GST, HST and PST Rates by Province in Canada (2026)

The sales tax you charge in Canada depends on where the sale is made, not where your business sits. The rate runs from 5% in Alberta and the three territories to 15% in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia dropped to 14% on April 1, 2025, so any rate table still showing it at 15% is out of date. This guide lists the current 2026 rate for all 13 provinces and territories, explains why three different taxes are running at once, and walks through the place-of-supply rule that decides which rate a sale carries. If you are not charging the tax yet, start with when you must register for GST/HST; if you already collect it, see how to file your GST/HST return.

The 2026 GST, HST and PST rates for every province

The table below shows the combined rate a customer pays in each province and territory, split into the federal GST or harmonized HST and any separate provincial sales tax. The GST/HST figures come from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) GST/HST rates table; the provincial sales taxes come from each province's own tax authority.

The HST provinces fold the federal and provincial shares into one tax: 5% federal plus 8% in Ontario, 9% in Nova Scotia, and 10% in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. You charge, report, and remit that as a single number. The four GST-only jurisdictions (Alberta, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon) add no provincial sales tax at all.

GST, HST and PST are three different taxes

The rate table hides a structural point worth getting right, because it changes who you register with and how many returns you file.

The GST is the 5% federal tax that applies across the whole country. The CRA administers it.

The HST is the same federal tax harmonized with a province's own rate into a single tax, used in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. You still deal only with the CRA. A business registered for GST is automatically registered for HST, so one registration and one return cover both.

The provincial sales taxes are separate taxes that four provinces run alongside the 5% GST: PST in British Columbia (7%) and Saskatchewan (6%), the Retail Sales Tax in Manitoba (7%), and the QST in Quebec (9.975%). These are not part of GST/HST. If you sell into one of these provinces and meet its registration rules, you register separately with that province and file a separate return. In Quebec the two returns usually go to the same place, because Revenu Québec administers both the GST and the QST there rather than the CRA.

Where a provincial sales tax applies, the two taxes are each charged on the selling price rather than stacked. The CRA's guidance confirms that GST is calculated on the price without the PST, and Quebec has calculated the QST on the pre-GST price since 2013. So a $100 sale in British Columbia carries $5 GST and $7 PST for $112 total, not a tax-on-tax figure.

Which rate do you charge? The place-of-supply rule

A business in one province routinely sells to customers in another, and the rate follows the customer, not the seller. The CRA's place-of-supply rules set two general tests.

For goods, the place of supply is the province where the goods are delivered or made available to the buyer. Ship a product to a Toronto address and you charge Ontario's 13% HST, whatever province you shipped it from.

For services, the starting point is the address of the recipient that you obtain in the ordinary course of business. Invoice a client whose business address is in Halifax and you charge Nova Scotia's 14% HST.

Here is how that plays out. A Vancouver design studio bills a client in Ontario for a branding project and has the client's Ontario address on file, so it charges 13% HST on the fee. The same studio sells printed brochures and ships them to a customer in Prince Edward Island, so that invoice carries 15% HST. A walk-in customer who pays at the Vancouver counter and takes the goods away is a British Columbia sale: 5% GST plus 7% PST. One business, three different tax lines, each set by where the supply lands.

What changed: Nova Scotia cut its HST to 14% in 2025

The one recent rate change is Nova Scotia. The CRA states that as of April 1, 2025, the HST rate decreased to 14% in Nova Scotia, down from 15%, after the province lowered its provincial portion from 10% to 9%. Nova Scotia held 15% from October 2016 through March 31, 2025, which is why many third-party rate tables and calculators still print the old figure. Every other province and territory has held its rate since before 2026. If a source shows Nova Scotia at 15%, check its date before you trust the rest of the table.

How SparkReceipt keeps the right tax on every receipt

When you claim an input tax credit, the GST/HST you recover has to match what the supplier charged on the invoice, and that amount changes with the province the purchase was made in. Reading it off by hand across a year of receipts is where errors creep in. SparkReceipt reads each receipt in the context of the country and province it came from, pulls out the GST, HST, or PST line, and sorts the expense into a CRA-ready category, so the tax you reclaim is the tax on the document. It scans a receipt in seconds and keeps the image on file for the six years the CRA can ask to see it.

When your return is due, the categorized totals and the GST/HST breakdown are already there to fill in the input tax credits side, and you can publish the data straight to QuickBooks Online or Xero. You can get started on the free plan and keep the whole year's records in one place.

Frequently asked questions

What is the GST rate in Canada in 2026? The federal GST is 5%, and it applies in every province and territory that does not use the harmonized HST. In the five HST provinces the 5% federal share is built into a single harmonized rate of 13% to 15%.

Which provinces charge HST instead of GST? Ontario (13%), Nova Scotia (14%), and New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island (15% each) use the HST. Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec, Saskatchewan, and the three territories charge the 5% GST, and four of those add a separate provincial tax.

Do I charge my customer's provincial rate or my own? Your customer's. Under the CRA place-of-supply rules the rate is set by where the goods are delivered or, for services, by the recipient's address, not by where your business is located.

Why did Nova Scotia's HST drop to 14%? Nova Scotia lowered its provincial portion of the HST from 10% to 9% effective April 1, 2025, which cut the combined rate from 15% to 14%. The 5% federal share did not change.

Is PST the same as GST? No. PST (and Manitoba's RST and Quebec's QST) is a separate provincial tax charged on top of the 5% GST in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Quebec. It is administered by the province, registered for separately, and reported on its own return, not the GST/HST return.

Key takeaways

• The combined sales tax rate runs from 5% in Alberta and the territories to 15% in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island.
• Nova Scotia cut its HST to 14% on April 1, 2025, so treat any table still showing 15% as stale.
• GST (5% federal) and HST (13% to 15% harmonized) are both administered by the CRA under one registration; PST, RST, and QST are separate provincial taxes with their own registration and returns.
• The place-of-supply rule sets the rate by where goods are delivered or by a service recipient's address, so you charge your customer's provincial rate, not your own.
• In a PST province the GST and the provincial tax are each charged on the selling price, not stacked on each other.
• Matching the right GST/HST to each receipt is what keeps your input tax credits defensible, and clean records are what the CRA can ask to see for six years.