All the ways Canadian homeowners can get tax relief this season

Home ownership in Canada is a serious investment, and with tax season in full swing, it’s important to know which measures could help or hinder you.

Whether you already own a home or are a prospective home buyer, there are several housing-related tax credits, rebates, and reporting obligations that you may miss.

H&R Block shared home-related tax relief measures Canadians should be aware of this season.

Prospective home buyer tax incentives

First-Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit

This non-refundable tax credit aims to help first-time home buyers with some of the costs of purchasing a qualifying home.

The government considers the following as qualifying homes:

• Single-family house
• Semi-detached house
• Townhouse
• Mobile home
• Condominium unit
• Apartment in a duplex, triplex, fourplex, or apartment building
• A share in a co-operative housing corporation that entitles you to own and gives you an equity interest in a housing unit located in Canada (except a share that only gives you the right to tenancy in the housing unit)

“This credit reduces the federal income tax you may owe, but you will not get a refund for this credit if you do not have any tax payable,” states the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

Canadians can claim up to $10,000 if they bought a qualifying home in 2025. The tax credit can provide up to $1,500 in federal tax relief and be shared between eligible buyers.

Home Buyer’s Plan

This measure allows eligible Canadians to withdraw up to $60,000 from their RRSPs to buy or build a home, and allows them to pay back the amounts withdrawn within 15 years.

You must be considered a first-time home buyer or a specified disabled person to participate in the HBP.

First-time home buyers GST rebate

This legislation was proposed by the Liberal government last May. If it passes, there will be zero GST applied on new homes sold at up to $1 million for first-time home buyers only. For new properties purchased at a price of between $1 million and $1.5 million, there will be a reduced GST for first-time buyers and their new homes.

This means that for homes priced at up to $1 million, first-time buyers will save up to $50,000 by not having to pay the GST.

Buyers with new, more expensive homes will be eligible for a reduced GST rebate, which falls incrementally from home prices of $1 million to $1.5 million.

For example, a home price of $1.1 million would be eligible for a 20 per cent rebate of $40,000, a home price of $1.25 million would be eligible for a rebate of $25,000, and a home price of $1.4 million would be eligible for a rebate of $10,000.

A “new home” purchase is defined as property bought from a new home by a builder, a self-built home or a self-contracted new home, or an acquisition of shares of a co-operative housing corporation.

To learn more about eligibility, read Daily Hive’s explainer.

Using a home to earn income

H&R Block stressed that Canadians earning rental income, including short-term rentals like Airbnb, must report that income, no matter how much they have earned.

If you’re worried this will affect your tax return, you can also deduct eligible business expenses like property insurance, mortgage interest, property taxes, advertising, utilities, and accounting and tax preparation fees.

“It’s important to know that homes used as short-term rental income are subject to GST when they are sold, which can catch sellers off guard if they weren’t aware of the added expense,” noted the tax preparation company.

Self-employment or work-from-home tax credits

Canadians working from home may also be able to claim home-office expenses if their workspace meets CRA requirements, proportionate to the part of the home used to earn income.

If you have your own business and you work from home, you can claim business-use-of-home expenses.

Home renovation tax measures

Home Accessibility Tax Credit

This tax credit allows eligible Canadians to claim up to $20,000 in qualifying renovation expenses made to make a home more accessible to seniors or persons with disabilities. You can get a tax credit of up to $3,000.

Multigenerational Home Renovation Tax Credit

Eligible Canadians can claim this credit for certain renovation expenses to create a secondary self-contained unit that allows a qualifying senior or disabled relative to live in the home.

You can claim up to $50,000 in qualifying expenditures for each qualifying renovation that is completed. The tax credit is 14.5 per cent of costs up to a maximum of $7,250, for each claim you’re eligible ot make.

Tax measures for selling or flipping a home

Residential Property Flipping Rule

The CRA introduced this rule to ensure that profits from the sale of a flipped home are taxed as business income.

Canadians who sell their home within 12 months of purchase will be subject to this measure. According to H&R Block, it treats “the profits from flipping the house as business income rather than capital gains, which is what a primary residence’s sold value is considered, meaning a flipper will pay more in taxes.”

If the home is the owner’s principal residence, they could avoid paying tax on capital gains when selling it.

With files from Kenneth Chan

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