If you are buying your first new home in Canada, the federal government has a rebate program that can put a significant amount of money back in your pocket. The First-Time Home Buyers' GST/HST Rebate allows eligible individuals to recover up to 100 percent of the GST paid on a qualifying new home purchase, up to a maximum of $50,000. Introduced effective March 20, 2025, this program applies to homes purchased from a builder, homes built by the owner, and shares in a co-operative housing corporation, provided the home is a newly built or substantially renovated primary residence.
This is not the same as the older GST/HST New Housing Rebate that many buyers are familiar with, which maxed out at $6,300 and phased out at $450,000. The new First-Time Home Buyers' rebate is a separate, substantially more generous program with a price ceiling of $1.5 million. Here is everything you need to know about how it works.
How Much Can You Get Back?
The rebate amount is based on the purchase price of your new home. The Canada Revenue Agency sets the following thresholds:
- Homes valued at or below $1,000,000: You can recover up to 100 percent of the GST paid, with a maximum rebate of $50,000. Since GST in Alberta is 5 percent, this means a $600,000 new home would generate a $30,000 rebate and a $1,000,000 new home would generate the full $50,000 rebate.
- Homes valued between $1,000,001 and $1,499,999: The maximum rebate of $50,000 is gradually reduced on a sliding scale the closer the purchase price gets to $1.5 million.
- Homes valued at $1,500,000 or more: No rebate is available.
To illustrate how the phase-out works: if you purchase a new home for $1,250,000, that price sits at the midpoint between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000, making you eligible for 50 percent of the maximum rebate. In this case, your rebate would be $25,000. For detailed calculation worksheets, the CRA refers buyers to Guide RC4028, GST/HST New Housing Rebate.
Rebate at a glance (Alberta, 5% GST):
$500,000 new home: $25,000 rebate (100% of GST)
$750,000 new home: $37,500 rebate (100% of GST)
$1,000,000 new home: $50,000 rebate (maximum)
$1,250,000 new home: $25,000 rebate (phase-out at midpoint)
$1,500,000 or more: no rebate
Source: Canada Revenue Agency: What Is the First-Time Home Buyers' Rebate
Who Can Apply?
To qualify for the First-Time Home Buyers' GST/HST Rebate, you must meet all of the following conditions as set out by the Canada Revenue Agency.
You must be a first-time home buyer
To be considered a first-time home buyer under this program, all of the following must be true:
- You are at least 18 years of age.
- You are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
- You have not lived in a home that you or your spouse or common-law partner owned, or jointly owned, whether in or outside of Canada, as your primary place of residence at any time in the calendar year of closing or in the previous four calendar years.
- Neither you nor your spouse or common-law partner have previously received the First-Time Home Buyers' GST/HST rebate.
The four-year lookback is applied relative to the year you take ownership, not the year you sign the purchase agreement. For example, if ownership transfers to you in 2026, you must not have lived in an owner-occupied primary residence in 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, or 2022. If you sold a home you owned in June 2022 and have been renting since, you would not qualify if ownership of your new home transfers in 2026. If ownership does not transfer until 2027, you would qualify, since 2022 falls outside the four-year lookback from 2027.
You must be purchasing the right type of property
As a first-time home buyer, you may be eligible if you have done one of the following:
- Purchased a newly built or substantially renovated home from a builder, including a home on leased land (where the lease is for at least 20 years or includes an option to purchase the land), for use as your primary place of residence.
- Constructed or substantially renovated a home yourself, or hired someone to do so, for use as your primary place of residence.
- Purchased a share in a co-operative housing corporation for the purpose of occupying a unit in a newly built or substantially renovated co-op as your primary place of residence.
The program does not apply to resale homes. If you are purchasing an existing home from a previous owner, no GST is charged on that transaction and there is nothing to rebate.
