Updated Checked by the Tax-Services.ca editorial team How we check
Toronto Revenue Services is a division of the City of Toronto, not the Canada Revenue Agency. It bills and collects property tax, water and waste charges, and the municipal land transfer tax. Your income tax is handled by a different body, and mixing the two up costs people a lot of time on hold.
We’re assuming you meant the city division, since the name matches it. If you came for income tax, the links further down will get you there.
What does Toronto Revenue Services handle?
The city’s own pages describe the work. Revenue Services deals with property tax billing, payments and collections, and utility billing for water, sewage and solid waste. It also runs the tax and water relief programs, assessment appeals, and payments for parking tickets.
Three taxes you might meet around a home purchase sit with it too: the Municipal Land Transfer Tax (MLTT), the Municipal Non-Resident Speculation Tax and the Vacant Home Tax. For general city questions, residents are pointed to 311.
What it doesn’t touch is your paycheque tax, your T1 return or HST. Those belong to the CRA. The income tax calculator covers the federal and Ontario side if that’s what you were after.
How is Toronto’s land transfer tax worked out?
This is the bill where the numbers surprise buyers. Toronto charges its own tax on top of Ontario’s, using the same style of graduated bands, so each slice of the price gets its own rate. For a one or two family home, the city’s page shows these bands from April 1, 2026.
| Part of the price | MLTT rate |
|---|---|
| Up to $55,000 | 0.5% |
| $55,000 to $250,000 | 1.0% |
| $250,000 to $400,000 | 1.5% |
| $400,000 to $2,000,000 | 2.0% |
| $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 | 2.5% |
| $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 | 4.4% |
| $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 | 5.45% |
| $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 | 6.5% |
| $10,000,000 to $20,000,000 | 7.55% |
| Over $20,000,000 | 8.6% |
Other kinds of property use an older scale, which is 2% on everything above $400,000. The non-resident speculation tax is a flat 10%, in place since January 1, 2025.
What does it cost on a $900,000 home?
Run the bands and you get $14,475 of Toronto tax: $275 on the first $55,000, $1,950 on the next $195,000, $2,250 on the next $150,000 and $10,000 on the last $500,000. Ontario’s land transfer tax has the same bands up to $2 million, as the province’s page on calculating land transfer tax shows, so the province takes $14,475 too. That’s $28,950 together before any rebate, which is a serious pile of money to find on closing day.
A smaller purchase shows the same pattern. On $600,000 the same bands give $275, $1,950, $2,250 and then $4,000 on the last $200,000, so $8,475 to the city and another $8,475 to the province, or $16,950 in all. Nothing about the bands is hidden. The surprise is just that people budget for one tax and get two.
First-time buyers get relief, but we can’t give you a dollar figure with confidence. The city’s rebate page still showed up to $4,475 when we looked, yet a council item had proposed a bigger rebate from March 2026 and we couldn’t see how it ended. Check the rebate page again before you budget. Ontario’s own refund for first-time buyers is up to $4,000, and you have 18 months after closing to ask for it.
Put your own price into the land transfer tax calculator, then add the other costs with the closing costs calculator. Buying from abroad? The non-resident buyer tax calculator covers that case.
What about the yearly property tax bill?
Every year you own, a property tax bill arrives. A ballpark number is on offer in the property tax calculator. We haven’t quoted Toronto’s current rates here because we didn’t confirm them on a city page, so go by your own bill for the real figure.
Think the assessment is too high? Appeals are listed among the services Revenue Services runs, and the city page that explains them is where you’ll find the deadlines. Miss one and you wait for next year.
Who do you call about what?
Say Dana in Scarborough gets an envelope and isn’t sure whose it is. A notice of assessment for income tax comes from the CRA. A property tax bill, a water bill or a Vacant Home Tax notice comes from the city. Different offices, different phone numbers, and neither can see the other’s records.
Two other slips are worth dodging. Buyers often forget the MLTT is a second tax, so quoting only the provincial figure leaves thousands of dollars out of a Toronto budget. And people trust a rebate amount they read last year, on a page the city may have updated since.
The sources behind this page
The list of services and the MLTT bands come from the City of Toronto’s pages on Revenue Services and MLTT rates and fees. The Ontario bands were checked against Ontario’s land transfer tax page, and the worked example is our own arithmetic. This site has no link to the City of Toronto, the province or the CRA.
Frequently asked questions
Is Toronto Revenue Services the same as the CRA?
No. It is a City of Toronto division. The CRA handles federal and Ontario income tax, and the city handles property tax, utility bills and the MLTT.
What does Toronto Revenue Services bill?
Property tax, water, sewage and solid waste charges, parking violations, the Municipal Land Transfer Tax, the Municipal Non-Resident Speculation Tax and the Vacant Home Tax.
How much is the Toronto land transfer tax on $900,000?
$14,475 on a one or two family home under the 2026 bands, before any rebate. Ontario's own tax adds $14,475.
Who do I call about a city bill?
The city's page points residents to 311 for general questions.
Is the first-time buyer rebate $4,475?
The city page we could see says up to $4,475, but a council proposal may have changed it. Check the rebate page before you rely on it.
- How Canadian income tax works: brackets and credits
How federal and provincial Canadian income tax stack up, what marginal and average rates mean, and how credits and deductions change your bill