Closing Costs Calculator

What the Closing Costs Calculator does

Your down payment is not the money you need. On closing day a series of separate bills arrive from separate parties — the province, your lawyer, a title insurer, possibly an inspector — and none of them can be added to your mortgage. This itemises all of them and totals what actually has to be sitting in your account.

It gives you a range rather than a single figure, deliberately. Most of these are quotes from private firms, not government-set fees, and a lawyer in one office will charge different disbursements from another. A calculator that produced one confident number would be inventing a precision that does not exist. It also prices the same purchase in several provinces, because location is by far the biggest lever and the difference is larger than most people believe.

• Land transfer tax, with any municipal layer and first-time buyer rebate applied
• Legal fees, title insurance, inspection and status certificate as low, typical and high
• Provincial tax on your insurance premium — cash, even though the premium is financed
• Total cash to close, and whether the money you have actually covers it
• The identical purchase priced in five places, so you can see what location costs you

Two things that catch buyers out

Both come from assuming money can move between pots that it cannot.

The first is treating the down payment and the closing costs as one budget. They are not. If you have exactly the minimum down payment and nothing behind it, you cannot close — the closing costs sit entirely outside the mortgage, and no lender will lend against them. A purchase that clears the down payment threshold by a hair is a deal at genuine risk, not a tight budget.

The second is the tax on the default insurance premium. Under 20% down, your premium is added to the mortgage, which is why people stop thinking about it. But in Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan the provincial sales tax on that premium is not financed. On an $800,000 purchase with 10% down, the premium of roughly $22,000 goes onto the loan while about $1,786 of tax on it has to be paid in cash. It appears on the Statement of Adjustments and surprises people every week.

• Closing costs cannot be financed — none of them, at any lender
• Your down payment and your closing costs come from separate pots
• The tax on your insurance premium is cash, even though the premium itself is not
• Legal disbursements vary between firms, so budget the high end until you are quoted
• A down payment at exactly the minimum leaves nothing to close with

Why location matters more than anything else

Land transfer tax is usually the largest single line, and it varies more between jurisdictions than any other cost in a Canadian purchase.

Alberta and Saskatchewan charge registration fees rather than a transfer tax, so closing there costs a few thousand dollars. Ontario applies a marginal ladder. Toronto applies that ladder and then a second, municipal one on top, with additional bands above $3 million. British Columbia runs its own ladder reaching 5% at the top end. The same purchase price can produce a closing bill that differs by tens of thousands depending only on where the property sits.

The calculator prices your purchase in five places so you can see the spread on your own numbers rather than take that on faith. It matters most if you are choosing between markets, or moving between provinces and carrying an expectation formed somewhere else.

• Alberta and Saskatchewan: registration fees, no land transfer tax
• Ontario: a marginal ladder rising to 2.5%
• Toronto: the provincial ladder plus a full municipal one, with luxury bands above $3M
• British Columbia: its own ladder, reaching 5% at the top
• First-time buyer rebates exist in Ontario, BC and Toronto, and are claimed at closing

How this is actually calculated

The total is built from itemised parts rather than a percentage of price. Land transfer tax comes from the same marginal-tier engine as the dedicated land transfer tax calculator, applied to your province and municipality, with any first-time buyer rebate netted off. The insurance premium and its provincial tax come from the same engine as the CMHC calculator. Because these are shared, the figures agree wherever you see them on this site.

Legal fees, title insurance, inspection and status certificate costs are typical market ranges by province, carried as three numbers rather than one. Conditional lines only appear when they apply — no status certificate on a freehold, no premium tax at 20% down, no inspection if you decline one.

What is deliberately left out: property tax and utility adjustments, which reimburse the seller for whatever they prepaid and depend entirely on your closing date; the appraisal, which the lender frequently covers; and the new-construction stack of GST or HST, development levies and Tarion enrolment, which is large enough to deserve its own treatment. Those are named on the page rather than silently omitted.

• Land transfer tax: marginal tiers by province and municipality, rebate applied
• Premium tax: only where the down payment is under 20% and the province taxes it
• Professional fees: typical market ranges, carried as low, typical and high
• Total cash = down payment + closing costs + moving budget
• Excluded and named: adjustments, appraisal, and new-build taxes and levies

Using your results well

Budget the high end, not the typical figure, until you have a written quote from your lawyer. The gap between the two is small in percentage terms and very unwelcome on closing day.

Enter what you actually have available and let the page tell you whether it covers the requirement. That check is the most useful thing here if you are anywhere near the edge, and it is far better run before you make an offer than after your financing condition has been waived.

Then ask your lawyer for a preliminary Statement of Adjustments as soon as you have a firm closing date. It will refine every figure on this page to the dollar and add the adjustments this calculator cannot know. If you are buying a condo, ask for the status certificate early — reviewing it takes time and is a common cause of delay.

• Budget the high end until your lawyer has quoted you in writing
• Check your available cash against the total before making an offer
• Confirm your first-time buyer eligibility early — some rebates cannot be claimed late
• Request the status certificate early on a condo purchase
• For new construction, treat this total as a floor and price the taxes separately