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2025 and 2024 filed rates · Eastern Ontario

Ottawa vs Cornwall: property tax compared

Ottawa0.74% $3,678 a year on a $500,000 home

Cornwall1.84% $9,212 a year on a $500,000 home

Cornwall is +1.11 pts higher: $5,534 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. Ottawa is lower than 98%; Cornwall is higher than 84%.

Ottawa 0.74%
Cornwall 1.84%
Middle 1.40%10 more, up to 6.85%
Ottawa
Cornwall
Middle 1.40%10 more, to 6.85%
  • Lowest fifth
  • Low
  • Middle fifth
  • High
  • Highest fifth
  • Ottawa
  • Cornwall

Ottawa has the lower property tax rate: 0.74% against Cornwall's 1.84% (Ottawa 2025, Cornwall 2024, the newest each has filed), a gap of 1.11 percentage points. On a $500,000 assessment that is $3,678 versus $9,212 a year — a difference of $5,534.

Side by side

Assessed valueOttawaCornwallDifference
$300,000$2,207$5,527$3,320
$500,000$3,678$9,212$5,534
$750,000$5,517$13,818$8,301
$1,000,000$7,357$18,424$11,068

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

Neither has a county above it, so neither pays a county levy and the comparison is clean: the whole difference sits in the municipal rate.

PortionOttawaCornwallOn $500,000
Municipal0.58%1.69%$5,534
County or regionnonenone$0
Education0.15%0.15%$0
Total0.74%1.84%$5,534

2019–2025: has the gap widened?

YearOttawaCornwallGap
20190.67%1.63%+0.96 pts
20200.67%1.63%+0.96 pts
20210.68%1.67%+0.99 pts
20220.70%1.72%+1.02 pts
20230.71%1.77%+1.06 pts
20240.73%1.84%+1.11 pts
20250.74%——

Cornwall has not filed 2025 yet, so the comparison above sets its 2024 rate against Ottawa’s 2025 rate.

Which is cheaper, Ottawa or Cornwall?

Ottawa, on rate. 0.74% against 1.84% means $5,534 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.