Estimating closing costs, province by province: which categories actually change, and which don't.

• →Legal or notary fees. A market rate set independently by each firm, not a regulated fee — get a specific quote rather than assuming a figure, and expect it to vary by firm and by file complexity everywhere in the country.
• →Title insurance. A one-time premium priced by the insurer based on the property's value and location, not set by any province.
• →Home inspection. An optional, market-priced service that varies by inspector and property size — not required by any lender, though almost always advisable.
• →Appraisal fee. Sometimes covered by the lender, sometimes charged to the borrower, depending on the lender and program — not a provincially set amount either way.
• →GST/HST on a newly constructed home. A federal tax (with a New Housing Rebate that can offset part of it), not provincial — it applies the same way regardless of which province the build is in, subject to each province's own HST rate where HST (rather than GST plus a separate provincial sales tax) applies.

None of these categories is nothing — legal fees and title insurance alone commonly run into four figures — but none of them is where the province-to-province variation actually happens either.

This is a real, and often overlooked, provincial variable: three provinces currently apply their own sales tax directly to the mortgage default insurance premium (CMHC, Sagen, or Canada Guaranty) on an insured mortgage, due in cash at closing rather than added to the mortgage balance.

On a $5,000 insurance premium, that's an extra $400 in Ontario, $450 in Quebec, or $300 in Saskatchewan — due at closing, on top of every other line item on this page. Manitoba applied a similar tax in the past but eliminated it in 2020; it hasn't applied there since.

Land transfer tax is usually the single largest closing cost line item in provinces that charge it, and it varies enough by province — and, in Toronto's case, by municipality on top of the province — that it has its own dedicated breakdown rather than being repeated here. See land transfer tax across the provinces for the full tier-by-tier math in every province, plus Alberta and Saskatchewan's registration-fee alternative to a transfer tax.

Quebec uses a civil-law notary system rather than the common-law conveyancing lawyer used in every other province. A Quebec notary handles the closing, registers the transaction, and holds a dual role — representing the transaction itself rather than one side exclusively — that doesn't map directly onto how a real estate lawyer functions elsewhere in Canada.

The practical effect for a closing cost estimate: don't assume Quebec's legal fee line is simply “the same category, different price.” It's a structurally different professional role, and a broker moving a client from another province into a Quebec purchase should flag the difference well before closing week.

1. 01Start with the consistent categories — legal/notary fees, title insurance, inspection, appraisal — using current local quotes rather than a generic national average.
2. 02Add land transfer tax using the client's actual province and municipality, calculated in full rather than estimated as a percentage.
3. 03Add PST on the mortgage insurance premium if the file is insured and closing in Ontario, Quebec, or Saskatchewan.
4. 04Confirm whether the purchase involves a newly constructed home, and if so, flag GST/HST and the New Housing Rebate as a separate line rather than folding it into “closing costs” generally.

A client who hears one lump “closing costs” number and then sees a different total at the lawyer's or notary's office is a preventable conversation — walking through each category, province-specific items included, up front is what prevents it.