City in Southwest Ontario, with no county above it
Guelph property tax rate, 2025
1.40%of the assessed value on your MPAC notice, each year
$6,989 a yearon a $500,000 home, or about $582 a month
Higher than 51% of the 283 Ontario municipalities that have filed 2025
Each dot is one municipality, placed by its 2025 rate. Further right is higher. The rest file 2025 later in the year.
Guelph 1.40%
Middle 1.39%4 more, up to 4.40%
0.5%1.0%1.5%2.0%2.5%3.0%
Guelph
Middle 1.39%4 more, to 4.40%
0.5%1.0%1.5%2.0%2.5%3.0%
Lowest fifth
Low
Middle fifth
High
Highest fifth
Guelph
Guelph in short
$6,989 a year on a $500,000 home: $6,224 to Guelph council and $765 to schools.
Up 0.26 points since 2019, or $1,286 a year more on a $500,000 home.
Rent $1,350 a month, home value $700,000 in the 2021 Census, against an Ontario middle of $980 and $400,000.
2025 is the newest year Guelph has filed, so this page uses it.
283 of Ontario’s 386 municipalities have filed 2025 so far, and Guelph is compared with them.
In 2024, when all of them had filed, Guelph was lower than 54% at 1.32%.
Who sets the rate
Two bodies set Guelph's rate: Guelph council and the Province of Ontario, for schools. Guelph has no
county above it, so there is no county or region portion: its own rate of 1.24%
already pays for services that a county would run elsewhere. That is also why comparing Guelph's
municipal rate directly against a township's understates what the township actually pays.
$6,224$765
Portion
Rate
On $500,000
Share
MunicipalGuelph council
1.24%
$6,224
89%
County or regionNone in Guelph
0.00%
$0
0%
EducationProvince of Ontario
0.15%
$765
11%
Total
1.40%
$6,989
100%
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 2020. Since 2019 the total rate here has risen by 0.26 percentage points, from 1.14% to 1.40%. On a $500,000 home that is $1,286 a year more than in 2019.
20191.14%$5,703
20201.12%$5,600
20211.14%$5,713
20221.18%$5,919
20231.23%$6,145
20241.32%$6,598
2025*1.40%$6,989
Total residential rate, with the tax on a $500,000 home underneath. *2025 is Guelph'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 $17,305M to
$18,749M, and the residential levy collected went from $188M
to $262M. 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.
Year
Municipal
County or region
Education
Total
Change
On $500,000
2019
0.98%
—
0.16%
1.14%
—
$5,703
2020
0.97%
—
0.15%
1.12%
−0.02 pts
$5,600
2021
0.99%
—
0.15%
1.14%
+0.02 pts
$5,713
2022
1.03%
—
0.15%
1.18%
+0.04 pts
$5,919
2023
1.08%
—
0.15%
1.23%
+0.05 pts
$6,145
2024
1.17%
—
0.15%
1.32%
+0.09 pts
$6,598
2025*
1.24%
—
0.15%
1.40%
+0.08 pts
$6,989
Why are Guelph property taxes so high?
They are not, measured against the rest of the province. Guelph's total rate of 1.40% sits close to the Ontario middle of 1.39%: higher than 51% of 283 municipalities. A bill can still feel high when the assessment is high, because the rate is only half of the calculation.
Home values
Homes here are assessed at $306,568 per household, 68% more than the middle ($182,514). Higher values let it raise the same money per household at a lower rate.
Spending
It spends $9,781 per household, 36% more than the middle ($7,212). It spends more on social and family services (+$891), public transit (+$704) and police (+$689), and less on roads and bridges (−$715) and running the municipality (−$217).
← Less than the middleMore than the middle →
Social and family services+$891
Public transit+$704
Police+$689
Roads and bridges−$715
Running the municipality−$217
More on why
Provincial money
Social services and social housing are partly paid for by provincial transfers, so they do not map one-to-one onto the tax bill.
Across Ontario
Across the 154 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, 0.57 for spending). A pattern, not proof of cause.
What it costs to live in Guelph
Cost
Guelph
Ontario middle
Rent, per monthmedian, 2021
$1,350Higher than 90% of 329
$980
Home valueowners’ estimate, 2021
$700,000Higher than 85% of 384
$400,000
Property tax on a $500,000 assessment2025
$6,989Higher than 51% of 283
$6,964
Households spending 30% or more on housingshare of income, 2021
22.9%Higher than 89% of 373
14.9%
Household incomemedian, before tax, 2020
$93,000Higher than 65% of 377
$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 Guelph
The 5 places closest to Guelph on total tax rate, assessment / household, spending per household, population, 5-year growth, people per household, among places with no county above them.
Municipalities that share Guelph's county or district that have filed 2025. Rates compare most cleanly between places whose assessments sit at similar levels.
Residential is one of 12 classes Guelph 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.
Class
Tax ratio
Municipal
County or region
Education
Total
Industrial
2.2048
2.74%
—
0.88%
3.62%
Large Industrial
2.2048
2.74%
—
0.88%
3.62%
Pipeline
1.9175
2.39%
—
0.88%
3.27%
Commercial
1.84
2.29%
—
0.88%
3.17%
Office Building
1.84
2.29%
—
0.88%
3.17%
Parking Lot
1.84
2.29%
—
0.88%
3.17%
Shopping Centre
1.84
2.29%
—
0.88%
3.17%
Multi-Residential
1.786308
2.22%
—
0.15%
2.38%
New Multi-Residential
1
1.24%
—
0.15%
1.40%
Residential
1
1.24%
—
0.15%
1.40%
Farmland
0.25
0.31%
—
0.04%
0.35%
Managed Forest
0.25
0.31%
—
0.04%
0.35%
Sources and method
Tax rates and spending come from the Financial Information Return that Guelph 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 Guelph's 2025 total
residential rate with all 283 Ontario municipalities: 139 of the other 282 charge more. The five colours split them into fifths.
Municipality ID
MunID 23008, MAH 75101
Limits
These are the figures Guelph 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.