2026 Canadian Tax and Payroll Rates

Federal tax brackets and amounts

Basic personal amounts by province and territory

Provincial and territorial tax brackets

Every jurisdiction below uses the same taxable-income base the federal bracket table above does. Quebec runs its own formula on top of these brackets — see “Quebec’s separate system” further down.

Alberta

British Columbia

Manitoba

New Brunswick

Newfoundland and Labrador

Nova Scotia

Northwest Territories

Nunavut

Ontario

Prince Edward Island

Quebec

Saskatchewan

Yukon

RRSP contribution room

CPP and QPP contribution rates

EI and QPIP premiums

Ontario surtax and tax reduction

Ontario Health Premium schedule

British Columbia tax reduction

Dividend gross-up and dividend tax credit

Corporate small business deduction rates

OAS payments and the recovery tax (clawback)

Mortgage stress test and qualifying rules

Minimum down payment

CMHC mortgage default insurance premium

A purchase only requires insurance once the loan-to-value passes 80% (down payment under 20%); the bands at or below 80% shown above price refinance and portfolio insurance, which this site's calculator does not cover.

How to read these tables

These tables are a reference, not a calculator: they show the raw figures — the thresholds, rates and ceilings — that Countworthy's Canadian calculators combine into a result for your own income. If you want an actual number for your situation, follow a table's caption link to the calculator built on it. If you just want to know where a bracket starts or what this year's CPP ceiling is, the tables above answer that directly.

Tax brackets, and marginal vs. average rate

Canadian income tax is progressive: each bracket's rate applies only to the slice of income that falls inside it, not to your whole income. A bracket table's rows are exactly those slices — "taxable income between this row's floor and its upper threshold is taxed at this row's rate." Your marginal rate is the rate on the bracket your last dollar falls into; your average rate is total tax divided by total income, which is always lower, since every dollar below the top bracket was taxed at a lower rate on the way up. Both federal and provincial tax are calculated the same way, from the same taxable income, and then added together — which is why a take-home figure needs both a federal and a provincial bracket table, not just one.

The basic personal amount, and how a phase-out works

The basic personal amount (BPA) is a slice of income every resident of a jurisdiction gets tax-free, applied as a credit rather than a bracket. Most provinces set one flat BPA for everyone. A few don't: the federal BPA (and Yukon's, which mirrors it) is highest for modest incomes and shrinks in a straight line across a stated income range until it settles at a lower floor for high earners — a "phase-out." Manitoba runs its own phase-out over a different range, down to zero rather than to a floor. The basic personal amounts table above marks which jurisdictions do this and over what range; every other jurisdiction's BPA is the same figure at every income level.

CPP, CPP2, and what YMPE and YAMPE mean

CPP (QPP in Quebec) is a mandatory contribution toward a future pension, not a tax. The base contribution earns a tax credit at the lowest rate; the enhanced layers (the first additional tier and all of CPP2) are instead deducted from taxable income before tax is calculated. It applies to earnings between a basic exemption and a ceiling called the Year's Maximum Pensionable Earnings, or YMPE — Canada's shorthand for "the highest dollar of earnings CPP contributions are calculated on." A second, separate contribution called CPP2 (added in 2024) applies only to earnings between the YMPE and a second, higher ceiling, the Year's Additional Maximum Pensionable Earnings, or YAMPE — extending contributions, and future benefits, a little further up the income scale for higher earners. Below the YMPE you pay only the base contribution; between the YMPE and the YAMPE the base contribution has stopped and only CPP2 applies; above the YAMPE, CPP stops entirely for the year. Quebec runs the identical two-ceiling structure as QPP, at its own rates.

EI, and Quebec's QPIP difference

EI premiums are a percentage of insurable earnings up to their own maximum insurable earnings ceiling, separate from CPP's. Quebec workers pay a reduced EI rate because Quebec runs its own parental-leave program, QPIP, which covers benefits EI provides everywhere else in Canada — so a Quebec paycheque shows a smaller EI line and a separate QPIP line instead, on its own insurable-earnings ceiling.

Ontario's surtax, tax reduction and Health Premium

Ontario layers two extra calculations on top of its own bracket tax. A surtax adds a percentage on top of Ontario tax itself once that tax crosses a threshold, and a second, higher percentage once it crosses a second threshold — a real jump in the effective marginal rate for anyone who crosses those lines. The Ontario tax reduction works the opposite way: it cancels a small amount of tax entirely for lower earners, then claws itself back as income rises. The Ontario Health Premium is a separate, non-refundable charge based directly on taxable income, phased in over short income ranges between flat steps — it is not itself subject to the surtax or any credit.

British Columbia's tax reduction

BC's equivalent low-income relief is a flat-dollar credit available up to a stated net-income threshold, then reduced at a fixed rate for every dollar above it until it reaches zero — a straight subtraction from BC tax after the usual credits, rather than a bracket adjustment.

Quebec's separate system

Quebec is the only province that collects its own income tax and runs its own pension (QPP) and parental-insurance (QPIP) plans instead of the federal versions. Its tax formula has the same shape as every other province's — bracket rate on taxable income, less a credit for the basic personal amount — but what comes off income before that calculation differs: Quebec's own deduction for workers and its own treatment of the enhanced QPP layer both apply before the federal-style formula ever runs. Quebec residents also receive a flat federal abatement, a reduction of federal tax that exists because Quebec, not the CRA, administers its own provincial system.

Dividend gross-up and the dividend tax credit

A Canadian-source dividend is "grossed up" before it is taxed — multiplied above 100% to approximate the pre-tax corporate income it came from — and then reduced by a dividend tax credit at both the federal and provincial level, meant to credit back the corporate tax already paid on that income. Eligible dividends (generally from larger corporations paying the general corporate rate) carry a bigger gross-up and a bigger credit than non-eligible dividends (generally from a small business paying the lower small-business rate), because more corporate tax was paid on the income behind them in the first place.

The small business deduction

A Canadian-controlled private corporation pays a reduced combined federal-and-provincial rate — the small business deduction — on active business income up to an annual business limit, and the regular, higher general rate on anything above it. The rate that applies determines how much after-tax cash a corporation has left to pay out as a dividend, and which kind of dividend (eligible or non-eligible) that payout becomes.

OAS and the recovery tax ("clawback")

Old Age Security pays a flat monthly amount that does not depend on your income, but a separate "recovery tax" — the clawback — claws back a percentage of any net income above an annual threshold, up to the full amount of OAS received. The threshold where the clawback starts is the same at every age, but the maximum payment is higher from age 75, which is why the tables above give a separate income-where-OAS-reaches-zero figure for each age band rather than one number for everyone.

The mortgage stress test

A federally regulated lender cannot qualify a mortgage at the rate a borrower will actually pay. Instead it must use a "qualifying rate" — whichever is higher of the contract rate plus a fixed buffer, or a stated floor — and check the resulting payment against two debt-service ratios, Gross Debt Service and Total Debt Service, each capped at its own percentage of income. Separately, mortgages with a down payment under 20% must be insured, which adds a premium (and, in a few provinces, sales tax on that premium) calculated from the loan-to-value band the down payment falls into. This stress test binds federally regulated lenders and insured mortgages; provincially regulated lenders such as many credit unions may qualify a borrower differently.

This page states published 2026 figures and how each one is used — it is not tax or financial advice, and it is not a substitute for a return prepared with your own numbers. Use the linked calculator for a result based on your own income and province.