City · Eastern Ontario · single-tier
At 0.7293%, Ottawa sits 12 of 386 Ontario municipalities ranked cheapest to most expensive — 46% below the provincial median of 1.3516%. On a $500,000 assessment that works out to $3,647 a year, or $304 a month.
Ottawa has already filed 2025: 0.7357% total, +0.87% against 2024 — $3,678 on a $500,000 assessment. Rankings on this site still use 2024, because only 282 of 386 municipalities have filed 2025 so far and a partial year would make every rank meaningless.
Ottawa is a single-tier municipality. There is no county or region collecting a separate levy on top, so the municipal rate of 0.5763% already covers services that a township elsewhere would pay a county to provide. That is why the upper-tier column below reads zero, and why comparing Ottawa's municipal rate directly against a township's municipal rate understates what the township actually pays.
| Portion | Set by | Rate | On $500,000 | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Municipal | Ottawa council | 0.5763% | $2,882 | 79.0% |
| Education | Province of Ontario | 0.1530% | $765 | 21.0% |
| Total | 0.7293% | $3,647 | 100% |
Since 2019 the total rate here has risen 8.8%. Over the same period the assessment base moved from $127,242M to $140,194M, so the levy collected grew from $842M to $1,022M. 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.
| Year | Municipal | Upper-tier | Education | Total | Change | On $500,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 0.5094% | — | 0.1610% | 0.6704% | — | $3,352 |
| 2020 | 0.5158% | — | 0.1530% | 0.6688% | -0.2% | $3,344 |
| 2021 | 0.5291% | — | 0.1530% | 0.6821% | +2.0% | $3,411 |
| 2022 | 0.5455% | — | 0.1530% | 0.6985% | +2.4% | $3,492 |
| 2023 | 0.5618% | — | 0.1530% | 0.7148% | +2.3% | $3,574 |
| 2024 | 0.5763% | — | 0.1530% | 0.7293% | +2.0% | $3,647 |
| 2025 | 0.5827% | — | 0.1530% | 0.7357% | +0.9% | $3,678 |
Rates only compare cleanly between places whose assessments sit at similar levels. These are the municipalities most directly comparable to Ottawa by rate.
| Municipality | Total rate | On $500,000 | vs Ottawa | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dysart et al | 0.7423% | $3,712 | +$65 | 15 |
| Algonquin Highlands | 0.7807% | $3,904 | +$257 | 18 |
| Selwyn | 0.8148% | $4,074 | +$427 | 24 |
| Minden Hills | 0.8503% | $4,251 | +$605 | 29 |
| Beckwith | 0.8673% | $4,336 | +$690 | 34 |
| Trent Lakes | 0.9629% | $4,814 | +$1,168 | 47 |
Links go to pages that exist once that municipality is published. Batch rollout is deliberate — see the method note on the about page.
Residential is one of 14 classes Ottawa reported this year. The tax ratio column 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 | Upper-tier | Education | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Landfill | 2.763418 | 1.5921% | — | 0.8800% | 2.4721% |
| Industrial | 2.558638 | 1.4845% | — | 0.8800% | 2.3645% |
| Office Building | 2.38637 | 1.3862% | — | 0.8800% | 2.2662% |
| Large Industrial | 2.197215 | 1.2748% | — | 0.8800% | 2.1548% |
| Commercial | 1.9230749999999999 | 1.1171% | — | 0.8800% | 1.9971% |
| Prof. Sports Facility | 1.9230749999999999 | 1.1171% | — | 0.8800% | 1.9971% |
| Pipeline | 1.71709 | 0.9908% | — | 0.8800% | 1.8708% |
| Shopping Centre | 1.5476459999999999 | 0.8990% | — | 0.7759% | 1.6749% |
| Parking Lot | 1.2980260000000001 | 0.7540% | — | 0.5496% | 1.3036% |
| Multi-Residential | 1.403232 | 0.8121% | — | 0.1530% | 0.9651% |
| New Multi-Residential | 1 | 0.5763% | — | 0.1530% | 0.7293% |
| Residential | 1 | 0.5763% | — | 0.1530% | 0.7293% |
| Managed Forest | 0.25 | 0.1441% | — | 0.0382% | 0.1823% |
| Farmland | 0.2 | 0.1153% | — | 0.0382% | 0.1535% |
Ottawa's total rate of 0.7293% sits 46% below the provincial median, which is not the same as a small bill. A large assessment base — $140.19B here — funds the same services at a lower percentage, so the dollar amount on an expensive house can still be high.
Ottawa’s total residential tax rate is 0.73%, 52% below the middle single-tier municipality (1.53%).
Homes here carry $296,029 of assessed value per household, 62% above the middle ($182,514). Higher values let it raise the same money per household at a lower rate.
It spends $10,022 per household in total, 39% above the middle ($7,212). The biggest gaps above the middle: public transit (+$1,589), social and family services (+$1,226), social housing (+$841). Below: roads and bridges (−$478), running the municipality (−$441).
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 154 single-tier municipalities, rates move more with home values (rank correlation -0.82) than with spending per household (0.57). That is a pattern, not proof of cause.
Closest on total tax rate, assessment / household, spending per household, population, 5-year growth, people per household, among municipalities of the same tier.
Ottawa reported a residential assessment base of $140B for 2024 and collected $1,022M in residential property tax against it. Assessment is the figure on the MPAC notice, still based on 2016 valuations province-wide, which is why it usually differs from what a house would sell for today.
These are the figures Ottawa 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.
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