Which Canadian Province Has the Lowest Taxes?

Canada taxes the same dollar twice — once federally, at rates that are identical everywhere, and once provincially, at rates that are not. On a $75,000 salary the province you live in swings your take-home by $5,810 a year.

Here is where every province and territory actually lands, using 2026 rates.

Take-home on $75,000, ranked

Province / territory	Take-home
Nunavut	$59,218
British Columbia	$58,004
Northwest Territories	$57,978
Ontario	$57,968
Yukon	$57,684
Alberta	$57,254
Saskatchewan	$55,695
New Brunswick	$55,252
Newfoundland and Labrador	$55,047
Manitoba	$54,809
Prince Edward Island	$54,697
Nova Scotia	$53,894
Quebec	$53,408

The obvious answer is wrong

Ask most Canadians which province taxes least and they will say Alberta. It has the most generous basic personal amount in the country — $22,769, meaning the first $22,769 of provincial income is untaxed, well above Ontario's $12,989.

And yet on $75,000 an Ontarian keeps $714 more.

The reason is the rate that applies afterwards. Alberta's schedule opens at 8%; Ontario's opens at 5.05%. Alberta's larger exemption saves about $490 in provincial tax, and its higher rate then costs more than that back. The exemption is generous and the rate is not.

Alberta's real advantage appears at higher incomes, where its flatter schedule stops climbing while other provinces keep going — and, more significantly, in what it does not charge: no provincial sales tax, which the income tax tables do not show at all.

The gap widens as you earn more

At $120,000 the spread grows to $11,224 — Nunavut at $91,457 against Quebec at $80,233.

That is the general pattern: provinces differ modestly on middle incomes and substantially on high ones, because the top rates diverge far more than the bottom ones. Quebec's top provincial rate is 25.75%; Nunavut's is 11.5%.

Run your own salary through the Canada take-home pay calculator to compare any two directly.

Why the territories top the table

Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Yukon all have low provincial rates and small populations funded largely by federal transfers rather than local income tax. Nunavut's schedule opens at just 4%.

The cost of living is the counterweight and it is not close. Groceries in Nunavut run roughly double the national average, and housing outside employer-provided accommodation is scarce and expensive. The tax saving is real; it is also the smallest term in the equation.

Quebec is a different case

Quebec is bottom of the table on take-home, and the reason is only partly the tax rate. Quebec residents also:

• Pay QPP at 6.4% rather than CPP's 5.95%
• File a separate provincial return
• Receive a lower federal EI premium (1.30% vs 1.63%), because the province funds its own parental insurance plan

What the table cannot show is what the money buys. Quebec's subsidised childcare costs a fraction of the market rate elsewhere in Canada — for a family with two children in daycare, that difference alone can exceed the entire tax gap several times over.

What this comparison leaves out

Income tax is one cost among several, and moving provinces for it is rarely rational on its own:

• Sales tax ranges from 5% in Alberta to 15% in the Atlantic provinces.
• Housing varies by far more than tax does. The Ontario–Nova Scotia tax gap on $75,000 is $4,074 a year; the housing difference is a multiple of that.
• Health premiums, car insurance and hydro all differ, sometimes substantially.

Use the ranking to understand your payslip, not to choose where to live.