The HST rebate hiding inside your pre-construction price.

A buyer who signs an agreement of purchase and sale with a builder between 1 April 2026 and 31 March 2027, for a home that they or a close relation will use as their primary residence. First-time status is not required. In the CRA's own worked example a buyer who is not a first-time buyer purchases at $1,000,000 plus $130,000 HST and receives the $80,000 provincial rebate and a $50,000 Ontario top-up, which together remove the whole tax. Construction has to begin by 31 December 2028 and be substantially complete by 31 December 2031.

From $1 million to $1.5 million the rebate is a flat $130,000, so it stops growing but is not reduced. Between $1.5 million and $1.85 million it falls toward the ordinary $24,000, and at $1.85 million and above only the ordinary Ontario rebate remains. In that falling band every extra $10,000 of price costs you roughly $14,300, because the rebate shrinks as the price rises. The CRA gives the two ends of that band but not the arithmetic between them, so the calculator draws a straight line and says so.

Nearly always included, with the rebate assigned to the builder — look in the agreement for wording like “net of rebate” or “the purchaser assigns the rebate to the vendor”. Inside the enhanced window that makes the advertised price and the pre-tax price the same number up to $1 million: a builder card showing $621,489 with HST and $549,990 net is exactly the full 13% credited back. If a contract instead says the price is plus HST, you are looking at a very different total. If you cannot tell which applies, that is the first question for your lawyer, not something to assume.

The builder cannot credit a rebate you are not entitled to, so the amount the price assumed is added back to your closing statement as cash: up to $130,000 in the current window, up to $24,000 otherwise. It is due the day you close, it cannot be added to your mortgage, and it lands alongside land transfer tax, development levies and Tarion enrolment. Investors who budgeted from the advertised price alone are routinely short by five or six figures at exactly the wrong moment.

Partly, through the New Residential Rental Property rebate, and it comes after closing, not at it. That rebate returns the ordinary amounts, not the enhanced ones. You need a signed lease of at least one year to a tenant who will actually live there, you file within two years of closing, and the property has to be genuinely held as a long-term rental. Ontario has announced matching relief for qualifying rentals, but the CRA says that program is not in place yet and expects it by October 2026, so check its status and how it is paid before you rely on it. Budget for the gap between paying and recovering.

Inside the enhanced window it makes no difference to the total: the rebates do not stack past the tax you actually paid, and the CRA caps the combined Ontario amount at the lesser of $80,000 and the provincial tax. Outside it, first-time buyers still have a federal GST rebate of up to $50,000 for homes to $1 million, fading to nothing at $1.5 million, and an Ontario rebate of up to $80,000 that the CRA's form says is not available at $1.5 million and over. The calculator asks about it only when it matters.

Intention at the time you signed is what matters, and CRA looks at what actually happened. Genuinely changing your mind is different from never intending to move in, but you should expect to be able to evidence it. If you took the rebate and then rented the unit out immediately, expect to be reassessed for the rebate plus interest. Talk to an accountant before closing rather than after — the fix is far cheaper in advance.

You never occupy the unit, so the new housing rebates are not available to you at all. On top of that, assignment sales of new housing have been treated as taxable since May 2022, so HST generally applies to your assignment profit as well — before the builder's consent fee. Whoever ultimately closes claims the rebate if they qualify. This is genuinely complicated and the amounts are large; get an accountant involved before you list an assignment.

No. HST does not apply to the purchase price of a used residential home, which is one of the quieter advantages of buying resale. It applies to new construction and to substantially renovated homes sold by a builder.