BC Property Transfer Tax

BC Property Transfer Tax (2026): Rates, the $8,000 First-Time Buyer Exemption, and the New-Build Exemption

Short answer: British Columbia charges property transfer tax on the fair market value of a property when the transfer is registered, and the buyer pays it on completion day. The general schedule is 1 percent on the first $200,000, 2 percent on the portion from $200,000 to $2,000,000, 3 percent on the portion from $2,000,000 to $3,000,000, and 3 percent plus a further 2 percent on the residential portion above $3,000,000, for 5 percent on that top slice. On $750,000 the tax is $13,000. On $1,200,000 it is $22,000. On $3,500,000 it is $93,000. Eligible first-time buyers subtract up to $8,000 under the program rebuilt on April 1, 2024, and buyers of qualifying newly built homes can subtract the entire tax at prices up to $1,100,000. Run your own price on the BC Property Transfer Tax Calculator as you read.

By Finance Editorial Desk | October 22, 2026

Educational only, not legal or tax advice. Rates, thresholds, and eligibility come from the British Columbia property transfer tax program pages named in the sources section, read on the date above. Your lawyer or notary files the actual property transfer tax return and confirms the amount for your transaction, because fair market value, exemptions, and mixed-use apportionment all turn on the details of your deal.

1. What the tax is, and when it is paid

Property transfer tax is a provincial tax on the transfer of land in British Columbia. It applies when a change in title is registered at the Land Title and Survey Authority, which in a normal purchase is the completion date, the day the deal closes. The tax base is the property's fair market value. On an ordinary open-market purchase the fair market value is the purchase price, which is why every example in this guide uses the price as the base. Where a purchase is not at arm's length, or the price is set well below market, the province can look to the property's actual fair market value instead of the number on the contract, so a family deal priced as a favour is not a way around the tax.

Four timing and budgeting facts shape how buyers should plan for it:

• The buyer pays it. In a standard purchase the tax falls on the purchaser, not the seller.
• It is due at registration, which is closing day. It is cash needed to close, separate from the down payment.
• It sits outside the mortgage. Your lender advances mortgage money against the purchase price. The transfer tax is part of the cash you bring to close, alongside the down payment and your legal fees. A buyer who has saved exactly a down payment and nothing for closing costs does not have enough saved.
• Your lawyer or notary handles the mechanics. They prepare the property transfer tax return, claim any exemption you qualify for on that return, collect the tax from you as part of the closing funds, and remit it when the transfer registers.

Some transfers fall outside the general purchase case. Transfers between spouses, certain transfers of a principal residence between related individuals, and transfers that result from a death can be exempt under their own rules, and section 7 covers an additional tax that applies to some foreign buyers. Treat the schedule below as the general purchase case, and let your lawyer or notary confirm your specific transaction.

2. The BC brackets

Each rate applies only to the slice of the price inside its bracket. Nothing in this schedule ever taxes the whole price at the top rate. A $1,200,000 purchase does not pay 2 percent on $1,200,000; it pays two smaller calculations added together.

The top row needs its condition stated plainly. The further 2 percent above $3,000,000 is an additional tax on the residential portion of the property's value. A purely non-residential purchase does not pay it, and a mixed-use property apportions it. For the houses, townhouses, and condos most households buy, the portion above $3,000,000 is residential, so the working top rate is 5 percent.

Adding the brackets up at common prices gives the planning table below. These are tax amounts before any exemption, computed from the schedule above.

Read the table the way a closing budget reads it. The tax passes $10,000 at a $600,000 price, passes $20,000 just above $1,100,000, and grows by $2,000 for every further $100,000 of price through the long 2 percent bracket. Buyers comparing two homes $50,000 apart in the middle of the market are also comparing $1,000 of transfer tax, before any exemption enters the picture.

3. Two worked examples, bracket by bracket

Example A: a $750,000 resale condo, no exemption. This is a hypothetical purchase used to show the arithmetic; the rules applied are the real ones.

The price never reaches the $2,000,000 bracket, so only two lines apply. Section 4 runs this same purchase again with the first-time buyer exemption claimed, where the bill falls to $5,000.

Example B: a $3,500,000 house, no exemption. Hypothetical price, real schedule. This example exists because the top of the BC schedule is where the arithmetic most often goes wrong in casual estimates.

The mistake to avoid is applying 5 percent, or even 3 percent, to the whole $3,500,000. Each rate reaches only its own slice. The first $200,000 of a $3,500,000 house is taxed at exactly the same 1 percent as the first $200,000 of a $300,000 condo. Check any of these lines against your own price on the BC calculator.

