City in Northwest Ontario, with no county above it

Dryden property tax rate, 2025

1.97% of the assessed value on your MPAC notice, each year

$9,834 a year on a $500,000 home, or about $820 a month

Higher than 88% of the 414 Ontario municipalities

Each dot is one municipality, placed by its newest filed rate. Further right is higher.

Dryden 1.97%
Middle 1.40%10 more, up to 6.85%
Dryden
Middle 1.40%10 more, to 6.85%
  • Lowest fifth
  • Low
  • Middle fifth
  • High
  • Highest fifth
  • Dryden

Dryden in short

  • $9,834 a year on a $500,000 home: $9,069 to Dryden council and $765 to schools.
  • Up 0.22 points since 2019, or $1,114 a year more on a $500,000 home.
  • Rent $860 a month, home value $200,000 in the 2021 Census, against an Ontario middle of $980 and $400,000.

2025 is the newest year Dryden has filed. Every municipality on this site is compared at its newest filed rate: 283 have filed 2025, and the other 131 are at their newest year, mostly 2024.

Who sets the rate

Two bodies set Dryden's rate: Dryden council and the Province of Ontario, for schools. Dryden has no county above it, so there is no county or region portion: its own rate of 1.81% already pays for services that a county would run elsewhere. That is also why comparing Dryden's municipal rate directly against a township's understates what the township actually pays.

PortionRateOn $500,000Share
MunicipalDryden council1.81%$9,06992%
County or regionNone in Dryden0.00%$00%
EducationProvince of Ontario0.15%$7658%
Total1.97%$9,834100%

Each rate is rounded to two decimals, so the parts can add up to 0.01 off the total.

How the rate has changed, 2019–2025

Up every year since 2021. Since 2019 the total rate here has risen by 0.22 percentage points, from 1.74% to 1.97%. On a $500,000 home that is $1,114 a year more than in 2019.

  1. 20191.74%$8,720
  2. 20201.70%$8,523
  3. 20211.70%$8,495
  4. 20221.77%$8,845
  5. 20231.81%$9,071
  6. 20241.92%$9,618
  7. 2025*1.97%$9,834
Total residential rate, with the tax on a $500,000 home underneath. *2025 is Dryden's own filing; 104 municipalities have not filed 2025 yet.
Each part of the rate, year by year

Over the same years the residential assessment base moved from $483M to $493M, and the residential levy collected went from $8M to $10M. A rate rising while the base also grows means the budget grew faster than property values; a rate falling while the base grows usually means the opposite. Assessment is the figure on the MPAC notice, still based on 2016 values province-wide.

YearMunicipalCounty or regionEducationTotalChangeOn $500,000
20191.58%—0.16%1.74%—$8,720
20201.55%—0.15%1.70%−0.04 pts$8,523
20211.55%—0.15%1.70%−0.01 pts$8,495
20221.62%—0.15%1.77%+0.07 pts$8,845
20231.66%—0.15%1.81%+0.05 pts$9,071
20241.77%—0.15%1.92%+0.11 pts$9,618
2025*1.81%—0.15%1.97%+0.04 pts$9,834

Why are Dryden property taxes so high?

Dryden's total rate of 1.97% is 0.57 percentage points above the provincial middle (1.40%). A rate that high usually means the assessment base is small relative to what the budget must cover: $492.8M of taxable residential value funds $9.7M in levy here.

Home values
Homes here are assessed at $137,891 per household, 25% less than the middle ($183,474). Lower values mean it needs a higher rate to raise the same money.
Spending
It spends $9,860 per household, 30% more than the middle ($7,558). It spends more on police (+$1,251), parks and recreation (+$779) and running the municipality (+$263), and less on public transit (−$114) and social housing (−$59).
  • Police+$1,251
  • Parks and recreation+$779
  • Running the municipality+$263
  • Public transit−$114
  • Social housing−$59
More on why
Across Ontario
Across the 167 places with no county above them, the tax rate follows home values much more closely than spending: where homes are worth more, rates tend to be lower (rank correlation −0.82 for home values, 0.53 for spending). A pattern, not proof of cause.

