Canada GST / HST / PST Calculator

GST is the federal 5% Goods and Services Tax charged everywhere in Canada. HST is a single blended rate that combines GST with a province’s own sales tax into one number. PST is a separate provincial tax charged on top of GST rather than merged into it.

Five provinces use HST: Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. Four provinces charge GST plus their own separate tax: British Columbia and Saskatchewan call it PST, Manitoba calls it RST, and Quebec calls it QST. Alberta, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon charge GST only, with no provincial sales tax at all.

Multiply the price by the tax rate, then add that to the original price. A $100 purchase in Ontario, where HST is 13%, costs $100 plus $13 tax, for a total of $113.

In a province with separate GST and PST, both taxes apply to the same original price rather than stacking on each other. That same $100 purchase in British Columbia gets $5 GST plus $7 PST, both calculated on the original $100, for a total of $112, not $105 plus 7% of $105.

That distinction trips people up constantly. Compounding one tax on top of the other would overcharge you, and it’s not how any current Canadian sales tax actually works.

Rates range from 5% in Alberta and the territories up to 15% in three Atlantic provinces. Here’s the full 2026 breakdown.

GST itself hasn’t always been 5%. It launched at 7% on January 1, 1991, replacing a hidden 13.5% federal tax that had been baked into the price of manufactured goods. Ottawa cut it to 6% in 2006 and to 5% on January 1, 2008, and it’s sat there ever since, according to the Canada Revenue Agency’s own 2008 rate reduction notice.

BC adopted HST in July 2010, voters rejected it in a 2011 referendum, and the province switched back to separate GST and PST on April 1, 2013. It’s the only province to ever reverse an HST adoption.

The vote wasn’t close. Elections BC reported 54.73% in favour of scrapping the tax, according to CBC News coverage from the time. The backlash reportedly contributed to then-premier Gordon Campbell’s early resignation. Since 2013, BC has run two separate tax systems: GST filed federally with the CRA, and PST filed provincially with the BC Ministry of Finance.

That split matters practically. BC’s PST applies mainly to goods and specific services like software and telecommunications, and most professional services such as consulting or accounting are PST-exempt even though GST still applies to them.

Quebec’s QST is charged on the price before GST, the same base GST uses, not stacked on top of the GST-inclusive amount. That’s been the rule since January 1, 2013.

Before 2013, Quebec calculated QST on the GST-inclusive price, which is a form of tax-on-tax. The province harmonized the calculation method that January, and adjusted the headline rate to 9.975% so the total amount collected stayed consistent, according to a Government of Canada Treasury Board notice on the change. Quebec still isn’t classified as an HST participating province. QST remains its own separate tax, just calculated the simpler way now.

Divide the tax-included total by 1 plus the tax rate to get the pre-tax price, then subtract that from the total to find the tax amount. This is what people usually mean by a reverse GST or reverse HST calculation.

Take a $113 receipt from Ontario, where HST is 13%. Divide $113 by 1.13 to get $100 exactly, meaning $13 of that total was tax. The “Remove tax from total” mode in the calculator above does this automatically for any province, splitting the result into GST and PST separately where both apply.

No. Some items are zero-rated, meaning GST/HST applies at 0%, and others are fully exempt, which is a different legal category with different consequences for businesses. Basic groceries and prescription drugs are the most common zero-rated examples.

The difference matters more than it sounds. Zero-rated sales still count toward a business’s $30,000 registration threshold, and the business can still claim input tax credits on related costs. Exempt sales, like most residential rent and financial services, don’t count toward that threshold, and no input tax credits apply. Most everyday shopping and household purchases fall outside both categories and simply get taxed at the standard provincial rate.

Once a business’s worldwide taxable revenue passes $30,000, either in a single calendar quarter or across four consecutive quarters, it must register for GST/HST and start charging it. Below that, it’s considered a small supplier and registration is optional.

That $30,000 figure comes from section 148 of the Excise Tax Act, and it hasn’t been adjusted for inflation since it was set in 1991. Once a business crosses the threshold, it generally has 29 days to register, and the obligation to charge tax starts from the date the threshold was crossed, not the date of registration. Voluntary registration below $30,000 is allowed too, mainly so a small business can claim input tax credits on its own purchases.

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