HST on new and substantially renovated homes in Ontario

Two boxes on every Ontario sale form ask about HST: whether it applies to the sale price, and whether the list price has been reduced by the HST rebate. On a resale house they’re answered No in a second. On a new build, a gutted flip or an assignment, the answers decide what the buyer pays, and 2026 changed the rebates more than any year since the HST arrived. Here’s what a listing agent needs to know, from the Canada Revenue Agency’s own pages; the buyer’s lawyer and accountant settle the particular deal.

When HST applies to a home sale

Ontario’s HST is 13%: 5% federal and 8% provincial. The CRA lists most sales of previously occupied residential housing among the exempt supplies, which is why a resale home carries no HST. It applies in three situations a listing agent meets.

• •A new home sold by a builder: a house, townhouse or condominium unit nobody has lived in, sold by a person in the business of building or substantially renovating homes for sale.
• •A substantially renovated home sold by a builder: the CRA’s test is that at least 90% of the interior of the existing house was removed or replaced. Only livable areas count, finished basements and attics included; garages and crawl spaces don’t. An addition on its own doesn’t make a renovation substantial, since it’s the existing house that has to be gutted, while converting a non-residential building into a home always counts as one. A flip that kept the kitchen and the bathrooms is usually not substantial, the sale is exempt, and the buyer gets no rebate.
• •An assignment of a new-home agreement: since May 7, 2022, every assignment of an agreement for a new or substantially renovated home is taxable, and the tax applies to the whole assignment price, the deposit being recovered included.

An individual who built or gutted their own home to live in isn’t a builder for these purposes, so their later sale of it is a resale. Someone who did the same thing to sell it is, and HST applies.

The two boxes on the listing

"Included" and "reduced by the rebate" go together on a typical builder listing: the price includes the HST less the rebates, on the condition that the buyer qualifies and assigns them to the builder. A buyer who doesn’t qualify, an investor for instance, pays the difference on closing.

The rebates, as they stand in 2026

The CRA’s Guide RC4028 now describes five rebates that can apply to one Ontario purchase. All of them require that the buyer, or a relation, be the first to occupy the home as their primary place of residence; none is available to a corporation or a partnership.

The two Ontario rebates for the provincial part can be claimed together, capped at $80,000 in total, which is the whole 8% on a $1 million home. A buyer eligible for the enhanced rebate may also get the Ontario new home affordability payment, up to $50,000, the equivalent of the 5% federal part, paid by the province and reduced by whatever the federal rebates already returned. It’s claimed through a consent section on the same CRA form rather than a separate application.

The first-time buyer rebates have received Royal Assent and are in force. The enhanced Ontario rebate was proposed in the province’s March 26, 2026 budget, and the CRA says the federal regulations for it are now available, with the conditions published in its guide.

Who counts as a first-time buyer

For these rebates, the CRA says a first-time home buyer is at least 18, a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and has not lived in a home they or their spouse or common-law partner owned as their primary residence in the calendar year of the purchase or the four before it. At least one purchaser has to qualify and be the first to occupy the home. The rebate is not available where an agreement signed before March 20, 2025 is later varied, amended or assigned.

How the money moves

On most builder sales the buyer never sees the rebate. The builder pays or credits it against the price, the buyer signs the rebate application at closing, and the builder files it with the CRA. The CRA’s guide puts a duty on the builder to confirm the buyer qualifies, including that the total price is under the rebate’s maximum, and makes builder and buyer jointly liable to repay a rebate that shouldn’t have been credited. On an assignment the buyer pays HST to the original builder and to the assignor, and since only one rebate application is allowed per house, the CRA suggests an assignee file directly rather than through the builder, to count the tax paid to both.

What the listing agent writes down

• •On a resale: both boxes No, and nothing about HST in the remarks unless the property is land, a farm, commercial or an apartment building, where HST genuinely can apply and the seller’s accountant answers.
• •On a new build or a gutted flip: the builder’s own terms: whether the price includes HST, whether it’s net of the rebates, and what happens if the buyer doesn’t qualify, copied into the remarks in the builder’s words.
• •On the net sheet: HST on the commission, always. Commission is a service, taxed at 13% whether the home is new or resale.

Frequently asked questions

How Listing Launchpad handles the HST boxes

Listing Launchpad answers the routine case for you and leaves the live one to you, so the two HST fields are never answered No on a listing where the tax might apply.

• •The two boxes on every resale: the moment a listing is a resale house, semi, townhouse, condo apartment, link, bungalow, duplex or mobile home, both HST fields are filled No, and anything you or an import typed stands. The default stands down on vacant land, a farm, a commercial property, a year built in the last two calendar years or a Year Built Description that says new, under construction or model, so a new build asks you. On a residential lease the three sale-tax fields are hidden, since neither board’s lease form asks them.
• •A seller who has to answer: when you ask the seller through the client portal, each field carries a plain-language explainer of what Yes, Included and No mean and that most resale homes are No, so a new-build or flip seller knows what they’re being asked.
• •The board form: the Chrome extension carries both answers onto the board’s listing form in the board’s own words, so "Included" on the listing lands as the board’s included-in-price option.
• •The net sheet: the seller net sheet reads the commission off the listing and adds HST on it at 13% as its own line, on a sale and on a lease, so the seller sees the tax that always applies.

The listing fields, their defaults and the client explainers are on every plan, Free included. The seller net sheet is on Pro and Studio, and in the 14-day Pro trial.