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2024 filed rates · Southwest Ontario

Kitchener vs Kingston: property tax compared

Kitchener1.12% $5,599 a year on a $500,000 home

Kingston1.27% $6,330 a year on a $500,000 home

Kingston is +0.15 pts higher: $731 a year more on a $500,000 home.

Where the two sit among Ontario's 386 municipalities

Each dot is one municipality, placed by its 2024 rate. Kitchener is lower than 76%; Kingston is lower than 61%.

Kitchener 1.12%
Kingston 1.27%
Middle 1.35%6 more, up to 5.30%
Kitchener
Kingston
Middle 1.35%6 more, to 5.30%
  • Lowest fifth
  • Low
  • Middle fifth
  • High
  • Highest fifth
  • Kitchener
  • Kingston

Kitchener has the lower property tax rate: 1.12% against Kingston's 1.27% for 2024, a gap of 0.15 percentage points. On a $500,000 assessment that is $5,599 versus $6,330 a year — a difference of $731.

Side by side

Assessed valueKitchenerKingstonDifference
$300,000$3,359$3,798$439
$500,000$5,599$6,330$731
$750,000$8,398$9,495$1,096
$1,000,000$11,198$12,660$1,462

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. Kingston has no county above it, while Kitchener is a town inside Waterloo Region, paying 0.58% to the county on top of its own rate. Comparing municipal rates alone would be misleading here; only the totals are comparable.

PortionKitchenerKingstonOn $500,000
Municipal0.39%1.11%$3,628
County or region0.58%none$-2,897
Education0.15%0.15%$0
Total1.12%1.27%$731

2019–2024: has the gap widened?

YearKitchenerKingstonGap
20190.97%1.14%+0.16 pts
20200.96%1.13%+0.17 pts
20210.96%1.16%+0.20 pts
20221.00%1.19%+0.19 pts
20231.06%1.24%+0.18 pts
20241.12%1.27%+0.15 pts

2025 filings so far: Kitchener 1.20% · Kingston 1.33%. 282 of 386 municipalities have filed 2025, so the comparison above stays on 2024.

Which is cheaper, Kitchener or Kingston?

Kitchener, on rate. 1.12% against 1.27% means $731 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.