FIRST-TIME HOME BUYERS

Closed on a new home before March 12, 2026? You may still be owed up to $50,000.

The first-time home buyers’ GST rebate didn’t become law until March 12, 2026. If you closed before that date, your builder had nothing to credit you — the rebate didn’t exist yet. You paid the full GST.

The CRA lets you claim it now. But the clock is running, and nobody is going to tell you.

2,500 claims filed · $65 million recovered · 15+ years in Excise Tax · Never a percentage of your rebate.

What happened

The federal government announced the first-time home buyers’ GST rebate on March 20, 2025. It applies to agreements of purchase and sale signed on or after that date.

But an announcement isn’t a law. The measure didn’t receive Royal Assent until March 12, 2026 — nearly twelve months later.

That gap created a problem for a specific group of buyers.

Normally, when you buy a new home from a builder, the builder credits the rebate against your purchase price at closing and files the paperwork with the CRA on your behalf. You never see a form. It just happens.

That process only works for rebates that exist. If you signed your agreement on or after March 20, 2025 and took ownership before March 12, 2026, your builder credited you the ordinary GST/HST new housing rebate — the older, smaller one — because that was the only rebate on the books at the time.

The first-time buyer rebate wasn’t available to credit. So you paid it.

The CRA has an exception for exactly this

This isn’t a loophole or an aggressive position. The CRA published the carve-out in its own guidance, under a heading that names the problem directly: Exception: House purchase prior to Royal Assent.

The agency’s guidance confirms that where a rebate application was already submitted for a home purchase that closed before March 12, 2026, the buyer may submit a second application later for the federal first-time buyer rebate and the Ontario rebate — provided it lands inside the two-year filing window.

There’s a parallel provision covering the same ground: where a builder paid or credited only the new housing rebate and not the first-time buyer rebate, the buyer files separately with the CRA for the first-time buyer portion alone.

Two applications. Same house. Entirely by design.

Most buyers in this position assume the rebate was handled at closing, because it usually is. Their lawyer said the builder was taking care of it, and the builder was — of the rebate that existed at the time. There is no letter coming from the CRA about the rest.

Do you qualify?

Work through these. If you can check every box, it’s worth a conversation.

Your purchase

✓ You signed your agreement of purchase and sale on or after March 20, 2025

✓ You took ownership (or possession, on leased land) before March 12, 2026

✓ You bought a newly built or substantially renovated home from a builder — house, condo, townhouse, or a co-op share

✓ You bought it as your primary place of residence

✓ You are the first person to live in it after construction was completed

You, as a first-time buyer

The CRA tests this on the date ownership transferred to you — not the date you signed.

✓ You were at least 18

✓ You were a Canadian citizen or permanent resident

✓ Neither you nor your spouse or common-law partner lived in a home either of you owned, as your primary residence, at any point in that calendar year or the four calendar years before it

✓ Neither of you has previously received a first-time buyer GST/HST rebate

Price

✓ Full rebate on homes up to $1 million; partial rebate up to $1.5 million

How much is it worth?

Federal first-time buyer rebate: up to $50,000 — 100% of the 5% GST on a home up to $1 million, phasing out between $1 million and $1.5 million.

Ontario: a further rebate of the 8% provincial portion, on top of the existing Ontario new housing rebate.

This is money in addition to whatever your builder already credited you at closing. It does not replace it and it does not reduce it.

$50,000

Federal first-time buyer rebate

100% of the GST on a qualifying new home valued up to $1 million, phasing out between $1 million and $1.5 million.

Ontario

Provincial rebate, on top

A further rebate of the 8% provincial portion, in addition to whatever your builder already credited you at closing.

The four-year test catches people out

The lookback runs on calendar years, not rolling months, and it counts your spouse’s ownership as your own.

Example: You sold a condo you owned in June 2022 and rented ever since. You took ownership of a new home in August 2026. The four calendar years before 2026 are 2025, 2024, 2023, and 2022 — and you lived in a home you owned in 2022. You do not qualify.

Push that same closing to February 2027 and the lookback covers 2026 through 2023. The 2022 ownership falls outside it. You do qualify.

Four months of calendar difference, and a $50,000 outcome. This is the condition we see misread most often — in both directions. People rule themselves out when they qualify, and rule themselves in when they don’t.

What if I built the home myself?

Different test. For owner-built homes, the CRA looks at when construction began, not when you signed anything — and construction must have begun on or after March 20, 2025.

The agency treats construction as beginning with physical work on the house. In its published example, a buyer who bought bare land in October 2024 and received a building permit in February 2025 was treated as having begun construction on June 1, 2025, when excavation started.

Your base date and deadline also work differently. Talk to us about an owner-built claim →

You have two years. It has already started.

The filing window runs two years from the date ownership of the home transferred to you — for most buyers, your closing date. Possession date if you lease the land.

Not two years from Royal Assent. Not two years from when you find out.

Two years from the date ownership transferred to you
If you closed	You have until
May 2025	May 2027
September 2025	September 2027
January 2026	January 2028
March 11, 2026	March 11, 2028

The CRA will consider a late application only in genuinely extraordinary circumstances — serious illness, a disaster, a service disruption, or where the CRA itself gave you wrong information. Not knowing about the rebate is not on that list.

