1.77%of the assessed value on your MPAC notice, each year
$8,846 a yearon a $500,000 home, or about $737 a month
Higher than 84% 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.
Peterborough 1.77%
Middle 1.39%4 more, up to 4.40%
0.5%1.0%1.5%2.0%2.5%3.0%
Peterborough
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
Peterborough
Peterborough in short
$8,846 a year on a $500,000 home: $8,081 to Peterborough council and $765 to schools.
Up 0.36 points since 2019, or $1,792 a year more on a $500,000 home.
Rent $1,110 a month, home value $500,000 in the 2021 Census, against an Ontario middle of $980 and $400,000.
2025 is the newest year Peterborough has filed, so this page uses it.
283 of Ontario’s 386 municipalities have filed 2025 so far, and Peterborough is compared with them.
In 2024, when all of them had filed, Peterborough was higher than 77% at 1.65%.
Who sets the rate
Two bodies set Peterborough's rate: Peterborough council and the Province of Ontario, for schools. Peterborough has no
county above it, so there is no county or region portion: its own rate of 1.62%
already pays for services that a county would run elsewhere. That is also why comparing Peterborough's
municipal rate directly against a township's understates what the township actually pays.
$8,081$765
Portion
Rate
On $500,000
Share
MunicipalPeterborough council
1.62%
$8,081
91%
County or regionNone in Peterborough
0.00%
$0
0%
EducationProvince of Ontario
0.15%
$765
9%
Total
1.77%
$8,846
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 0.36 percentage points, from 1.41% to 1.77%. On a $500,000 home that is $1,792 a year more than in 2019.
20191.41%$7,054
20201.40%$7,008
20211.45%$7,241
20221.49%$7,457
20231.54%$7,688
20241.65%$8,261
2025*1.77%$8,846
Total residential rate, with the tax on a $500,000 home underneath. *2025 is Peterborough'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 $7,525M to
$7,955M, and the residential levy collected went from $103M
to $141M. 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
1.25%
—
0.16%
1.41%
—
$7,054
2020
1.25%
—
0.15%
1.40%
−0.01 pts
$7,008
2021
1.30%
—
0.15%
1.45%
+0.05 pts
$7,241
2022
1.34%
—
0.15%
1.49%
+0.04 pts
$7,457
2023
1.38%
—
0.15%
1.54%
+0.05 pts
$7,688
2024
1.50%
—
0.15%
1.65%
+0.11 pts
$8,261
2025*
1.62%
—
0.15%
1.77%
+0.12 pts
$8,846
Why are Peterborough property taxes so high?
Peterborough's total rate of 1.77% is 0.38 percentage points above the provincial middle (1.39%). A rate that high usually means the assessment base is small relative to what the budget must cover: $7.95B of taxable residential value funds $140.7M in levy here.
Home values
Homes here are assessed at $206,703 per household, 13% more than the middle ($182,514).
Spending
It spends $11,101 per household, 54% more than the middle ($7,212). It spends more on social and family services (+$2,509), social housing (+$907) and police (+$663), and less on roads and bridges (−$699) and water and wastewater (−$181).
← Less than the middleMore than the middle →
Social and family services+$2,509
Social housing+$907
Police+$663
Roads and bridges−$699
Water and wastewater−$181
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 Peterborough
Cost
Peterborough
Ontario middle
Rent, per monthmedian, 2021
$1,110Higher than 74% of 329
$980
Home valueowners’ estimate, 2021
$500,000Higher than 61% of 384
$400,000
Property tax on a $500,000 assessment2025
$8,846Higher than 84% of 283
$6,964
Households spending 30% or more on housingshare of income, 2021
25.7%Higher than 95% of 373
14.9%
Household incomemedian, before tax, 2020
$71,500Lower than 78% 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 Peterborough
The 5 places closest to Peterborough 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 Peterborough'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 Peterborough 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
Commercial
1.5
2.42%
—
0.88%
3.30%
Industrial
1.5
2.42%
—
0.88%
3.30%
Large Industrial
1.5
2.42%
—
0.88%
3.30%
Office Building
1.5
2.42%
—
0.88%
3.30%
Parking Lot
1.5
2.42%
—
0.88%
3.30%
Shopping Centre
1.5
2.42%
—
0.88%
3.30%
Multi-Residential
1.94721
3.15%
—
0.15%
3.30%
Pipeline
1.2706
2.05%
—
0.88%
2.93%
New Multi-Residential
1
1.62%
—
0.15%
1.77%
Residential
1
1.62%
—
0.15%
1.77%
Farmland
0.25
0.40%
—
0.04%
0.44%
Managed Forest
0.25
0.40%
—
0.04%
0.44%
Sources and method
Tax rates and spending come from the Financial Information Return that Peterborough 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 Peterborough's 2025 total
residential rate with all 283 Ontario municipalities: 45 of the other 282 charge more. The five colours split them into fifths.
Municipality ID
MunID 15014, MAH 66101
Limits
These are the figures Peterborough 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.