Moving From Ontario to New Brunswick: What the Numbers Say

If you are looking at New Brunswick from Ontario, you have probably already seen the headline: houses here cost a fraction of what they cost there. That part is true, and the gap is larger than most people expect. What almost nobody explains properly is what happens to the rest of your money once you arrive, and there is one New Brunswick tax rule that quietly costs people thousands when they move in stages.

Here is the arithmetic, using the same July 2026 measure on both ends so the comparison is honest.

What your Ontario sale actually buys here

The MLS Home Price Index benchmark is the cleanest way to compare two markets, because it prices a typical home rather than averaging whatever happened to sell that month. For July 2026:

• Greater Toronto Area benchmark: $934,600
• Hamilton and Burlington benchmark: $729,800
• Ottawa benchmark: $634,000
• Moncton and Area benchmark: $384,300

Against the GTA that is a gap of about $550,000. Against Ottawa it is about $250,000. Those are not small differences in lifestyle, they are differences in what the rest of your life looks like. A Toronto seller who buys a typical Moncton home outright is left with roughly half a million dollars that was previously locked in drywall.

The point worth sitting with is not that houses are cheap here. It is that the money you free up is the actual asset. What you do with $550,000 matters more than the house you buy with the other $384,000.

The closing cost nobody budgets for

This is where Ontario buyers are usually surprised in a good way, and it is also where a lot of published advice about New Brunswick is simply wrong.

New Brunswick charges a flat 1% Real Property Transfer Tax. Not a graduated scale. One percent, applied to the greater of the purchase price or the assessed value, unchanged since April 2016. On a $384,300 purchase that is about $3,800.

Now price the same moment in Ontario. On a $1,000,000 purchase, provincial Land Transfer Tax is about $16,500. Inside the City of Toronto the Municipal Land Transfer Tax applies on top at the same graduated rates, taking the total to about $33,000.

So the transaction itself costs about $29,000 less in Moncton than in Toronto, and roughly $12,500 less than elsewhere in Ontario. That is money that never appears in a listing price comparison, and it lands on closing day.

One correction worth stating plainly, because the wrong version circulates widely and appeared in an earlier version of this guide: New Brunswick does not charge 1% on the first $250,000 and 1.5% on the balance. That is somebody importing Ontario's bracket structure onto a province that does not have one. The rate is flat.

Property tax, and the trap that catches people who move in stages

New Brunswick property tax has two layers, and understanding the second one is worth real money.

The municipality sets its own rate. For 2026, all three Greater Moncton municipalities held theirs flat: Moncton at $1.3614 per $100 of assessment, Dieppe at $1.3650, Riverview at $1.3826. On a $384,300 home in Moncton that is about $5,200 a year.

The province then charges an additional residential rate of $0.5617 per $100. Here is the part that matters: if the home is your principal residence, the Residential Property Tax Credit reduces that provincial rate to zero on the first half hectare. You pay the municipal rate only.

If it is not your principal residence, you pay it. On that same $384,300 home, the provincial layer adds about $2,150 a year, taking the bill to roughly $7,400.

This catches people who relocate in stages. If you buy here in the spring, keep working in Ontario until the fall, and the New Brunswick house is not yet your principal residence, you are exposed to the higher rate for that period. It is entirely legitimate and entirely avoidable, but only if you plan the sequence deliberately rather than discovering it on your first tax bill.

For context on how those bills compare, average municipal taxes on a two storey single detached home in 2025 ran about $7,500 in Toronto, $7,400 in Mississauga, $6,800 in Hamilton and $5,500 in Ottawa. A principal residence in Moncton at about $5,200 sits below all four, on a house worth a fraction of the price.

Resist the urge to compare tax rates across the two provinces. Ontario rates apply to assessed values frozen at 2016 levels, while New Brunswick assesses closer to current market value with a 10% annual cap on increases. The rates are not measuring the same thing. Compare the dollars. If you want the detail on how New Brunswick assessments are moving, we covered the 2027 phase in here.

Where the gap is smaller than you think

Any guide that tells you everything is cheaper here is selling you something. Energy is the honest exception.

New Brunswick households spent an average of about $2,500 on electricity in 2023, against about $1,300 in Ontario. Nearly double. The reason is structural: electricity is about 88% of household energy here, against 34% in Ontario, because most homes in this province heat with electricity while most Ontario homes heat with natural gas.

Look at total home energy though, and the picture evens out. Water, fuel and electricity combined came to about $3,300 in New Brunswick against about $3,200 in Ontario. A little over $100 a year apart. Ontario is not cheaper on energy overall, it just splits the bill across two utilities instead of one.

