Which GST/HST rate to charge in Canada in 2026: the province rate table (Ontario 13%, Nova Scotia 14% since April 2025, Atlantic 15%, everywhere else 5%), the place-of-supply rules for goods and services, the invoice requirements, and the mistakes that cost real money.
Applies in: across Canada
Charge by your customer's province, not your own. That is the whole place-of-supply principle in one sentence. An Alberta consultant billing an Ontario client charges 13% HST. A Toronto shop shipping a book to Vancouver charges 5% GST. The rate follows where the supply is consumed or delivered.
Three rates cover the country in 2026: 5% GST in most provinces and all three territories, 13% HST in Ontario, and a split Atlantic picture — 14% HST in Nova Scotia, 15% in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and PEI. Quebec adds its own QST (9.975%) on top of the 5% GST; BC, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan add their PST/RST.
The short rule sits on two conditions. You need to charge GST/HST when you make taxable supplies in Canada and you are no longer a small supplier. Meet both, and registration is not optional. You register for a GST/HST account, charge the tax at the rate for your customer's province, file returns, and remit what you collected. A business whose only supplies are exempt does not charge the tax, and it generally cannot register at all.
The small-supplier test is where most businesses sit at the start. You are a small supplier while the total of your worldwide taxable supplies stays at $30,000 or less. The total covers all of your businesses and the taxable supplies of your associates, and it includes zero-rated supplies. It leaves out revenue from financial services, sales of capital property, and goodwill from selling a business. For public service bodies the limit is $50,000 instead of $30,000. The CRA measures the total two ways, over the last four consecutive calendar quarters and in any single calendar quarter, and crossing either line ends small-supplier status.
The timing differs by which line you cross. Go over $30,000 inside one calendar quarter and you stop being a small supplier on the supply that put you over. You charge GST/HST on that very supply, and your effective date of registration is no later than that day. Go over across four quarters, without crossing in a single one, and you stop being a small supplier at the end of the month after that quarter ends. Your effective date is no later than your first supply after that point. In both cases you have 29 days from the effective date to register. Watch the rolling four-quarter total as you grow, because the tax is owed from the effective date whether or not the paperwork is done.
One group gets no threshold at all. A self-employed taxi operator or commercial ride-sharing driver must register even as a small supplier and charge GST/HST on fares from the first day of driving. The CRA deems a driver supplying commercial ride-sharing services to be carrying on a taxi business for this purpose. Owners, drivers who lease a cab for a flat fee, and drivers who lease for a share of fares can all fall on the self-employed side of that line.
Below the threshold, registration is a choice. A small supplier who makes taxable supplies in Canada may register voluntarily. Voluntary registration means you charge and remit the tax and file returns like any other registrant, and in return you can claim input tax credits on the GST/HST you pay on business costs. That trade suits businesses with heavy startup spending or mostly business customers, who claim the tax back anyway. It suits a seller to final consumers less well, since the tax raises the shelf price. A voluntary registrant has to stay registered for at least one year before asking to cancel.
Non-residents follow the same threshold with a few extra turns. A non-resident who carries on business in Canada and makes taxable supplies there must register once they are no longer a small supplier, and carrying on business in Canada does not require a permanent establishment here. A non-resident who does not carry on business in Canada generally does not have to register under the normal rules. Two cases override that: a non-resident selling admissions in Canada to a place of amusement, a seminar, an activity, or an event held in Canada must register even as a small supplier, and separate simplified GST/HST rules cover cross-border digital products and services, goods located in Canada, and platform-based short-term accommodation. A non-resident registrant without a permanent establishment in Canada usually has to post security with the CRA, set at 50% of estimated net tax for the first year, with a $5,000 minimum and a $1 million maximum.
| Where the customer is | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Alberta, BC, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, NWT, Nunavut | 5% GST | Plus PST/RST in BC, MB, SK |
| Quebec | 5% GST + 9.975% QST | Combined 14.975%; two separate lines on the invoice |
| Ontario | 13% HST | The only 13% province |
| Nova Scotia | 14% HST | Was 15% before April 1, 2025 — many pages still say 15% |
| New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI | 15% HST | Unchanged |
The provincial add-ons: British Columbia charges 7% PST, Manitoba 7% RST, and Saskatchewan 6% PST on top of the federal 5%. These are provincial taxes with their own rules — they ride on the same sale but they are not the GST, and they have their own registration and collection quirks. If you sell taxable goods or services in those provinces, expect to deal with two tax lines, not one.