Your purchase agreement must meet the program dates
For a home purchased from a builder, the agreement of purchase and sale must have been entered into on or after March 20, 2025, and before 2031. Construction or substantial renovation of the home must begin before 2031 and be substantially completed before 2036, and ownership must be transferred to you before 2036.
You must also be the first individual to occupy the home as a place of residence after the construction or substantial renovation is substantially completed. The home must be intended for use as your primary place of residence.
How to Apply
The application process depends on whether your builder agrees to pay or credit the rebate to you at closing, or whether you need to file with the CRA yourself.
If your builder pays or credits the rebate at closing
This is the most common scenario for new home purchases in Canada. If you and the builder agree that the builder will pay or credit you with the rebate amount, the builder is responsible for filing the application with the CRA on your behalf. You cannot file a separate application directly with the CRA for the same home if the builder has already submitted one.
To make this work, you complete and sign Form GST190 (GST/HST New Housing Rebate Application for Houses Purchased from a Builder) in the presence of your builder or your real estate lawyer. This is typically done around the time of the closing date for your purchase. The builder then submits the form to the CRA and the rebate is credited against your purchase price, meaning you pay less out of pocket at closing rather than waiting for a separate government cheque.
If your builder does not pay or credit the rebate
If the builder does not credit the rebate at closing, you must submit the application yourself. The deadline is two years from the date ownership was transferred to you (or the date possession was transferred, in the case of a leased-land purchase). You file using Form GST190, which can be submitted online through your CRA My Account or mailed to the address on the form. The online route through your CRA account is the fastest option.
What if the builder only credited the old new housing rebate?
In some situations, a builder may credit only the older GST/HST New Housing Rebate (the one with the $450,000 threshold and $6,300 maximum) and not the new First-Time Home Buyers' rebate. This can happen, for example, when ownership of the home transferred before the legislation received Royal Assent. In that case, you can still file a separate application directly with the CRA to claim the First-Time Home Buyers' rebate. You have two years from the date of closing to do so.
What This Means for Calgary Buyers
The old program's $450,000 price ceiling made it largely irrelevant to most Calgary buyers, since even entry-level new detached homes in the city have exceeded that threshold for years. The new $1,500,000 ceiling changes that picture entirely. With Calgary's new home benchmark prices sitting well under $1,000,000 for most property types in 2026, a qualifying Calgary buyer purchasing a new home from a builder can expect to recover the full 5 percent GST they paid, up to $50,000.
On a new townhouse at $550,000, that is a $27,500 rebate. On a new detached home at $800,000, that is $40,000 back. On a new inner-city infill at $999,000, it is effectively the full $50,000. These are meaningful sums that can go toward closing costs, furniture, or simply reducing the amount you need to borrow.
The four-year lookback rule is worth planning around. If you owned a home at any point in the current calendar year or the four years before closing, you do not qualify. The qualification date is when ownership transfers, not when you sign the purchase agreement, so the timing of your possession date can matter if you are close to the four-year window.
If you are a first-time buyer considering a new construction home in Calgary and want to understand exactly how this rebate applies to your situation, including how it interacts with other programs like the First Home Savings Account (FHSA), reach out for a no-pressure consultation. Getting the details right before you sign is considerably easier than sorting it out afterward.
How Brand New Infills Qualify for the First-Time Home Buyer GST Rebate
An infill home is a newly constructed property built on an existing serviced lot within an established neighbourhood. In Calgary, this typically means a developer purchases an older home in an inner-city community, demolishes it, and builds one or more new homes in its place. The result is a brand new home in a mature area with existing schools, transit, parks, and walkable amenities. Because it is brand new construction sold by a builder, it falls squarely within the definition of property eligible for the First-Time Home Buyers' GST/HST Rebate.
The CRA defines an eligible purchase as a newly built or substantially renovated home acquired from a builder for use as a primary place of residence. That is precisely what an infill transaction is. The infill builder charges 5 percent GST on the sale price, and a qualifying first-time buyer is entitled to recover up to 100 percent of that tax, up to $50,000.
