Canada VAT rate
Federal Goods and Services Tax, Canada's national value-added tax, imposed under Part IX of the Excise Tax Act.
| Current value | 5 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2008-01-01 |
| Official source | Excise Tax Act, RSC 1985, c. E-15, Part IX, s. 165(1) (GST imposed at 5%); rate reduced from 6% to 5% by the Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007 (SC 2007, c. 35). Rate table published by the Canada Revenue Agency, 'Charge and collect the GST/HST — Which rate to charge' |
| Last verified | 2026-07-20 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
5% is the FEDERAL GST — the only nationally uniform consumption tax rate — and is served deliberately unblended. Canada layers three distinct regimes on top of it, so the rate a buyer actually pays depends on the place of supply: (1) HST provinces, where the federal 5% and a provincial component are collected as a single harmonised tax administered by the CRA under s. 165(2) — Ontario 13%, New Brunswick 15%, Newfoundland and Labrador 15%, Prince Edward Island 15%, and Nova Scotia 14% (Nova Scotia's provincial component was cut from 10% to 9% effective 1 April 2025, taking its HST from 15% to 14%); (2) GST + separate provincial retail sales tax (PST), levied and administered by the province, not the CRA — British Columbia PST 7%, Manitoba PST 7%, Saskatchewan PST 6%, and Quebec QST 9.975% (administered by Revenu Québec, and unlike a true PST the QST is a value-added tax); (3) GST only, at a flat 5% — Alberta, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon, which levy no sales tax of their own. A blended or population-weighted national figure would be an invention and is not served. Basic groceries, prescription drugs, medical devices and exports are zero-rated (0%) everywhere in Canada; financial services, most residential rent and most health/education services are exempt. Rate history: GST introduced at 7% on 1 January 1991, cut to 6% on 1 July 2006 and to 5% on 1 January 2008; the federal 5% has been unchanged for over 18 years. Note the temporary GST/HST holiday on certain goods that ran 14 December 2024 to 15 February 2025 — this was a targeted zero-rating measure, not a change to the 5% statutory rate, but it distorts CPI year-over-year comparisons for those months. canada.ca returns HTTP 403 to plain scripted fetchers (re-confirmed 2026-07-20); this page was read through a real browser session.
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1991-01-01 | 7 | — |
| 2006-07-01 | 6 | — |
Get it programmatically
curl https://usaref.dev/v1/ca/vat
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://usaref.dev/v1/ca/vat/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://usaref.dev/provenance/ca/vatOther Canada series: policy interest rate · minimum wage · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates · official exchange rates