First-Time Home Buyer Programs in Ontario (GTA Edition)

Four programs are open to a first-time buyer anywhere in the GTA in August 2026, and a fifth only in Toronto: Ontario's land transfer tax refund of up to $4,000, Toronto's municipal land transfer tax rebate of up to $4,475, the First Home Savings Account, the Home Buyers' Plan and the home buyers' amount. Buy a newly built home and two first-time-buyer-only HST rebates open up (up to $50,000 federally and $80,000 provincially, paid in full only at or below $1,000,000), plus four new-build rebates repeat buyers claim too. The First-Time Home Buyer Incentive is closed. The costliest mistake is assuming "first-time buyer" means the same thing to all of them.

Five programs, five definitions of "first-time buyer"

1. Ontario's land transfer tax refund uses the strictest test. The Ministry of Finance requires that you "cannot have owned a home or an interest in a home anywhere in the world," ever, and that your spouse cannot have owned one while married or partnered to you. How you got it is irrelevant: "The method of acquiring the home (e.g., purchase, gift or through an inheritance) is not relevant." And: "You cannot re-qualify as a first-time homebuyer." You must also be at least 18, occupy the home as your principal residence within nine months of the transfer, and (for agreements signed after November 14, 2016) be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. If you are not one at closing, you "have 18 months following registration to become eligible."

2. Toronto's rebate copies that ownership test word for word and runs the same 18-month citizenship cure: "if the purchaser becomes a Canadian citizen or permanent resident within 18 months of the transfer, they may apply for and may qualify for the rebate." Same test, two applications.

3. The Home Buyers' Plan and the home buyers' amount use a rolling four-year window and no citizenship test. For the Home Buyers' Plan you qualify if you did not live in a home you or your spouse owned "at any time in the current calendar year before the withdrawal (except the 30 days immediately before the withdrawal) or at any time in the preceding four calendar years."

4. The FHSA runs two tests inside one account. To open one, a home your spouse or common-law partner owned and you lived in disqualifies you. To make a tax-free qualifying withdrawal, only homes you owned count. The CRA says so outright: a first-time home buyer "for the purpose of making a qualifying withdrawal is different from a 'first-time home buyer' for the purpose of opening an FHSA."

5. The first-time home buyers' GST/HST rebate uses the four-year window too, but adds back what the other federal programs drop: you must be 18, "a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada," and buying the home as your primary place of residence. It is also once in a lifetime: "Neither you, nor your spouse or common-law partner, have previously received an FTHB GST/HST rebate." Ontario's matching rebate follows the same conditions.

What a spouse's ownership does

Under the Ontario rule, if your spouse owned a home anywhere in the world while you were spouses, "no refund is available to either spouse": not a half refund, none. If they owned one only before you were spouses, you can claim in proportion to their interest as well as yours, though that is restricted if they are not a citizen or permanent resident on the date of conveyance.

"Spouse" is a defined term. Ontario borrows section 29 of the Family Law Act: married couples, plus unmarried couples who have "cohabited continuously for a period of not less than three years, or in a relationship of some permanence, if they are the natural or adoptive parents of a child." The CRA's "common-law partner" starts at 12 continuous months. A couple 18 months in are common-law to the CRA and not spouses to the Ministry, so a partner's old condo can block the federal programs while leaving the provincial refund intact.

Two land transfer taxes, two rebates

Toronto charges a second land transfer tax on top of the province's, and on the face of the two governing statutes no other Ontario municipality has the power to. Part X of the *City of Toronto Act, 2006 (consolidated from June 2, 2026) gives Toronto that power in section 267(1), which lets the City "impose a tax in the City … if the tax is a direct tax." Every other Ontario municipality runs on the Municipal Act, 2001*, whose only comparable grant is Part XII.1, a transient accommodation tax.

Provincial rates on a property with one or two single family residences run 0.5 per cent to $55,000, 1 per cent to $250,000, 1.5 per cent to $400,000, 2 per cent to $2,000,000 and 2.5 per cent above; Toronto's brackets match to $2,000,000 and climb above it.

Both rebates run out early. Ontario caps its refund at $4,000, which the Ministry says leaves no tax payable "on the first $368,000 of the value of the consideration." Toronto caps its rebate at $4,475: the exact tax on a $400,000 purchase, as the Ministry's own worked example confirms. Above those prices the rebate stops growing, so every GTA buyer gets the same fixed amount and the only question is what is left to pay.

What you actually pay: a $1,000,000 Toronto purchase

A $1,000,000 resale house in Toronto, bought by one qualifying first-time buyer:

• Provincial land transfer tax. Ontario's formula for a property with one or two single family residences over $400,000 and up to $2,000,000 is (value × 0.02) − $3,525. So $1,000,000 × 2 per cent = $20,000, minus $3,525 = $16,475. Less the $4,000 refund: $12,475.
• Toronto's tax. Same brackets: $275 + $1,950 + $2,250 + ($600,000 × 2 per cent = $12,000) = $16,475. Less the $4,475 rebate: $12,000.
• Together. $16,475 + $16,475 = $32,950 of tax; $4,000 + $4,475 = $8,475 of rebates; $24,475 payable, plus Toronto's $102.56 administration fee and HST on it.

At $750,000 the arithmetic gives $750,000 × 2 per cent − $3,525 = $11,475 of each tax, so $22,950 less the same $8,475 leaves $14,475. The same house in Mississauga attracts only the provincial tax: $11,475 less $4,000 = $7,475.