Nova Scotia's HST dropped from 15% to 14% on April 1, 2025, when the province cut its portion of the tax. This is the most dangerous stale fact in Canadian tax content right now: a surprising amount of the internet — including some older CRA pages — still says 15%. The CRA's current place-of-supply memoranda (the 2026 editions of the 3-3 series) were explicitly updated for the change, so 14% is the number. If your invoicing system, template, or memory says 15% for Nova Scotia, fix it.
For tangible goods — anything you can pick up, ship, or deliver — the supply is made in the province where the goods are delivered or made available to the recipient. The CRA deems goods delivered in a province when the supplier:
The warehouse the goods leave from does not set the rate. Neither does your office. The doorstep the goods arrive at sets the rate. So a Montreal warehouse shipping to Calgary bills 5% GST; the same warehouse shipping to St. John's bills 15% HST.
For services, the general rule is simpler to state and harder to apply: the supply is made in the province of the recipient's address, the one you obtained in the ordinary course of business. If you hold more than one address for the customer, use the home or business address most closely connected with the supply.
Practical translations:
When the service is tied to a specific place — a haircut, a renovation, a concert — the special rules in the CRA's place-of-supply memoranda override the general rule and point at where the service is performed. The CRA's place-of-supply hub walks through the special cases: real property, transportation, telecom, intangible property, and the rest.
Goods delivered outside Canada are deemed to be supplied outside Canada, and services performed wholly outside Canada are likewise not taxable in Canada. These supplies are zero-rated: you charge 0%, but unlike exempt supplies, zero-rated supplies still let you claim input tax credits on the GST/HST you paid to make them. That distinction is worth real money — an exporter that mislabels zero-rated sales as exempt leaves its input tax credits on the table.
This is the gate in front of everything above: you may only collect GST/HST once your account is registered and active. Never put a GST/HST number on an invoice before you have one. If you already charged GST/HST more than 30 days before registering, the CRA's own guidance says to call 1-800-959-5525 rather than hoping no one notices.
Under the $30,000 small-supplier threshold, registration is optional and you may choose to register voluntarily — mostly to claim back the GST/HST you paid on startup costs. Over the threshold, registration is mandatory, and the effective date backdates to when you stopped being a small supplier: you owe the tax on sales after that date whether or not you collected it. The full decision logic, with the two-test threshold rule and worked examples, is in Do You Need a GST Number as a Sole Proprietor in Canada?, and the registration routes are in How to Register for GST/HST in Canada.
The CRA's input-tax-credit rules are strict about paperwork: a registrant cannot claim an ITC without the prescribed supporting information. What that means for your invoices:
Getting invoices right is not just compliance — it is how your customers justify their own input tax credits. An invoice without your GST/HST number is an invoice your customer cannot cleanly claim against.
Charging Nova Scotia at 15%. The 2025 cut to 14% caught everyone who memorized the old table. Audit your templates, invoicing software defaults, and any blog post you wrote before 2025.
Charging your own province's rate everywhere. The classic new-freelancer error: an Alberta freelancer billing 5% GST to an Ontario client is under-collecting, and the CRA expects the difference. Place of supply is the rule; your address is not.
Charging before you are registered. Collecting GST/HST without an active account is not allowed, full stop. If the threshold clock was already ticking, you owe the tax back to the effective date — out of pocket if you did not collect it.
Forgetting the second tax in BC, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Quebec. The federal rate is only half the invoice in those provinces. A Vancouver sale at "5% GST" that should have had 7% PST on it is under-collected tax.
Treating zero-rated exports as exempt. Zero-rated (0% charged, ITCs claimable) and exempt (no tax, no ITCs) look identical on the invoice and are opposites in your return. Exporters who file as exempt instead of zero-rated are donating their input tax credits to the CRA.
| Alberta, BC, MB, SK, YT, NT, NU | 5% GST |
|---|---|
| Quebec | 5% GST + 9.975% QST (14.975% combined) |
| Ontario | 13% HST |
| Nova Scotia | 14% HST (was 15% before April 1, 2025) |
| New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI | 15% HST |
| British Columbia extra | 7% PST on top of 5% GST |
| Manitoba extra | 7% RST on top of 5% GST |
| Saskatchewan extra | 6% PST on top of 5% GST |
The big one to get right: Nova Scotia's HST fell from 15% to 14% on April 1, 2025. A surprising amount of the internet — including some older CRA pages — still says 15%. The CRA's 2026 place-of-supply memoranda explicitly call out the change, so 14% is the number to use.
13% HST. The rate depends on where your customer is, not where you are — Ontario's rate applies to the whole transaction whether you are billing from Toronto or from Calgary.