Find out how long you have left →

Why this isn't a form you fill in on a Sunday

The CRA’s second-application route is real, but it is not the well-worn path. It sits at the intersection of three things the system wasn’t built to handle at once: a retroactive measure, a rebate already partly claimed on the same property by a different filer, and a first-time buyer test that depends on your spouse’s ownership history.

What that means in practice:

You’re filing against an existing application. Your builder has already filed on this property. Your application has to reconcile with it rather than duplicate it, or you’ll draw a review.

The forms don’t announce which boxes apply to you. GST190 and the Ontario schedule are built primarily for the standard case. Nothing on them flags the Royal Assent exception.

Eligibility turns on dates from three sources — your agreement, your closing documents, and your ownership history — and they have to line up exactly.

Review risk is elevated. A second application on a property that has already had one is precisely the pattern that triggers a closer look.

If it’s denied, you have 90 days. A Notice of Objection has to be filed within 90 days of a Notice of Assessment. Miss it and the denial stands. How objections work →

What we do

We’ve filed more than 2,500 GST/HST rebate applications and recovered over $65 million for clients. This particular claim — a second application under the Royal Assent exception — is the same work we’ve always done, against a rule that’s twelve months old.

We tell you where you stand. Free. We look at your agreement date, closing date, and ownership history and give you a straight answer, including when it’s no. You get that answer whether or not you hire us.
We build and file the claim. GST190, the Ontario schedule, supporting documentation, filed with the CRA. You sign; we handle the rest.
We deal with the CRA. If your claim is reviewed, we respond. If it’s denied, we file the Notice of Objection and represent you through it. That’s not an upsell — it’s the same engagement.

If we don’t think you have a claim, we say so, and it costs you nothing to have asked.

A flat fee. Not a percentage of your rebate.

Most firms in this business work on contingency — they take a cut of what you recover.

That was a reasonable arrangement when the rebate was capped at $24,000. It is a different proposition now. Under the first-time buyer rebate the ceiling is $50,000, and under Ontario’s enhanced rebate it reaches $130,000. A percentage-based fee rises with every one of those increases. The work involved did not.

We charge a flat professional fee. Whether your claim comes back at $12,000 or $50,000, our fee is the same, and the difference stays where it belongs — with you.

The fee is charged when we file, not when you call and not when we assess you. Your initial assessment is free. If we don’t believe you have a claim, we tell you at that stage and you pay nothing.

If the claim is ultimately denied, we refund it. Our engagement agreement provides that where the CRA denies your application and all appeals or opportunities for reconsideration have been exhausted or are no longer available, we refund our fee, less any out-of-pocket expenses — itemised for you in writing.

Michael Sproule has spent 15+ years dealing with the CRA on GST/HST matters specifically — not general accounting practice. Excise Tax is the whole of what this firm does.

Common Questions

My lawyer said the rebate was handled at closing. Was he wrong?

No — he was right about the rebate that existed then. Your builder credited the ordinary GST/HST new housing rebate, which is what the law provided for on your closing date. The first-time buyer rebate wasn’t available to credit because it hadn’t received Royal Assent. Both things are true at once, which is exactly why this is so easy to miss.

Can I really file twice on the same house?

For this narrow situation, yes. The CRA’s guidance sets out an exception for purchases that closed before Royal Assent on March 12, 2026, permitting a further application for the federal first-time buyer rebate and the Ontario rebate within the standard two-year window.

Does this apply if I'm not a first-time buyer?

Not this rebate. But if you signed an agreement on or after April 1, 2026, Ontario’s enhanced rebate is open to all buyers of new homes — up to $130,000, with no first-time buyer requirement. See the enhanced rebate →

My spouse owned a home before we met. Does that affect me?

Yes. The test counts a home owned by you or your spouse or common-law partner, and asks whether either of you lived in it as a primary residence during the relevant calendar years. It’s one of the most common reasons a claim that looks clean turns out not to be — and worth checking before you file rather than after.

How long does the CRA take?

It varies with the complexity of the claim and whether it’s selected for review. We’ll give you a realistic range for your specific situation when we assess it, rather than a number that sounds good on a website.

What does it cost?

A flat professional fee rather than a percentage of your rebate. The amount depends on which rebate you’re claiming and how complex the file is — we’ll quote it on your first call, before you commit to anything. The fee is charged when we file, and your initial assessment is free.

Why a flat fee instead of a percentage?

Because a percentage of a $50,000 rebate is a great deal of money for the same work that used to recover $16,000. Contingency pricing made sense when these rebates were capped at $30,000. Now it means the firm’s fee climbs every time the government raises the ceiling. A flat fee keeps that windfall with you.

What if the CRA denies my claim?

First, we fight it — filing the Notice of Objection is part of the same engagement, not a separate bill. If the claim is ultimately unsuccessful, our agreement provides for a refund of our fee, less any out-of-pocket expenses, itemised in writing. An application is treated as unsuccessful once the CRA has denied it and all appeals or opportunities for reconsideration have been exhausted or are no longer available.

Three dates settle most of this: when you signed, when you closed, and when you last owned a home you lived in. Bring those and we can usually tell you on the call.

Free assessment. Flat fee, quoted upfront and charged at filing. If you don’t have a claim, we’ll tell you.

This page describes the first-time home buyers’ GST/HST rebate in general terms as of August 2026 and is not tax advice. Eligibility depends on your specific circumstances. Sproule + Associates is not responsible for decisions made on the basis of general information. For CRA source material see Guide RC4028 and the CRA’s first-time home buyers’ GST/HST rebate pages.