Taxes & Fees Hidden in
Housing
Taxes and fees on housing are growing unsustainably, funding greedy government bureaucracies with ballooning management ranks that add more regulations which stifle homebuilding efforts.
A recent red tape study by the Business Council of Canada found a wait of "nearly 250 days to get a building permit." Canada’s regulatory burden has grown by 37% since 2006, with over 321,000 requirements on the books.
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Endless, new regulations also add costs! This East Van home builder, Avi, said in a viral tweet that city staff required his "simple" bathroom renovation submit an expensive tree expert report.
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Vancouver single-family home buyers face government fees, charges and regulatory costs that are “63 per cent of the final sale cost,” according to the 2023 CD Howe report. That amounts to $1.3M of an average sale-priced $2M home. "Homes in the Toronto area now cost homebuyers $350,000 extra over the cost to build."
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This Nanaimo, BC resident criticized his city's decision to double development fees, impacting first-time buyers especially. "Council should do the right thing and remove all punitive development fees. The province should cut land transfer taxes on affordable housing. Then watch the boom in developments of affordable homes."
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Below are charts of taxes/fees by all FOUR levels of government on typical rental and condo homes in British Columbia. And these charts are a couple years old! Fees have only increased since then.
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A new economic analysis finds: "The biggest cost in the price of a new home is taxation, making the three levels of government the top beneficiary of the construction of a new home.
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Taxes and fees now comprise an average of about 35.6 per cent of the price of a new home, which is 16 per cent (or five percentage points) higher than at the start of the decade. About 70 per cent of those charges are for development charges for sewer, water and electricity, land-transfer taxes, and HST. The other 30 per cent is for the indirect income and corporate taxes paid throughout the supply chain, but ultimately passed on to buyers." -National Post Sept. 29/25
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Around 73,000 "approved" homes in Metro Vancouver are not moving to construction because they're now too costly to build, buy or rent.
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Missing Middle Housing founding director Mike Moffat states in the Hub: "If we want to make quality homes affordable to the middle class again, we need to stop taxing them out of existence. Cut the cost of homebuilding, or face the double blow of fewer homes and 100,000 lost jobs.
-British Columbia Housing Charts below from Property Tax Professional Paul Sullivan, Ryan ULC.
Government Cost:
$368,511 or 29.25% Vancouver Two-Bed
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Government Cost:
$79,877 or 12.97% Kelowna Two-Bed
Rental Taxation Vancouver
Metro Vancouver Government Sewage Fee up 235%
The regional government sewage fee (Development Cost Charge) for a new apartment in Vancouver was $6,249 last year. From $13,392 this year, it's being hiked to $17,873 in 2026 and $20,906 in 2027. That’s a 235 per cent fee increase on builders, passed on to buyers and renters.
“We’re taxing new homes at the same rate, relatively, as we do cigarettes,” said Kevin Layden, president and CEO of Wesbild Holdings Ltd. in BIV News.
Ontario's Fees Hidden in
Housing
“Development charges increase the cost of homes for everyone. They are a housing tax. During a housing crisis, we don’t think you should raise taxes on housing,” said Housing Minister Sean Fraser of the City of Ottawa’s decision to increase development charges by up to 13% in May.​
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​In 2024, Toronto raised development charges on each home (unit) twice, totalling a 40% increase when homebuilding and sales had slowed.​
​This chart shows how much civic governments are choking off housing with massive fee hikes. This does not even include all the various taxes by other levels of government embedded in the final cost to buy or rent.
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Provincial and federal government taxes on housing are also worsening affordability.
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Ottawa journalist Randall Denley wrote: "The most effective solution to high housing prices is painfully obvious, but neither the provincial nor federal government is willing to act. A new home priced at $1 million includes $130,000 in federal and provincial sales taxes. Buyers don’t see the charge because it’s embedded in the home price. Both levels of government are willing to spend billions on what they hope will be housing solutions, but they are unwilling to stop taxing housing, ignoring the well-known wisdom that if you want less of something, tax it. It’s time to axe the tax."
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One city government is showing leadership. The City of Brampton, Ontario just announced it will reduce or eliminate fees on apartments for rentals by up to 100%. In 2018, a Brampton developer would have been charged $54,197 for a larger apartment. That fee is now over $100,000. -Storeys News
Time for
Transparency?
Buyers and renters deserve more transparency in real estate sales and rental contracts.
Ken Grafton, a Quebec writer for the Hamilton Spectator and The Chicago Tribune and
Marc Denhez , an author, lawyer, Canadian Institute of Planners award winner wrote about this recently.
"We can blame the housing crunch instead on foreign investors or on owners who leave their property vacant or who convert housing to B&B, but the reality is that public sector policies contribute directly to the high cost of housing in Canada.
In Canada, sales taxes on ... food and clothing — when applicable at all — are transparently listed on the consumer’s bill of sale; but most of the buffet of taxes and charges on housing, ... never make their way to the consumer’s Agreement of Purchase & Sale. They are buried in the “supply chain” never to be seen again, except in the inflated total figure at the bottom of the page."
- Storeys, Jan. 9, 2024 Cash Cow: Government taxes and fees on new housing
Housing
Fact
A recent Statistics Canada study confirmed MOST HOMEOWNERS IN BC are government workers,
not foreign buyers, not flippers,
not speculators, not short-term rental owners.
Housing
Cash Cow?
Isn't it time to tell governments to stop using homes like bank machines or cash cows?
That's why you can't afford to buy or rent a new home.
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Make them listen or future generations will also be shut out of home ownership. Share if you care!
A Housing Affordability Comparison
Canada versus USA Major Cities
Hanif Bayat, PhD, CEO & founder of WOWA.ca, a Canadian personal finance platform analyzed for the Globe and Mail housing affordability in major cities across the USA and Canada. He compared typical Benchmark Home Prices, Median Incomes, Population and calculated the Affordability Ratio (Home Price divided by Income).
Vancouver and Toronto were at 1st and 3rd place in the top three most unaffordable cities, much of that driven of course by governments, fees, taxes and regulatory costs. These costs have only increased over the last decade as governments merely "talk" about addressing housing affordability issues as a hundred thousand jobs were lost in construction and real estate over the past year 2025.
