City in Northwest Ontario, with no county above it
Thunder Bay property tax rate, 2024
1.60%of the assessed value on your MPAC notice, each year
$8,008 a yearon a $500,000 home, or about $667 a month
Higher than 74% of the 386 Ontario municipalities
Each dot is one municipality, placed by its 2024 rate. Further right is higher.
Thunder Bay 1.60%
Middle 1.35%6 more, up to 5.30%
0.5%1.0%1.5%2.0%2.5%3.0%
Thunder Bay
Middle 1.35%6 more, to 5.30%
0.5%1.0%1.5%2.0%2.5%3.0%
Lowest fifth
Low
Middle fifth
High
Highest fifth
Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay in short
$8,008 a year on a $500,000 home: $7,243 to Thunder Bay council and $765 to schools.
Up 0.19 points since 2019, or $973 a year more on a $500,000 home.
Rent $970 a month, home value $300,000 in the 2021 Census, against an Ontario middle of $980 and $400,000.
Thunder Bay has not filed 2025 with the province yet, so this page uses 2024. 282 of the 386 municipalities have filed 2025.
Who sets the rate
Two bodies set Thunder Bay's rate: Thunder Bay council and the Province of Ontario, for schools. Thunder Bay has no
county above it, so there is no county or region portion: its own rate of 1.45%
already pays for services that a county would run elsewhere. That is also why comparing Thunder Bay's
municipal rate directly against a township's understates what the township actually pays.
$7,243$765
Portion
Rate
On $500,000
Share
MunicipalThunder Bay council
1.45%
$7,243
90%
County or regionNone in Thunder Bay
0.00%
$0
0%
EducationProvince of Ontario
0.15%
$765
10%
Total
1.60%
$8,008
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, 2019–2024
Up every year since 2020. Since 2019 the total rate here has risen by 0.19 percentage points, from 1.41% to 1.60%. On a $500,000 home that is $973 a year more than in 2019.
20191.41%$7,035
20201.39%$6,933
20211.43%$7,153
20221.48%$7,377
20231.51%$7,528
20241.60%$8,008
Total residential rate, with the tax on a $500,000 home underneath.Each part of the rate, year by year
Over the same years the residential assessment base moved from $9,047M to
$9,282M, and the residential levy collected went from $121M
to $149M. 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%
—
$7,035
2020
1.23%
—
0.15%
1.39%
−0.02 pts
$6,933
2021
1.28%
—
0.15%
1.43%
+0.04 pts
$7,153
2022
1.32%
—
0.15%
1.48%
+0.04 pts
$7,377
2023
1.35%
—
0.15%
1.51%
+0.03 pts
$7,528
2024
1.45%
—
0.15%
1.60%
+0.10 pts
$8,008
Why are Thunder Bay property taxes so high?
Thunder Bay's total rate of 1.60% is 0.25 percentage points above the provincial middle (1.35%). A rate that high usually means the assessment base is small relative to what the budget must cover: $9.28B of taxable residential value funds $148.6M in levy here.
Home values
Homes here are assessed at $182,008 per household, about the same as the middle ($182,514).
Spending
It spends $12,597 per household, 75% more than the middle ($7,212). It spends more on police (+$939), social and family services (+$721) and fire (+$442), and less on roads and bridges (−$581) and running the municipality (−$81).
← Less than the middleMore than the middle →
Police+$939
Social and family services+$721
Fire+$442
Roads and bridges−$581
Running the municipality−$81
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 Thunder Bay
Cost
Thunder Bay
Ontario middle
Rent, per monthmedian, 2021
$970Lower than 50% of 329
$980
Home valueowners’ estimate, 2021
$300,000Lower than 71% of 384
$400,000
Property tax on a $500,000 assessment2024
$8,008Higher than 74% of 386
$6,758
Households spending 30% or more on housingshare of income, 2021
16.0%Higher than 58% of 373
14.9%
Household incomemedian, before tax, 2020
$77,500Lower than 65% 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 Thunder Bay
The 5 places closest to Thunder Bay 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 12 classes Thunder Bay 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
Pipeline
2.768387
4.01%
—
0.88%
4.89%
Large Industrial
2.73
3.95%
—
0.88%
4.83%
Industrial
2.370836
3.43%
—
0.88%
4.31%
Commercial
1.98
2.87%
—
0.88%
3.75%
Office Building
1.98
2.87%
—
0.88%
3.75%
Parking Lot
1.98
2.87%
—
0.88%
3.75%
Shopping Centre
1.98
2.87%
—
0.88%
3.75%
Multi-Residential
1.99
2.88%
—
0.15%
3.04%
New Multi-Residential
1
1.45%
—
0.15%
1.60%
Residential
1
1.45%
—
0.15%
1.60%
Farmland
0.25
0.36%
—
0.04%
0.40%
Managed Forest
0.25
0.36%
—
0.04%
0.40%
Sources and method
Tax rates and spending come from the Financial Information Return that Thunder Bay 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; 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 Thunder Bay's 2024 total
residential rate with all 386 Ontario municipalities: 101 of the other 385 charge more. The five colours split them into fifths.
Municipality ID
MunID 58004, MAH 89101
Limits
These are the figures Thunder Bay 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.