Ontario's New 13% HST Rebate on New Homes: What Every Buyer Should Know

For years, the GST/HST new housing rebate was worth a modest amount — capped at a few thousand federal dollars plus roughly $24,000 provincially, and only on homes under $450,000. In a GTA market where a new condo routinely starts well above that, most buyers barely felt it.

That changed with Ontario's 2026 provincial budget, which proposed rebating the full 13% HST — both the federal and provincial portions — on qualifying new homes up to $1.5 million. The headline detail that surprises most people: this one isn't limited to first-time buyers. It's open to every eligible buyer of a qualifying new home, worth up to $130,000.

There's a second, separate program worth knowing about too — a federal rebate specifically for first-time buyers, worth up to $50,000, that can stack on top of Ontario's measure if you qualify. We'll get to that. But the bigger, broader story for most GTA buyers right now is Ontario's all-buyer rebate.

On a qualifying new home priced at $1,000,000 or less, Ontario's rebate covers the full 13% HST — up to $130,000 back. That maximum holds flat right up to $1,500,000, so a $1.2 million new townhome gets the same $130,000 as a $900,000 condo.

Above $1,500,000, the rebate declines on a straight line down to a floor of $24,000 at $1,850,000, and stays at $24,000 for anything priced higher. In practice: a $750,000 pre-construction condo gets back $97,500. A $1,000,000 or $1,400,000 townhome both max out at $130,000. A $1,700,000 detached home lands somewhere in the declining range between those two numbers — worth getting an exact figure from your accountant rather than estimating.

This is proposed as a temporary, one-year measure — for agreements of purchase and sale signed between April 1, 2026 and March 31, 2027. As of this writing, the enabling legislation was still working its way through the provincial process, so confirm current status before you factor it into your budget.

This is the part that trips people up: you do not need to be a first-time buyer to qualify for Ontario's rebate. Move-up buyers, downsizers, and repeat buyers of a new home are all eligible on the same terms as someone buying their very first home.

It also isn't limited to owner-occupiers. The rebate covers homes bought as your primary residence and new homes bought as long-term rental property, though each has its own construction timeline (more on that below). That makes it relevant to a much wider range of GTA buyers than the earlier, first-time-buyer-only programs ever were.

Alongside Ontario's all-buyer rebate, there's a federal First-Time Home Buyers' GST Rebate, part of Bill C-4, which received Royal Assent on March 12, 2026. It's narrower — first-time buyers only — and covers up to $50,000 on the federal 5% portion of GST/HST for homes priced at $1,000,000 or less, phasing out to zero by $1,500,000.

To qualify as a first-time buyer for this specific rebate, you — and your spouse or common-law partner, if you have one — must not have lived in a home either of you owned as a primary residence during the current calendar year or the four years before it, anywhere in the world. You also need to be at least 18 and a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, with an exception for buyers coming out of a relationship breakdown.

If you qualify for both programs, they're designed to stack rather than duplicate each other — Ontario's measure already includes the federal portion within its 13%, so ask your accountant to confirm exactly how the two interact for your specific purchase rather than assuming they simply add together.

Both programs are for new homes, not resale. That means new construction — detached, semi, or condo — a substantially renovated home where at least 90% of the interior has been rebuilt, or a home you built yourself. If you're buying resale, neither of these rebates applies, though the land transfer tax rebate for first-time buyers still might.

For a home bought as a primary residence, construction needs to begin by December 31, 2028 and reach substantial completion by December 31, 2031. For a home bought as a new long-term rental property, substantial completion is required by December 31, 2029. For most GTA pre-construction purchases signing today, neither deadline is a practical concern — but it's worth checking against a specific project's builder timeline before you assume it qualifies.

The original GST/HST new housing rebate — the smaller, roughly $30,300 combined federal-and-Ontario program capped at homes under $450,000 — hasn't disappeared. If your purchase falls outside the new measures' price range or effective dates, you may still be eligible for that original rebate.

Your builder or accountant should be applying whichever combination of programs gets you the largest total rebate. It's worth asking them directly which ones have been applied to your purchase, rather than assuming it's been handled correctly by default — these are new, overlapping programs, and not every builder's paperwork has caught up yet.

Most buyers never file anything themselves. Builders selling new construction are set up to apply the applicable rebates directly, reducing the HST charged at closing and handling the paperwork as part of the transaction.

If your builder doesn't apply it, or you built the home yourself, you can self-file directly with the CRA within two years of closing or first occupancy, whichever comes first. It takes longer — expect several weeks for a cheque — but it's the same rebate either way.

Whichever path applies to you, confirm it explicitly with your real estate lawyer before closing, not after. These are new, overlapping programs, everyone's paperwork is still adjusting to them, and a rebate that isn't correctly documented at closing is far more work to recover afterward than to get right the first time.

This is genuinely significant money for anyone looking at new construction across the GTA and Simcoe County, where plenty of condos and townhomes fall inside the $1,500,000 threshold for the full $130,000. Because it isn't limited to first-time buyers, it changes the math for move-up buyers and investors considering a new-build rental too, not just people buying their first home.

It's also new enough, and complex enough with two overlapping programs, that I'd rather walk you through exactly how it applies to a specific listing or pre-construction project than have you rely on a general guide alone. Reach out and we'll run the numbers together before you sign anything.