Updated Checked by the Tax-Services.ca editorial team How we check
A GST calculator does one sum: it multiplies your price by the tax rate for the province where the sale happens. On a $1,000 purchase that’s $50 of GST in Alberta, $130 of HST in Ontario and $120 of GST plus PST in British Columbia. The hard part is knowing which rate applies, not the arithmetic.
Which rate does the GST calculator use?
The province decides. Every sale starts from the 5% federal GST. Five provinces blend that with their own tax into one HST: Ontario plus the four Atlantic provinces. The rest either charge a separate provincial sales tax on top or stop at the 5%.
The table shows what each province adds to a $1,000 price before tax, worked out with our GST and HST calculator.
| Province | Tax | Rate | Tax on $1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alberta (also Yukon, NWT, Nunavut) | GST only | 5% | $50.00 |
| Ontario | HST | 13% | $130.00 |
| Nova Scotia | HST | 14% | $140.00 |
| New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI | HST | 15% | $150.00 |
| British Columbia | GST + 7% PST | 12% | $120.00 |
| Saskatchewan | GST + 6% PST | 11% | $110.00 |
| Quebec | GST + QST | 14.975% | $149.75 |
Nova Scotia’s rate is the one that moved lately. The CRA lists 14% from 1 April 2025, down from 15%. Manitoba has its own 7% retail sales tax on top of GST, so look at the province’s own site before you rely on it.
How do you work out GST by hand?
Multiply the price by 0.05 for GST, or by 0.13 for Ontario HST. That’s it. Short, yes. A $84.99 item in Alberta carries $4.25 of GST, so you pay $89.24.
For small purchases, a mental shortcut is fine. A $4 coffee in Alberta carries 20 cents of GST, a loonie’s worth of tax is what you’d see on a $20 item, and in Ontario that same $4 coffee adds 52 cents. Skip the shortcut for anything you’ll claim, since receipts need the exact cents.
Quebec is where people get caught. The QST is figured on the price before GST, not on the price plus GST. On $1,000 that gives $50 of GST and $99.75 of QST, or $149.75 in all. If you put QST on top of the GST-inclusive price, you’d overcharge by about $5. The GST and QST calculator handles that order for you.
How do you take GST out of a total?
Divide by one plus the rate, which for Ontario means dividing by 1.13 and for Alberta dividing by 1.05, and then the gap between what you started with and what you got is the tax. Don’t just subtract 13% from a total, because 13% of the total is more than 13% of the price. An Ontario receipt for $565.00 holds $65.00 of HST on a $500.00 price. Take 13% off $565 and you’d get $73.45, which is wrong.
The reverse HST calculator does this when you have the final price and need the tax for a claim or a bookkeeping entry. It’s a handy check on an invoice that doesn’t show the tax line.
Which rate applies to an online order?
The CRA calls it the place of supply: the province where a sale is treated as made, and that is what sets the rate. A seller in Calgary shipping to a customer in Halifax can’t just assume 5%. The CRA’s page on which GST/HST rate to charge uses delivery examples like this one, and it lists Nova Scotia at 14% from 1 April 2025.
So a $2,400 laptop delivered to Nova Scotia would carry $336 of HST at 14%, for $2,736, using the same simple sum as before. As a shopper you rarely need the rule, since the checkout adds the tax. As a seller, it’s worth reading once before you open a shop.
Where does the calculator go wrong?
It adds one rate to the whole amount. Real sales aren’t always that tidy. Some goods and services carry no GST at all, and some provinces tax certain items at a lower provincial rate or not at all. Our tool doesn’t know what you’re buying. Nobody typing a number into a box can tell it, and that’s the limit of any quick calculator, ours included, however neatly it rounds the cents.
British Columbia is the clearest case. The GST and PST calculator applies the full 7% PST to every amount you enter. If part of the bill is something the PST doesn’t cover, the result is too high. Check the item against the province’s PST page first.
Two more limits. Rounding can shift the total by a cent against a store’s till, because shops round each line or the whole bill in different ways. And if you run a business, a calculator won’t tell you if you must register or what you can claim back. Those answers sit on the CRA’s GST/HST pages, and if your books are tangled with several tax types, an accountant who does small business files is the person to ask.
What does GST cost on a house or a big purchase?
On a large bill the rate matters a lot. A $600,000 new home in Ontario carries 13% HST on paper, which is $78,000, before any rebate. Rebates can cut that, so use the new housing rebate calculator to see what you’d get back. The rules for the federal first-time buyers’ rebate and the Ontario one are different, and each has price limits.
Sales tax isn’t the only big bill at closing either, and the land transfer tax calculator shows the other one.
Where this information comes from
The federal and HST rates come from the Canada Revenue Agency‘s GST/HST rates table, read in September 2026. Provincial sales tax rates come from the British Columbia and Saskatchewan government sales tax pages. The Quebec rate is Revenu Québec‘s QST, 9.975% of the price before GST, so confirm it there before you use it for anything that matters. We’re an independent site, and no government body is behind it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the GST rate in Canada?
The federal GST is 5%. Ontario and the Atlantic provinces replace it with a single HST of 13% to 15%.
How do I calculate GST on a price?
Multiply the price before tax by 0.05. In an HST province, multiply by the HST rate instead, such as 0.13 in Ontario.
How do I remove GST from a total?
Divide the total by 1.05, or by one plus your provincial rate. The difference is the tax.
Is QST charged on top of GST?
QST is figured on the price before GST, so the two taxes don't stack on each other. On $1,000 the total tax is $149.75.
Does a GST calculator work for business claims?
It shows the tax on an amount. Claiming it back turns on your registration and the purchase, so check the CRA pages.
- GST, HST, PST and QST explained for every province
Which GST, HST, PST or QST applies where you shop or sell in Canada, the 2026 rates for every province, who must register and how to add or remove tax