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2025 filed rates · Southwest Ontario

Cambridge vs Guelph: property tax compared

Cambridge1.30% $6,513 a year on a $500,000 home

Guelph1.40% $6,989 a year on a $500,000 home

Guelph is +0.10 pts higher: $476 a year more on a $500,000 home.

Where the two sit among Ontario's 414 municipalities

Each dot is one municipality, placed by its newest filed rate. Cambridge is lower than 63%; Guelph is lower than 50%.

Cambridge 1.30%
Guelph 1.40%
Middle 1.40%10 more, up to 6.85%
Cambridge
Guelph
Middle 1.40%10 more, to 6.85%
  • Lowest fifth
  • Low
  • Middle fifth
  • High
  • Highest fifth
  • Cambridge
  • Guelph

Cambridge has the lower property tax rate: 1.30% against Guelph's 1.40% for 2025, a gap of 0.10 percentage points. On a $500,000 assessment that is $6,513 versus $6,989 a year — a difference of $476.

Side by side

Assessed valueCambridgeGuelphDifference
$300,000$3,908$4,193$286
$500,000$6,513$6,989$476
$750,000$9,769$10,483$714
$1,000,000$13,025$13,977$952

Assessed value, not market price. Ontario assessments still reference 2016 valuations, and the two places may sit at different distances from current market value — which is why a rate gap is not the same as a bill gap for comparable houses.

Where the difference comes from

The two are set up differently. Guelph has no county above it, while Cambridge is a town inside Waterloo Region, paying 0.64% to the county on top of its own rate. Comparing municipal rates alone would be misleading here; only the totals are comparable.

PortionCambridgeGuelphOn $500,000
Municipal0.51%1.24%$3,693
County or region0.64%none$-3,217
Education0.15%0.15%$0
Total1.30%1.40%$476

2019–2025: has the gap widened?

YearCambridgeGuelphGap
20191.05%1.14%+0.09 pts
20201.04%1.12%+0.08 pts
20211.04%1.14%+0.10 pts
20221.09%1.18%+0.09 pts
20231.16%1.23%+0.07 pts
20241.23%1.32%+0.09 pts
20251.30%1.40%+0.10 pts

Which is cheaper, Cambridge or Guelph?

Cambridge, on rate. 1.30% against 1.40% means $476 less per year on a $500,000 assessment. Whether it is cheaper for the same house depends on how each place assesses it, which the rate alone does not tell you.

Sources and method

Tax rates
Ontario Financial Information Return (FIR), 22 GPL — Municipal and School Board Taxation. Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Municipal Act s.294(1). Years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025; retrieved 2026-10-11. Download the file
Method
Dollar figures are the rate times the assessed value shown. Gaps between two rates are in percentage points. Both figures are as filed with the province for the tax year shown.
Limits
Reference, not tax advice. An individual bill can include area-specific charges that a municipality-wide rate does not capture.