What this means practically: when you view a house here, the heating system is a real financial variable, not a footnote. A heat pump versus baseboard electric is a meaningful annual difference in a province where the electric bill carries the whole load. Ask for twelve months of actual bills.

Buying from fourteen hundred kilometres away

Remote purchases are routine here now, and the process is well worn.

Offers go in on standard New Brunswick forms with conditions written in, typically five to ten business days for inspection and financing on a resale property. The deposit is paid on firm acceptance and held in trust. Closing usually runs 30 to 60 days from accepted offer on resale. New construction varies widely, and on a pre construction or early build purchase it can stretch to six or twelve months, so get the occupancy date in writing and understand what happens if it moves.

The practical constraint is not paperwork, it is that you cannot walk the street at nine at night or notice that the basement smells different after rain. That is what your agent is for on a remote purchase, and it is reasonable to expect video walkthroughs of anything you are serious about, including the parts nobody photographs.

Choosing where to land

Most people arriving from Ontario are deciding between Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview without much basis for the choice, and the tax rates above are close enough that they should not drive it.

What should drive it is commute, schools and language. Dieppe is majority francophone and its school catchment reflects that, which is a genuine advantage for some families and a genuine adjustment for others. Riverview sits across the river and trades a few minutes of drive time for a quieter, more established feel. Moncton itself carries the employment base and the widest range of housing stock and price points.

None of that is visible from a listing site, and it is the part worth spending a phone call on before you narrow your search.

What the market is doing while you decide

Moncton is not a runaway market in 2026, and that is useful information if you are planning a move rather than chasing an entry point.

July 2026 sales came in at 316 units, down 5.1% year over year. New listings were up 1.8% at 569. Months of inventory sat at 4.9, up from 4.5 a year earlier. The benchmark price rose 0.1% and the average sale price fell 0.5%.

Read together, that is a market with more supply, slightly fewer sales, and prices holding flat. For a buyer arriving with Ontario equity, a flat market with building inventory is a considerably better environment than the one that existed here two years ago. Our full read on where the year is heading is here.

The bottom line

The price gap is real and it is roughly half a million dollars against the GTA. The transaction costs about $29,000 less. The property tax bill is lower in absolute dollars than every major Ontario city, provided you get the principal residence status right. Energy will cost you slightly more, not less.

The decision that actually matters is not whether to move, it is what you do with the equity the move releases, and whether you sequence the purchase so you are not paying the provincial property tax layer for six months unnecessarily. Both of those are planning questions, and both are much easier to answer before you list in Ontario than after.

If you are starting the search, the current inventory across the region is on the map search. If you still own in Ontario and want to know what your equity actually translates to here, a home valuation on this end is the place to begin. The broader practical guide to settling in, including licences, health care registration and the first few months, is in our relocating to New Brunswick guide.

Planning a move to southeastern New Brunswick? The difference between a good outcome and an expensive one is usually sequencing, not luck. Candace McKay works with out of province buyers relocating to Moncton, Dieppe, Riverview and the surrounding communities, and is happy to walk through the numbers for your specific situation. Reach out here and Candace will personally get back to you.

About Candace McKay. Candace McKay is a REALTOR® serving Moncton, Dieppe, Riverview and the surrounding communities of southeastern New Brunswick. She works with local move-up buyers, sellers and out-of-province clients relocating to the region, with a focus on pricing strategy grounded in sub-market data rather than regional averages.

Data sources: MLS Home Price Index benchmarks for July 2026 are per CREA board statistics for the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, the Cornerstone Association of REALTORS, the Ottawa Real Estate Board and the New Brunswick Real Estate Board Moncton and Area package. Moncton and Area activity figures are from the same July 2026 board package. Ontario Land Transfer Tax rates are per the Government of Ontario and the City of Toronto Municipal Land Transfer Tax schedule effective April 1, 2026. The New Brunswick Real Property Transfer Tax rate of 1% is per the Real Property Transfer Tax Act, section 2, in force since April 1, 2016. Provincial and municipal property tax rates are per the Government of New Brunswick and each municipality's own 2026 budget release. Ontario municipal tax dollar comparisons are 2025 figures from the City of Ottawa 2026 Tax Policy report. Household energy spending is Statistics Canada Table 11-10-0222-01 for 2023 and energy mix is Table 25-10-0060-01 for 2021, the most recent releases available. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and this article is general information, not financial, legal, tax or investment advice. Confirm your own position with your lawyer or accountant before acting. Images are illustrative.