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Calculator · Ontario

What would your estate owe in tax?

Canada has no estate tax. It has something that often costs more: on the day you die you are treated as having sold everything you own, and every dollar in your registered plans is taken into income at once. Both land on one return.

Estate-tax inputs and results

Assets outside registered plans

Cottage, rental property, non-registered investments, a private business interest. Leave out your principal residence — it is normally exempt.

The adjusted cost base: purchase price plus capital improvements and certain costs. For property held a long time this is often far lower than people expect, which is what makes the gain large.

Registered plans

Unless it rolls to a spouse or a qualified beneficiary, the entire balance is taken into income in the year of death. A TFSA is not taxable on death and does not belong here.

Employment, pension, or business income received before death.

Spouse or common-law partner

Estimated tax triggered by death

$0 Over and above the tax that would have applied to the year's ordinary income
Reaches beneficiaries Tax
Capital gain$0
Taxable portion at 50%$0
Registered plans into income$0
Other income$0
Taxable income on the return$0
Federal tax$0
Ontario tax$0
Ontario surtax$0
Total tax on the return$0
Marginal rate reached0.0%

This is an estimate, not advice and not a quote. It uses published 2026 figures and simplifies heavily. Nothing you enter leaves your browser — there is no server, no account, and nothing is stored or sent. Your actual position depends on how each asset is titled, what your documents say, and rules that change every year. Confirm anything that matters with a lawyer and an accountant.

How this works

Three mechanics, one return.

The deemed disposition

Immediately before death you are treated as having sold every capital property you own at fair market value. The gain is the difference between that value and your adjusted cost base, and half of it is included in income. The rate has stayed at 50% — the proposal to raise it to two thirds was cancelled in March 2025 and never took effect. Plans drafted while it was pending may still overstate the bill.

Registered plans collapse into one year

An RRSP or RRIF that does not roll to a spouse or qualified beneficiary is taken into income in full in the year of death. A $600,000 RRIF is $600,000 of income in a single year, which pushes the return into the top bracket almost immediately. Ontario's top combined marginal rate reaches roughly 53.5%.

The spousal rollover defers, it does not forgive

Qualifying capital property and registered plans may transfer to a spouse or common-law partner on a tax-deferred basis when the statutory conditions and beneficiary arrangements are satisfied. The liability is deferred rather than erased and may arise on a later sale or death. A lawyer and accountant should confirm which assets qualify.

The timing is the real problem. The terminal return is generally due by 30 April of the following year, or six months after death if death occurred after 1 November. A cottage or a private company cannot reliably be sold in that window at a price you would accept. This is the specific problem a life insurance policy is often bought to solve: liquidity on the day it is needed, not eventually.

Next: what that would take to insure →

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Thirty minutes, no charge, no product pitch. Bring whatever you have — a will, a policy, a shoebox of paper, or nothing at all. You will leave knowing what is missing and what it takes to fix.

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