Langstaff Gateway Condos floor plan. Foreign buyer’s tax on Canadian real estate. Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, announced on the 29th that it will raise the non-resident speculative tax rate, commonly known as the real estate “foreign buyer tax”, from 15% to 20% from the 30th, and expand the tax coverage to the whole province.Please Visit: Langstaff Gateway Condos floor plan to Get Your VVIP Registration Today!
Ontario said the move was intended to crack down on property speculation by foreigners to make it easier for provincial residents to acquire home ownership.
Toronto, Ottawa and other big cities are all in Ontario. Previously, the province’s “foreign buyer tax” was only for foreign citizens, foreign companies and trustees in the Greater Toronto area and the surrounding West Bank of Ontario, including Hamilton, Waterloo, Niagara and so on. properties purchased in the so-called “Golden Horseshoe area”.
International students who buy houses in the province after the implementation of the new policy and foreign citizens working in Ontario will no longer be entitled to tax rebates. However, foreigners who emigrate to Canada within four years after buying a house can still get a tax refund.
Ontario indicated that other measures may continue to be taken to address the housing supply problem, including cooperation with municipalities that intend to introduce a housing vacancy tax. At present, Toronto has implemented a housing vacancy tax, and cities such as Ottawa intend to implement a similar tax.
Ontario has implemented a “foreign buyer tax” since 2017. In addition, British Columbia, where Vancouver is located, has implemented a 20% “foreign buyer tax” on real estate in many of its densely populated areas.
The Federal Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Trudeau has also made campaign promises to impose a nationwide “foreign buyer tax” to calm house prices since 2019.
According to official statistics, overall house prices in Ontario have tripled in the past decade, far exceeding income growth.
After the COVID-19 epidemic, the Canadian central bank slashed interest rates to ultra-low levels, and house prices continued to rise across Canada, up more than 50 per cent so far. On the eve of the central bank’s resumption of raising interest rates in early March, house prices rose 3.5 per cent month-on-month in February, setting a new record for monthly increases.
According to industry statistics, foreign owners accounted for 2.2% of all residential properties in Ontario in 2020. Toronto has the highest proportion, with 3.8 per cent of owners of single-family houses and 7 per cent of apartments being foreign buyers.