in substance, because an Ontario purchase has to be closed by a lawyer. HST on a new build is set by the agreement.
Three are optional, and one of them should not be. You can waive a home inspection, and in a competitive offer many buyers do, but that trades a $550 cost for an unpriced repair risk. Moving costs shrink if you rent a truck. An owner's title policy is a choice; your lender's policy is not.
One line disappears with a bigger down payment. Reach 20 per cent and the mortgage needs no default insurance, so the $2,672 of PST goes away with the $33,400 premium that would otherwise ride on the mortgage for its full term.
You can browse active Ontario listings or narrow to Toronto on Zealty and save the search so new matches reach you. Ontario listing data on Zealty comes from the CREA Data Distribution Facility (DDF) feed, and it covers active listings rather than sold history.
This article is educational and is not tax or legal advice. Every figure above is either a statutory rate confirmed with the issuing authority on September 28, 2026 or a market estimate labelled as one. Confirm your own numbers with your lawyer and lender.
NOTE: This representation is based in whole or in part on data generated by Greater Vancouver REALTORS®, Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, Chilliwack and District Real Estate Board, or The Canadian Real Estate Association which assume no responsibility for its accuracy. This information is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed accurate by these organizations or by the agent or brokerage hosting this website. Data presented here is under the license agreement of Holywell Properties, a British Columbia Brokerage.
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Buy in the City of Toronto and you pay land transfer tax twice, once to Ontario and once to the city. Here is the bracket math at real Toronto asking prices, plus both first-time buyer rebates.
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Toronto charges 3% of assessed value on homes left empty six months or more, and every owner must declare each year. Here are the rules, the exemptions, and what a buyer inherits at closing.
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Closing costs on a $1M home in BC run $25,000 to $40,000 in cash on top of your down payment. Here's the full 2026 breakdown: PTT, GST, legal, CMHC, and adjustments, with a worked example.
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