A desk fee is a flat, recurring charge — usually weekly or monthly — that a brokerage bills an agent for office space, administrative support or technology access, typically paired with a smaller commission split than a plan with no fee at all.
Like the split and the cap, the desk fee is a term of the agent's own independent-contractor agreement, not a regulated charge — nothing found for this hub sets, publishes or caps a desk-fee amount anywhere in Canada. It is also a marker inside the CRA's own contractor test for whether the relationship is genuinely a contractor relationship at all: contractor-leaning factors include an agent who “invoices, sets their own rate… carries their own insurance,” and paying a fixed overhead charge out of one's own commission — rather than having the brokerage absorb office costs the way an employer would — points the same direction.
Because a desk-fee plan and a split-only plan trade a fixed cost against a variable one, the two are not directly comparable without running an agent's own expected transaction volume through both. A fee-based plan can cost more in a slow month than a percentage-only plan would have, and less in a strong one — the comparison only makes sense against the agent's own production, never against either plan's headline split alone.
An agent compares two plans at renewal: one is fee-free with a lower split in the brokerage's favour; the other charges a flat monthly desk fee against a higher split favouring the agent. In a month with one small closing, the desk fee is still due regardless of production, which can make the fee-free plan cheaper that month even though its split takes a larger share of the deal itself — the comparison only holds run against the agent's own expected volume, not against either plan's headline number.
See also: Commission split, explained · The cap on a commission plan · Independent contractor status, defined.
A 30-minute call is enough to tell you whether it's worth building for your brokerage.
