Capital Gains Tax Calculator (2026)

From sale price to taxable amount

The gain is what you received, less what the property cost you and what it cost to sell. The cost is the adjusted cost base: the purchase price plus commissions and other acquisition costs, averaged across every lot if you bought the same shares more than once. Selling costs include commissions and legal fees. Shares bought for $30,000 and sold for $52,000 with a $250 commission give a capital gain of $21,750.

Only part of that is income. For 2026 the inclusion rate is 50%, so $10,875 goes on line 12700 of the federal return as a taxable capital gain. From there it's ordinary income: it carries no CPP or EI, but it sits on top of your salary, pension or anything else you earned, and it's taxed at the rates that apply above that point.

The same gain in thirteen places

On a $75,000 salary, a $20,000 gain adds $10,000 of taxable income. In Ontario the federal share of the bill is $2,050, the same everywhere outside Quebec, and the provincial share is what moves the total:

Each figure is the difference between two runs of the engine behind the calculator, with and without the gain, rounded to the dollar. Quebec's figure is lower federally because of the 16.5% federal abatement Quebec residents receive, and higher provincially because Quebec's own brackets are steeper; Quebec applies its own inclusion rate, which for 2026 is also 50%.

Who you are changes the bill

Hold the gain and the province fixed and vary everything else. In Ontario, the $20,000 gain costs $2,555 on a $40,000 salary, $2,965 on $75,000 and $4,497 on $160,000. A retiree with $40,000 of pension income pays $2,055 on the same gain, less than the $40,000 earner, because the gain raises the earner's net income and claws back part of Ontario's low-income workers' tax credit, which pension income never earned. The calculator asks what kind of income you have for that reason.

Timing is the other lever. A gain is taxed in the year of the sale, so selling in a year when your income is lower, such as after retiring or during a leave, can move the same gain into a lower bracket. Spreading a large sale across December and January splits it between two tax years.

The rate that stayed at one-half

Budget 2024 proposed raising the inclusion rate to two-thirds on an individual's gains above $250,000 a year. The start date was pushed from June 25, 2024 to January 1, 2026, then the increase was cancelled on March 21, 2025, and Finance Canada confirmed in Budget 2025 that it would not go ahead. Quebec announced in Information Bulletin 2025-8 that it would follow. A 2026 gain is taxed at 50% from the first dollar, with no threshold, and the $250,000 figure some older articles still quote no longer applies.

What the calculator leaves out

• Your home. A property that was solely your principal residence for every year you owned it is exempt, though the sale still has to be reported on Schedule 3 with a principal residence designation. Partial-use and rental cases need the CRA's formula.
• Small business shares and farm or fishing property. The lifetime capital gains exemption for 2026 is $1,275,000 of gains on qualified small business corporation shares and qualified farm or fishing property, a deduction of up to $637,500 of taxable gains. It isn't applied here.
• Homes held less than 365 days. A Canadian housing unit sold within 365 consecutive days of buying it is a flipped property: the profit is business income, fully taxable, unless a listed life event applies.
• Losses and other offsets. Capital losses brought forward or back, donations of securities (which can carry a zero inclusion rate), and the alternative minimum tax on very large gains aren't modelled. Enter a sale below its cost and the calculator shows the allowable capital loss instead. Superficial losses, gifts and the other events that trigger a gain without a sale are in the capital gains guide.