4. The first-time home buyers program

BC rebuilt this program on April 1, 2024, and advice written before that date is now wrong in a way that costs buyers money if they follow it. The old program ended at $500,000. The current program works like this:

• The exemption equals the tax on the first $500,000 of fair market value. Because the tax on $500,000 is exactly $8,000, the maximum exemption is $8,000.
• At a price of $500,000 or less, an eligible buyer pays no property transfer tax at all.
• From $500,000 to $835,000, the exemption stays at the full $8,000, and the buyer pays the bracket tax minus $8,000.
• From $835,000 to $860,000, the exemption phases out: it shrinks by 32 cents for every dollar of price above $835,000, which is $320 for every $1,000.
• At $860,000 or more, there is no exemption.

The province publishes the full amounts table; the key rows, with the tax computed from the section 2 schedule, are:

The phase-out band deserves a buyer's full attention, because the marginal cost of price inside it is unusually steep. Between $835,000 and $860,000, each extra $1,000 of price adds $20 of bracket tax at 2 percent and removes $320 of exemption, for $340 of extra tax per $1,000 of price. Two otherwise similar homes, one at $835,000 and one at $850,000, differ by $15,000 of price and by $5,100 of tax payable ($6,700 against $11,800). A first-time buyer negotiating near this band should price the tax line into the offer, not discover it on the statement of adjustments.

Eligibility is about the buyer as well as the property. In general, to claim the exemption you must:

• Be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.
• Have lived in BC for at least 12 consecutive months immediately before the registration date, or have filed at least two income tax returns as a BC resident in the previous six years.
• Have never owned an interest in a principal residence anywhere in the world, at any time.
• Have never received a first-time home buyers exemption or refund before.
• Buy a property that will be your principal residence, on land of 0.5 hectares or less.
• Move in within 92 days of registration and continue to occupy the home as your principal residence through the first anniversary of registration.

Two consequences follow from that list. First, the test is ownership anywhere in the world, not ownership in Canada, so a home owned and sold years ago in another country ends eligibility. Second, when buyers purchase together and only some of them qualify, the exemption applies only in proportion to the qualifying buyers' interests: a qualifying buyer taking a 50 percent interest gets 50 percent of the exemption amount. If you move out before the first anniversary, you may keep part of the exemption, reduced by the portion of the year you did not occupy the home, with exceptions where the owner has died or the property is transferred under a separation agreement or a court order under the Family Law Act. Claiming the exemption on a false declaration of never having owned a home, or of never having received the exemption before, carries a penalty on top of the tax.

5. The newly built home exemption

The second program is separate, larger, and widely missed because buyers assume exemptions are only for first-time buyers. They are not. The newly built home exemption can apply to any qualifying buyer of a qualifying new home, first-time or not, and since April 1, 2024 its thresholds are:

• Full exemption at a fair market value of $1,100,000 or less. The tax on a $1,100,000 home is $20,000, so a full exemption reduces the bill to $0.
• Partial exemption from $1,100,000 to $1,150,000. The exemption shrinks in proportion across that $50,000 band: the payable tax is the full bracket tax multiplied by the share of the band the price has crossed.
• No exemption above $1,150,000.

Worked example: a $1,125,000 newly built townhouse. Hypothetical price, real rules. The bracket tax is $2,000 on the first $200,000 plus 2 percent on the remaining $925,000, which is $18,500, for $20,500 before exemption. The price sits halfway through the $50,000 phase-out band ($25,000 of $50,000), so half the tax remains payable: $20,500 x 50 percent = $10,250 due, and $10,250 exempted.

A newly built home, in the province's definition, includes a house built on vacant land that has not been occupied since construction, a unit in a newly built condo building that has not been occupied, a manufactured home placed on vacant land and not occupied since placement, and several less common cases such as a building converted from non-residential to residential use and not occupied as a residence since the conversion began. To qualify, the buyer must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident (foreign entities and taxable trustees are not eligible), the property must be in BC, be used only as the buyer's principal residence, and sit on 0.5 hectares or less, and this must be the first registration of the property with the completed improvement. The same occupancy conditions apply as under the first-time buyer program: move in within 92 days of registration and occupy the home as your principal residence for the rest of the first year. The exemption is claimed on the property transfer tax return at registration (exemption code 49).

One boundary matters for new-home budgets: this exemption removes property transfer tax only. GST is a separate federal tax that generally applies to newly built homes, and a new home can owe GST on the same purchase where the provincial tax has been fully exempted. The two taxes are calculated by different governments on different bases; do not let a $0 transfer tax line convince you the tax cost of a new build is $0.

