Alberta has no land transfer tax, so what are you actually paying at closing?

Clearing up the confusion

Buyers who've researched costs in Ontario or BC often assume every province charges a similar land transfer tax. Alberta doesn't, and never has. What you do pay instead are land title registration fees and mortgage registration fees, which are calculated on a much smaller scale, based on your purchase price and mortgage amount.

What the registration fees actually look like

They're calculated as a base fee plus a small amount per $5,000 of value, both for the property title and, separately, for registering your mortgage. On a typical Calgary purchase, this lands in the hundreds of dollars, not the thousands you'd see with an actual land transfer tax elsewhere in the country.

What else Calgary buyers should actually budget for

Legal fees, a home inspection, property tax and utility adjustments to the seller, title insurance, and if you're putting less than 20% down, your default insurance premium. None of these are Alberta-specific, they apply to buyers everywhere, but together they're the real number to plan for, not a land transfer tax that doesn't exist here.

A rough budget range

Outside of the down payment itself, most Calgary buyers should budget somewhere in the range of 1.5% to 4% of the purchase price for closing costs, with the wide range mostly depending on your down payment size and whether default insurance applies. We're happy to run your specific numbers so it's not a guess.