Where Calgary infills sit on the rebate scale
Calgary's infill market spans a wide price range depending on the property type and neighbourhood. Here is how the different infill categories map to the rebate thresholds:
- Semi-detached infills (duplexes): The most accessible infill product in Calgary, semi-detached units are typically priced between $600,000 and $950,000 per half. Every purchase in this range falls below the $1,000,000 threshold and qualifies for the full rebate. At $700,000, that is $35,000 back. At $900,000, it is $45,000.
- Detached infills under $1,000,000: Detached infills priced below $1,000,000, including some northeast inner-city communities and certain pockets of the south and northwest, qualify for the full rebate. A $950,000 detached infill would return $47,500.
- Detached infills between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000: This is the most common range for detached infills in Calgary's established inner-city neighbourhoods such as Altadore, Hillhurst, Capitol Hill, and Mount Pleasant. The rebate is still meaningful here. A $1,100,000 infill generates a rebate of $40,000 (80 percent of the $50,000 maximum). A $1,200,000 infill generates $30,000 (60 percent). These are not trivial amounts.
- Luxury infills over $1,500,000: No rebate is available. High-end detached infills in premium inner-city communities that exceed the $1.5 million threshold do not qualify.
You automatically satisfy the first occupant requirement
One of the conditions for the FTHB rebate is that you must be the first individual to occupy the home as a place of residence after construction is substantially completed. With a brand new infill, this condition is always met by definition. No one has ever lived in the newly constructed structure. This distinguishes infills from substantially renovated homes, where questions about prior occupancy after renovation can complicate eligibility. With a new infill purchase, the first occupant requirement is a non-issue.
The purchase agreement date matters
For the First-Time Home Buyers' GST/HST Rebate to apply, the agreement of purchase and sale must have been signed on or after March 20, 2025. Most Calgary infill projects currently on the market and under pre-construction sale meet this requirement automatically. If you signed a purchase agreement with an infill builder before that date, you would not be eligible for the new rebate, though you may still qualify for the older GST/HST New Housing Rebate. When evaluating a pre-construction infill purchase, confirm the agreement date with your real estate lawyer before assuming the larger rebate applies.
How the rebate flows through at closing
At closing on a new infill, your real estate lawyer handles the transaction documents. The infill builder calculates your rebate, credits it against the final purchase price, and you sign Form GST190 at or around closing, assigning the rebate to the builder. The builder then files with the CRA and recovers the rebate on their end. In practical terms, you pay the purchase price minus the rebate at closing, not a full GST-inclusive price with a separate wait for a government cheque. This makes the rebate immediate and concrete rather than a future refund you have to track.
Why infills and the FTHB rebate are a compelling combination for first-time buyers
Calgary's inner-city infill market has historically skewed toward move-up buyers and investors who could absorb the price points without assistance. The First-Time Home Buyers' GST Rebate changes that calculus in a meaningful way. A first-time buyer purchasing a semi-detached infill in Mount Pleasant or Ramsay at $800,000 receives a $40,000 rebate, reducing their effective purchase cost to $760,000 before other closing expenses. Combined with Alberta's complete absence of a provincial land transfer tax, a saving of up to $16,000 compared to the same purchase in Ontario, the cost advantage of buying a brand new infill in Calgary becomes genuinely compelling relative to any comparable Canadian city.
The rebate also stacks with the First Home Savings Account. A buyer who has maximized their FHSA contributions ($40,000 lifetime) and claims the full FTHB GST rebate on an $800,000 infill is effectively combining $80,000 in government-supported savings assistance on a single transaction. For a first-time buyer who has been diligent about saving, this combination meaningfully closes the gap between what they can afford and what an inner-city new build costs.
If you are a first-time buyer interested in a new infill home in Calgary and want to understand exactly how much you could claim, which communities have qualifying infill projects, and how your full financial picture fits together, reach out for a no-pressure conversation before you sign anything.