6. When both exemptions are in play

A first-time buyer purchasing a new home can meet the conditions of both programs. The two exemptions cannot be combined on the same purchase; the buyer claims the one that saves more. At almost every price where both apply, the newly built home exemption saves more, because it can remove the entire tax up to $1,100,000 while the first-time buyer exemption caps at $8,000.

Read the $1,000,000 row carefully. A first-time buyer of a resale home at that price receives nothing, because the price is past the $860,000 cutoff. The same buyer purchasing a qualifying new home at the same price pays no property transfer tax at all. On new construction, asking about the newly built exemption is worth up to the full tax bill, which is why it belongs in the first conversation with your lawyer or notary, not the last.

7. The additional tax for foreign buyers

On top of the general tax, BC charges an additional property transfer tax of 20 percent of the residential portion's fair market value to foreign entities and taxable trustees who buy residential property in five specified regional districts: Metro Vancouver, the Capital Regional District, the Fraser Valley, the Central Okanagan, and the Regional District of Nanaimo. It is calculated on the buyer's proportionate interest, so a foreign buyer taking a 50 percent interest pays the additional tax on 50 percent of the value. At these magnitudes the additional tax dwarfs the general tax: on a hypothetical $1,000,000 purchase, the general tax is $18,000 and a fully foreign purchase in a specified district would add $200,000. Exemptions and refund routes exist for specific categories of buyers, and a separate federal prohibition restricts residential purchases by non-Canadians, so any purchase involving a foreign buyer, a foreign corporation, or a trust needs advice before an offer is written, not at closing. The BC calculator does not model this additional tax, and neither do the worked examples in this guide.

8. Cash-to-close worksheet

Property transfer tax is one line in the cash a BC buyer actually needs on completion day. Lay the full picture out before you set your maximum price:

Then run the decision the other way: fix the total cash you actually have, subtract every non-tax line, and what remains for the down payment plus transfer tax sets your real price ceiling. Buyers who do this in reverse rarely get a closing-day surprise. Two companion costs belong in the same budget conversation: the CMHC insurance guide covers the premium for buyers with less than 20 percent down, and the Ontario land transfer tax guide covers the equivalent tax for anyone weighing a move between the two provinces, where Toronto buyers pay a second municipal tax on top.

9. Mistakes checklist

• Using the top rate on the whole price. At $750,000 the tax is $13,000, not 2 percent of $750,000, which would be $15,000, and not 1 percent either. Brackets tax slices, not totals.
• Working from pre-April 2024 exemption rules. Pages and advice that end the first-time buyer exemption at $500,000 describe the retired program. The current full-exemption threshold is $835,000, with the phase-out ending at $860,000, and the newly built threshold is $1,100,000, not $750,000.
• Assuming the first-time buyer exemption makes homes under $835,000 tax-free. Only homes at $500,000 or less are fully exempt. At $750,000 an eligible buyer still pays $5,000, and at $835,000 pays $6,700.
• Ignoring the phase-out band when negotiating. Between $835,000 and $860,000, each $1,000 of price costs $340 of tax for a first-time buyer. Price differences inside the band are worth more than they look.
• Buying new construction without asking about the newly built exemption. It applies whether or not you are a first-time buyer, it can zero the tax up to $1,100,000, and it must be claimed on the return at registration.
• Claiming both exemptions. They cannot be combined on one purchase. Claim the larger one, which on a qualifying new home is almost always the newly built exemption.
• Budgeting the tax inside the mortgage. Plan to pay it in cash at closing. The tax is due at registration, and your mortgage advance is calculated on the purchase, not on the purchase plus its closing costs.
• Treating a $0 transfer tax as a $0 tax bill on a new build. GST is separate and generally applies to newly built homes even where the provincial exemption removes the transfer tax.
• Missing the occupancy conditions after claiming. Move in within 92 days and live in the home as your principal residence through the first anniversary, or expect to repay part of the exemption.
• Writing an offer with a foreign buyer on title and no advice. The 20 percent additional tax in the five specified districts is priced before closing or not at all.

10. Frequently asked questions

How much is property transfer tax in BC on a $750,000 home? $13,000 before any exemption: $2,000 on the first $200,000 at 1 percent, plus $11,000 on the remaining $550,000 at 2 percent. An eligible first-time buyer subtracts the $8,000 exemption and pays $5,000. Section 3 works the arithmetic line by line.

Do first-time buyers pay property transfer tax in BC? They pay the bracket tax minus an exemption of up to $8,000. At $500,000 or less the exemption covers the whole tax and the buyer pays $0. From $500,000 to $835,000 the buyer pays the tax minus $8,000. From $835,000 to $860,000 the exemption phases out, and at $860,000 or more first-time buyers pay the full tax like any other buyer.