13% HST, the Ontario rate. This is the place-of-supply principle: the tax follows the customer. Selling from a 5% province into a 13% or 15% province does not let you charge the lower rate — and billing the other direction does not let you charge the higher one either.
14%. Nova Scotia cut the provincial portion of its HST effective April 1, 2025, dropping the combined rate from 15% to 14%. Many pages still say 15%, including some older CRA publications — the current CRA place-of-supply memoranda (2026 editions) reflect the change. If an invoice or system still charges 15% for Nova Scotia, it is out of date.
Generally, no — those supplies are zero-rated. Goods delivered outside Canada are deemed to be supplied outside Canada, and services performed wholly outside Canada are likewise not taxable in Canada. Zero-rated is not the same as exempt: you charge 0% but you can still claim input tax credits on the tax you paid to make the supply.
Yes, where those provinces' taxes apply: 7% PST in BC, 7% RST in Manitoba, 6% PST in Saskatchewan, and 9.975% QST in Quebec, each on top of the 5% GST. In Quebec show the GST and QST as two separate lines on the invoice — and Quebec businesses register for both taxes with Revenu Québec, not the CRA.
No. You may only collect GST/HST once your account is registered and active — never put a GST/HST number on an invoice before you have one. If you crossed the $30,000 threshold, the effective date backdates to when you stopped being a small supplier, so you owe the tax on sales after that date whether or not you collected it.
Yes. For your customers to claim input tax credits — and for the CRA to accept your books — invoices need your GST/HST registration number and the tax charged. The CRA's documentary-requirements chart uses $100 and $500 invoice tiers: at $100 or more the tax must appear (shown separately, or with a statement that the total includes GST/HST at the applicable rate); at $500 or more add the recipient's name, payment terms, and a description of each supply. And show HST as one combined line — do not split it into federal and provincial parts.
The rate of the province where the goods are delivered or made available. The CRA's place-of-supply rules deem goods delivered in a province if the supplier ships to a destination there under the carriage contract, hands them to a carrier to go there, or mails or couriers them to an address there. The warehouse the goods leave from does not set the rate — the doorstep they arrive at does.
The general rule for services is the customer's address obtained in the ordinary course of business — the home or business address most closely connected with the supply. If you have several addresses on file, use the one most closely connected with the service you delivered.
Any business that is no longer a small supplier and makes taxable supplies in Canada. You stop being a small supplier when your worldwide taxable supplies, including those of your associates, pass $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters or in a single calendar quarter. From your effective date of registration you must register, charge GST/HST on taxable supplies, and file returns. Two groups follow tighter rules: self-employed taxi and commercial ride-share drivers must register and charge from their first fare, even as small suppliers, and non-residents carrying on business in Canada must register once they are no longer small suppliers.
Yes. A self-employed taxi operator or commercial ride-sharing driver has to register for GST/HST even if they are a small supplier, and charge the tax on fares. The CRA treats a driver who supplies commercial ride-sharing services as running a taxi business for GST/HST purposes. The effective date of registration is the day the driver starts supplying passenger transportation services. The $30,000 small-supplier threshold does not shelter this group.
No, and you generally cannot register either. A business that provides only exempt supplies does not charge GST/HST and cannot claim input tax credits on related costs. Registration turns on taxable supplies, which include zero-rated supplies charged at 0%. If you make both taxable and exempt supplies, the taxable side is what counts toward the $30,000 threshold and toward registration.
Not necessarily. Below the $30,000 small-supplier threshold (measured on worldwide taxable supplies across four rolling calendar quarters, including your associates' supplies), registration is optional — you may register voluntarily to claim back the GST/HST you paid on business costs. Cross the threshold and registration becomes mandatory, with a backdated effective date. The worked version of the threshold test is in our decision guide, Do You Need a GST Number as a Sole Proprietor in Canada?
It turns on whether you incurred the expense as your client's agent. Travel, hotel, office supplies, and photocopying are usually your own business expenses: the reimbursement is additional consideration for your service, so bill the pre-tax amount of the expense, claim the input tax credit on the tax you paid, and charge GST/HST on the whole total at the same rate as your service. If you paid the expense as your client's agent — the client, not you, is the recipient of that supply — the reimbursement is not additional consideration and no GST/HST applies to the recovery itself; you are reimbursed the expense including the tax you paid, and you claim no input tax credit on it. Agency is a question of fact, and the CRA's info sheet GI-197, Out-of-Pocket Expenses works through both cases with examples — read it before you invoice a large pass-through cost, and ask the CRA for a ruling if the answer is not clear.