Closing costs calculator for Alberta

Closing costs in Canada typically run 1.5% to 4% of the purchase price. Alberta is at the bottom of that range, because there’s no land transfer tax and no provincial sales tax on the default insurance premium.

On a $470,000 Edmonton purchase with 10% down, a typical estimate is about $7,160, or 1.52% of the price: $520 of land title transfer fee, $490 of mortgage registration fee, $1,500 of legal fees, $400 of title insurance, $1,000 for the Real Property Report and its compliance stamp, $550 of inspection, $1,200 of adjustments and $1,500 of moving.

No. Alberta charges no land transfer tax, and no Alberta municipality charges one either, including Edmonton and Calgary.

Instead, you pay Land Titles Office registration fees: $50 plus $5 for every $5,000 of value, or part of it, charged separately on the property transfer and on the mortgage registration, effective 20 October 2024. On a $470,000 purchase with a $436,113 mortgage, that’s $520 plus $490, or $1,010. The same purchase in Ontario would have roughly $5,875 of provincial land transfer tax, before Toronto’s municipal tax.

A Real Property Report is an Alberta survey document showing where the buildings sit relative to the property boundaries, usually paired with a municipal compliance stamp confirming the city agrees with it.

Alberta purchase contracts usually make it the seller’s cost. But the contract can shift it to you, the existing report can be out of date, and some transactions use title insurance in its place. Budget about $1,000 (roughly $700 for the survey and $300 for the stamp), and ask your lawyer which applies to your purchase. A condominium unit doesn’t use one. It uses a condominium document package instead.

On an insured purchase (anything with less than 20% down), the lender and the default insurer both want evidence that you can pay the closing costs as well as the down payment. The standard test is proof of 1.5% of the purchase price in cash, on top of the down payment.

It’s a documentation requirement, not a fee, so no one collects it. On a $470,000 purchase, that’s $7,050. That’s close to what Alberta closing costs typically come to, so the margin is often thinner than people expect.

No. The premium is added to your mortgage and paid off over the amortization. That’s why the mortgage registered on title is larger than the price minus your down payment, and why the registration fee is calculated on that larger figure.

The sales tax on the premium is different. It can’t be added to the mortgage and is paid in cash at closing in Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. In Alberta it’s zero. We still show the line at $0 so you can see nothing is missing.

When you buy a condominium in Alberta, the corporation or its property manager charges for the document package your lawyer reviews: bylaws, financial statements, the reserve fund study, and the estoppel certificate confirming what the unit owes.

It typically runs $200 to $600, and often more for a rush. It’s Alberta’s version of Ontario’s status certificate, governed by the Condominium Property Act. Most national closing-cost calculators leave this buyer cost out.

Only on a newly built home, and only the federal 5%. Alberta charges no provincial sales tax, so you pay only the federal GST, unlike Ontario’s 13% HST. A resale home has no GST at all.

On a new build, two rebates can apply, but you get one or the other, not both. The First-Time Home Buyers’ GST Rebate returns 100% of the federal GST up to a $1,000,000 price, phasing to nothing at $1,500,000, for agreements dated on or after 20 March 2025. The older GST/HST New Housing Rebate returns 36% of the federal GST to a maximum of $6,300, phasing out between $350,000 and $450,000.

Builders usually quote a GST-included price and claim the rebate for you, but not always. Check the purchase contract.