Claim both at registration and your lawyer nets them off the cheque. Claim late and you have 18 months (Ontario from registration, Toronto from the date the conveyance occurred), and Toronto charges $221.22 for a rebate requested after the conveyance was electronically registered.

The FHSA and the Home Buyers' Plan

The FHSA gives you $8,000 of room in the year you open your first account and $8,000 a year after that, to a lifetime limit of $40,000. Unused room carries forward, capped at $8,000, so a saver who skipped a year has $8,000 + $8,000 = $16,000 the next year: the CRA's example, not a hard ceiling, since participation room can also pick up re-participation room. Check your notice of assessment. Contributions are deductible; transfers in from an RRSP are not, and they still consume your room.

Two dates trip people. The contribution period "is from January 1 to December 31 of the same year": no 60-day grace as for an RRSP, so a January deposit belongs to the new year. And your maximum participation period ends December 31 of the year of the earliest of: the fifteenth anniversary of opening it, the year you turn 71, or the year after your first qualifying withdrawal. Anything left transfers to an RRSP or RRIF tax-deferred; anything left in a lapsed FHSA becomes taxable income.

The Home Buyers' Plan lets you pull up to $60,000 from your RRSPs tax-free on Form T1036. Further withdrawals are allowed only in the same calendar year as the first, plus January of the next. You need a written agreement to buy or build before you withdraw (a pre-approved mortgage does not count), and the home must be acquired before October 1 of the year after the first withdrawal.

Then you repay, over 15 years, into an RRSP, PRPP or SPP; miss a year's minimum and the shortfall goes on line 12900 as income. Repayment normally starts the second year after the withdrawal, but relief pushes it three years further out for first withdrawals between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2025, and the CRA states this "was extended for participants making a first withdrawal between January 1, 2026, and December 31, 2028." Its example: "if you made your first withdrawal in 2026, your first year of repayment will be 2031."

The CRA's repayment sub-page still describes only the 2022–2025 window. That is staleness, not a conflict: it was last updated January 20, 2026 and predates the extension, which the landing page describes as extending "the relief introduced in Budget 2024." The legislated measure governs, not a page's timestamp.

One trap: of what you contribute to an RRSP in the 89-day period before an HBP withdrawal, you cannot deduct the amount by which those contributions exceed the plan's fair market value just after the withdrawal. Only that excess is lost. But on a thin RRSP topped up and emptied in one move, it is most of the contribution.

The home buyers' amount, and what it is worth

Line 31270 is a non-refundable credit, and the CRA states the claim, not the payout. Section 118.05(3) of the Income Tax Act sets it as "the amount determined by multiplying $10,000 by the appropriate percentage for the taxation year," and section 248 defines that percentage as "the lowest percentage referred to in subsection 117(2)": the bottom federal bracket, which the CRA's 2026 rate table puts at 14 per cent. So $10,000 × 14 per cent = $1,400 off your federal tax, and nothing at all if you owe no federal tax. Two eligible buyers can split it, capped at one maximum per home.

HST rebates: new builds only

A resale house carries no GST or HST on the price, so nothing to rebate. A new or substantially renovated home does.

The first-time home buyers' GST/HST rebate (status "Applications are open") returns up to 100 per cent of the 5 per cent federal part, to a maximum of $50,000, on a home valued at or below $1,000,000. Between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000 it tapers: the CRA's example is a $1.25 million home at the midpoint drawing 50 per cent of the maximum, or $25,000. At $1,500,000 it is nil. Ontario's matching rebate returns up to $80,000 of the province's 8 per cent part on the same scale: Guide RC4028 pays it in full at "$1,000,000 or less," tapers it above that, and states that "if the amount from line R is $1,500,000 or more, you are not eligible to claim the Ontario FTHB rebate."

The conditions are easy to fail: at least 18, a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, buying as your primary place of residence and first to occupy it; the builder agreement signed on or after March 20, 2025 and before 2031; construction begun before 2031 and substantially completed before 2036; ownership transferred to you before 2036; and no previous FTHB rebate.

Two older rebates sit underneath, open to repeat buyers as well: the federal new housing rebate at 36 per cent of the federal part, and Ontario's at 75 per cent of the provincial part (maximums and price bands above).

Two more are temporary. The Ontario enhanced new housing rebate recovers up to $80,000 of the provincial part where "the agreement of purchase and sale is entered into on or after April 1, 2026 and on or before March 31, 2027" (the agreement date, not the closing date, which decides the question in a pre-construction market where the two sit years apart), with construction beginning on or before December 31, 2028, substantially completed on or before December 31, 2031, and a purchase price under $1,850,000. It pays in full only to $1,500,000: between $1,500,000 and $1,850,000 RC4028 sends you to a calculation, and at $1,850,000 you are not eligible at all. Anyone eligible may also claim the Ontario new home affordability payment, administered by the Province, which "provides an amount up to $50,000 equivalent to up to 100% of the 5% federal part of the HST." Read the maximum carefully: RC4028 says "the ONHAP amount is reduced by the GST/HST new housing rebate and FTHB GST/HST rebate that you are entitled to", and a first-time buyer "must claim this rebate first to determine eligibility for the ONHAP". It fills the gap the federal rebates leave; for most first-time buyers who claim the $50,000 federal rebate there is little or nothing left to fill.

Qualify for both Ontario rebates and you may claim either or both, but RC4028 caps the total of all rebates of the 8 per cent provincial part at "the lesser of $80,000 and the 8% provincial part of the HST payable."