What are the BC exemption thresholds in 2026? The thresholds in effect since April 1, 2024: first-time buyers, full $8,000 exemption to a fair market value of $835,000, phasing out to $860,000; newly built homes, full exemption to $1,100,000, phasing out to $1,150,000. Older figures still in circulation ($500,000 and $750,000) are the retired thresholds.

How does the first-time buyer phase-out work at $850,000? The tax at $850,000 is $15,000. The price is $15,000 into the phase-out band, so the exemption has shrunk by $15,000 x 32 cents = $4,800, from $8,000 to $3,200. The buyer pays $15,000 minus $3,200, which is $11,800. The province's published amounts table shows the same figures.

How much tax is due on a newly built home at $1,125,000? The bracket tax is $20,500. The price is halfway through the newly built phase-out band, so the exemption removes half of it and $10,250 is payable, assuming the buyer and home meet every condition in section 5. At $1,100,000 or less the same purchase would owe $0.

Can property transfer tax be added to the mortgage? Plan as if it cannot. The tax is payable at registration on closing day, out of the cash you bring to close. Your mortgage advance is calculated on the purchase, and closing costs including this tax come from your own funds. The worksheet in section 8 budgets it that way.

Is property transfer tax the same as GST on a home purchase? No. Property transfer tax is a provincial tax on the transfer of land, charged on resale and new homes alike unless an exemption applies. GST is a federal tax that generally applies to newly built and substantially renovated homes but not to resale homes. A buyer of a new home in BC can owe both on the same purchase, and the newly built exemption removes only the provincial tax.

When and how is the tax paid? It is due when the transfer registers at the Land Title and Survey Authority, normally your completion date. Your lawyer or notary prepares the property transfer tax return, claims any exemption on it, collects the tax with your other closing funds, and remits it as part of the registration. You do not pay it to the seller, and it is not billed later.

11. Related reading

• BC Property Transfer Tax Calculator - enter a price and first-time buyer status, and get the bracket total with the first-time buyer exemption applied.
• Canadian Land Transfer Tax Calculator - compare BC with Ontario, Toronto, and other provincial closing taxes on the same price.
• Ontario Land Transfer Tax (2026) - the Ontario brackets, the $4,000 first-time refund, and Toronto's second tax, worked in full.
• CMHC Mortgage Insurance in Canada - the premium math for buyers with less than 20 percent down, paid in the same purchase.
• First Home Savings Account in Canada - the account that builds the down payment this tax is paid alongside.
• Mortgage Calculator - the monthly payment that follows the closing costs worked here.

12. Sources

• Government of British Columbia, Property Transfer Tax program pages: the general tax is charged on fair market value when a transfer is registered, at 1 percent on the first $200,000, 2 percent on the portion above $200,000 up to $2,000,000, 3 percent on the portion above $2,000,000, and a further 2 percent on the residential portion above $3,000,000 (www2.gov.bc.ca, property transfer tax).
• Government of British Columbia, First Time Home Buyers' Program and First Time Home Buyers' Exemption Amounts: effective April 1, 2024, the exemption equals the tax on the first $500,000 (a maximum of $8,000), applies in full to $835,000, and reduces by $320 per $1,000 from $835,000 to $860,000, with the published amounts table showing $13,000 of tax and $5,000 payable at $750,000 and $15,000 of tax, a $3,200 exemption, and $11,800 payable at $850,000; eligibility conditions including citizenship or permanent residence, the 12-month BC residence or two-of-six-years tax filing alternative, no prior ownership of an interest in a principal residence anywhere in the world, no prior exemption, the 0.5 hectare limit, and the 92-day move-in and first-anniversary occupancy requirements (www2.gov.bc.ca, property transfer tax exemptions, first time home buyers).
• Government of British Columbia, Newly Built Home Exemption (page last updated January 6, 2026): effective April 1, 2024, the full exemption threshold rose from $750,000 to $1,100,000, with a partial exemption across the $50,000 band above the threshold and complete elimination at $1,150,000; the definition of a newly built home, the citizenship or permanent residence and principal residence conditions, the first-registration requirement, exemption code 49 on the property transfer tax return, and the 92-day move-in and first-year occupancy requirements (www2.gov.bc.ca, property transfer tax exemptions, newly built home exemption).
• Government of British Columbia, Additional Property Transfer Tax: a further tax of 20 percent on the residential portion for foreign entities and taxable trustees purchasing in the Metro Vancouver, Capital, Fraser Valley, Central Okanagan, and Nanaimo regional districts, applied to the buyer's proportionate interest (www2.gov.bc.ca, property transfer tax, additional property transfer tax).