Town in Northeast Ontario, with no county above it
Hearst property tax rate, 2025
2.22%of the assessed value on your MPAC notice, each year
$11,110 a yearon a $500,000 home, or about $926 a month
Higher than 93% of the 414 Ontario municipalities
Each dot is one municipality, placed by its newest filed rate. Further right is higher.
Hearst 2.22%
Middle 1.40%10 more, up to 6.85%
0.5%1.0%1.5%2.0%2.5%3.0%
Hearst
Middle 1.40%10 more, to 6.85%
0.5%1.0%1.5%2.0%2.5%3.0%
Lowest fifth
Low
Middle fifth
High
Highest fifth
Hearst
Hearst in short
$11,110 a year on a $500,000 home: $10,345 to Hearst council and $765 to schools.
Up 0.31 points since 2019, or $1,568 a year more on a $500,000 home.
Rent $705 a month, home value $220,000 in the 2021 Census, against an Ontario middle of $980 and $400,000.
2025 is the newest year Hearst 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 Hearst's rate: Hearst council and the Province of Ontario, for schools. Hearst has no
county above it, so there is no county or region portion: its own rate of 2.07%
already pays for services that a county would run elsewhere. That is also why comparing Hearst's
municipal rate directly against a township's understates what the township actually pays.
$10,345
Portion
Rate
On $500,000
Share
MunicipalHearst council
2.07%
$10,345
93%
County or regionNone in Hearst
0.00%
$0
0%
EducationProvince of Ontario
0.15%
$765
7%
Total
2.22%
$11,110
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 0.31 percentage points, from 1.91% to 2.22%. On a $500,000 home that is $1,568 a year more than in 2019.
20191.91%$9,542
20201.90%$9,502
20211.94%$9,677
20221.97%$9,855
20232.02%$10,105
20242.14%$10,712
2025*2.22%$11,110
Total residential rate, with the tax on a $500,000 home underneath. *2025 is Hearst'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 $250M to
$258M, and the residential levy collected went from $5M
to $6M. 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
1.75%
—
0.16%
1.91%
—
$9,542
2020
1.75%
—
0.15%
1.90%
−0.01 pts
$9,502
2021
1.78%
—
0.15%
1.94%
+0.03 pts
$9,677
2022
1.82%
—
0.15%
1.97%
+0.04 pts
$9,855
2023
1.87%
—
0.15%
2.02%
+0.05 pts
$10,105
2024
1.99%
—
0.15%
2.14%
+0.12 pts
$10,712
2025*
2.07%
—
0.15%
2.22%
+0.08 pts
$11,110
Why are Hearst property taxes so high?
Hearst's total rate of 2.22% is 0.82 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: $258.3M of taxable residential value funds $5.7M in levy here.
Home values
Homes here are assessed at $102,713 per household, 44% less than the middle ($183,474). Lower values mean it needs a higher rate to raise the same money.
Spending
It spends $11,867 per household, 57% more than the middle ($7,558). It spends more on social and family services (+$4,233), social housing (+$308) and parks and recreation (+$290), and less on water and wastewater (−$289) and fire (−$215).
← Less than the middleMore than the middle →
Social and family services+$4,233
Social housing+$308
Parks and recreation+$290
Water and wastewater−$289
Fire−$215
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 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 Hearst
Cost
Hearst
Ontario middle
Rent, per monthmedian, 2021
$705Lower than 92% of 354
$980
Home valueowners’ estimate, 2021
$220,000Lower than 87% of 412
$400,000
Property tax on a $500,000 assessment2025
$11,110Higher than 93% of 414
$6,992
Households spending 30% or more on housingshare of income, 2021
13.2%Lower than 62% of 400
15.0%
Household incomemedian, before tax, 2020
$76,500Lower than 67% 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 Hearst
The 5 places closest to Hearst on total tax rate, assessment / household, spending per household, population, 5-year growth, people per household, among places with no county above them.
Residential is one of 7 classes Hearst 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
Large Industrial
1.8125
3.75%
—
0.88%
4.63%
Industrial
1.5417
3.19%
—
0.88%
4.07%
Multi-Residential
1.8282
3.78%
—
0.15%
3.94%
Commercial
1.1
2.28%
—
0.88%
3.16%
Pipeline
0.9509
1.97%
—
0.72%
2.68%
Residential
1
2.07%
—
0.15%
2.22%
Farmland
0.25
0.52%
—
0.04%
0.56%
Sources and method
Tax rates and spending come from the Financial Information Return that Hearst 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 Hearst's 2025 total
residential rate with all 414 Ontario municipalities: 30 of the other 413 charge more. The five colours split them into fifths.
Municipality ID
MunID 56076, MAH 81402
Limits
These are the figures Hearst 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.