BC Closing Costs Calculator
Every line a North Shore buyer pays on completion day. The government-set amounts are filled in for you. The market-rate ones you enter yourself, because nobody publishes a real figure for them and I am not going to invent one.
Over and above your down payment · verified 1 October 2026
Government fees pre-filledLine by line
Property transfer tax — almost always the largest
1% on the first $200,000, 2% to $2,000,000, 3% above that, and a further 2% on residential value above $3,000,000. The first-time buyer exemption is full to $835,000 and partial to $860,000; the newly built home exemption is full to $1,100,000 and phases out at $1,150,000. There is a dedicated property transfer tax calculator with every band broken out.
Land Title Office registration
These are the only closing costs with an exact published price. Registering the transfer of title costs $83.82; registering a mortgage costs another $83.82, each with a $3.55 electronic filing charge. Registration fees are exempt from GST and PST. The amounts rose on 1 April 2026.
Legal fees, and the tax most pages get wrong
The fee itself is market rate. The tax on it is not. British Columbia charges 7% PST on legal services, and the statutory definition captures notary services too. With 5% GST on top you are paying 12% combined on your lawyer’s fee. Nearly every closing-cost page in the province shows 5% and understates it.
GST, and the rebate that changes the arithmetic
There is no GST on a normal resale. New or substantially renovated housing carries 5%.
The long-standing GST New Housing Rebate returns 36% of the GST to a maximum of $6,300, phasing out between $350,000 and $450,000. At North Shore prices it is almost always nil.
The First-Time Home Buyers’ GST Rebate is the one that matters now. It rebates up to 100% of the GST to a maximum of $50,000, in full where the value is up to $1,000,000, phasing out between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000. It became law in March 2026 and applications are open. The conditions are strict: 18 or over, Canadian citizen or permanent resident, you must not have lived in a home you or your spouse owned as a principal residence in the current or previous four calendar years, you must be the first person to occupy the home, and the agreement with the builder must have been entered into on or after 20 March 2025.
What is deliberately not pre-filled
Home inspection, appraisal, title insurance and fire insurance are market-rate. No government body publishes or caps them, so this calculator asks you for the number rather than printing a guessed range. CMHC says closing costs typically run 1.5% to 4% of the purchase price, which is a useful sanity check and not a fee schedule.
Your CMHC mortgage insurance premium is not a closing cost in the usual sense — it is normally added to the mortgage rather than paid in cash. The mortgage calculator works it out.
The federal Underused Housing Tax no longer exists for 2025 or later years. If you see it on a closing-cost list, that list is out of date.
Questions people actually ask
How much are closing costs in BC?
CMHC puts them at roughly 1.5% to 4% of the purchase price as a rule of thumb. On the North Shore the property transfer tax is usually most of it — on a $1,250,000 resale with a mortgage, expect somewhere around $25,000 on top of your down payment.
Do I pay GST when buying a resale home in BC?
No. Most sales of previously occupied residential housing are exempt from GST. New or substantially renovated housing carries 5%.
What is the First-Time Home Buyers’ GST Rebate?
It rebates up to 100% of the GST on a new home to a maximum of $50,000, in full where the value is up to $1,000,000 and phasing out to nil at $1,500,000. It became law in March 2026. The agreement with the builder must have been entered into on or after 20 March 2025 — not the 27 May 2025 date in the original announcement, which was superseded.
Are lawyer and notary fees taxed in British Columbia?
Yes, and more than most pages admit. BC charges 7% PST on legal services, and the statutory definition includes notary services. With 5% GST on top you pay 12% combined on the fee, not 5%.
Do I still have to pay the Underused Housing Tax?
No. The federal Underused Housing Tax was ended for the 2025 calendar year and every year after by legislation that received Royal Assent on 26 March 2026. Returns for 2022, 2023 and 2024 are unaffected, so historic non-filing can still carry exposure.
What are the Land Title Office registration fees?
$83.82 to register the transfer of title and another $83.82 to register a mortgage, each with a $3.55 electronic filing charge. These rose on 1 April 2026 and are exempt from GST and PST.
The other calculators
Sources, named and dated
This calculator is an estimate for planning only and is not tax, legal or financial advice. Market-rate items are figures you supply, not published amounts. Your lawyer or notary prepares the Statement of Adjustments that determines what you actually pay on completion; the property tax and strata apportionment is their calculation and is not set by any government formula. Government fees and rates are those published on the dates cited above. Tom Jahed, REALTOR®, Personal Real Estate Corporation, Vanak Realty.