What it costs to live in Dryden

CostDrydenOntario middle
Rent, per monthmedian, 2021$860Lower than 70% of 354$980
Home valueowners’ estimate, 2021$200,000Lower than 88% of 412$400,000
Property tax on a $500,000 assessment2025$9,834Higher than 88% of 414$6,992
Households spending 30% or more on housingshare of income, 202110.6%Lower than 85% of 40015.0%
Household incomemedian, before tax, 2020$82,000Lower than 52% of 405$84,000

Ontario has no official cost-of-living index for single towns. Statistics Canada’s consumer price index covers only Toronto, Ottawa and Thunder Bay here, and it measures change over time, not the gap between places. These are the costs published for each municipality: what renters paid and owners estimated in the 2021 Census, not today’s asking rents or sale prices.

Places like Dryden

The 5 places closest to Dryden on total tax rate, assessment / household, spending per household, population, 5-year growth, people per household, among places with no county above them.

PlaceNewest rateOn $500,000
Dryden this page1.97%$9,834
Hearst2.22%$11,110
Sioux Lookout2024 rate2.22%$11,121
Kirkland Lake2024 rate2.25%$11,245
Fort Frances2.26%$11,284
Iroquois Falls2.55%$12,753
Others in Kenora District

Municipalities that share Dryden's county or district. Rates compare most cleanly between places whose assessments sit at similar levels.

MunicipalityRateOn $500,000vs Dryden
Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls0.93%$4,626−$5,208
Machin1.33%$6,644−$3,190
Kenora1.62%$8,077−$1,757
Red Lake2024 rate1.68%$8,397−$1,438
Sioux Lookout2024 rate2.22%$11,121+$1,286
Ear Falls2024 rate2.45%$12,228+$2,394
Ignace2021 rate2.63%$13,155+$3,321
Pickle Lake3.73%$18,665+$8,831

All 414 Ontario municipalities in one table

More on Dryden

All 12 property classes, 2025

Residential is one of 12 classes Dryden reported this year. The tax ratio is the multiple applied to the residential rate: a ratio of 1.7 on multi-residential means an apartment building pays 1.7× what a house pays on the same assessed value.

ClassTax ratioMunicipalCounty or regionEducationTotal
Large Industrial5.4711629.81%—0.88%10.69%
Commercial1.858683.37%—0.88%4.25%
Parking Lot1.858683.37%—0.88%4.25%
Shopping Centre1.858683.37%—0.88%4.25%
Multi-Residential1.9658853.57%—0.15%3.72%
Industrial1.4157982.54%—0.88%3.42%
Pipeline1.3754092.49%—0.88%3.37%
Aggregate Extraction Property1.1887642.16%—0.51%2.67%
New Multi-Residential1.12.00%—0.15%2.15%
Residential11.81%—0.15%1.97%
Farmland0.250.45%—0.04%0.49%
Managed Forest0.250.45%—0.04%0.49%

Sources and method

Tax rates and spending come from the Financial Information Return that Dryden files with the Province of Ontario; population, rents and home values from Statistics Canada.

Every source, the method and the limits
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
Spending, households
Financial Information Return Schedule 40 (consolidated expenses by function) and Schedule 02 (households and population).
Population
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 17-10-0155-01, Population estimates, July 1, by census subdivision. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Rent, home value, income
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. Statistics Canada Open Licence. Rent is the median monthly shelter cost of renter households (rent plus any utilities they pay). The Ontario middle is the median across the municipalities with a published figure.
Method
Dollar figures are the rate times $500,000 of assessed value. Standing compares Dryden's 2025 total residential rate with all 414 Ontario municipalities: 48 of the other 413 charge more. The five colours split them into fifths.
Municipality ID
MunID 60025, MAH 82101
Limits
These are the figures Dryden filed with the province. An individual bill can include area-specific charges and local improvement levies that a municipality-wide rate does not capture. Reference, not tax advice.