Homeowners, Don’t Forget These Tax Credits Before You File

If you haven’t filed your 2025 return yet, a few homeowner credits and deductions could help lower your income tax bill — or increase your refund.

Some credits are meant specifically for first-time buyers. Most, however, have niche applications and may not be on most homeowners’ radars.

Whatever category they fall into, it pays to be aware of all possible tax credits and deductions, especially if you’re filing your own taxes.

If you, or your spouse or common-law partner, were a first-time home buyer in 2025, your household should be eligible for the home buyers’ amount.

To be considered a first-time home buyer, you can not have lived in a home that you owned, either inside or outside of Canada, in the year you acquired your new home, or in any of the preceding four years. Exceptions apply if you’re a person with a disability.

To be eligible for the home buyers’ amount, you must intend to use your new home as your principal residence within 12 months of acquiring it.

How to claim it

Enter $10,000 on line 31270 of your tax return.

This will result in a maximum federal tax credit of $1,500. You can split the credit with your spouse or common-law partner, but only if they also qualify as a first-time home buyer. The home buyers’ amount is a non-refundable tax credit, meaning it can reduce tax owing, but won’t create a refund on its own.

The GST/HST new housing rebate can help you recoup some of the sales tax you paid when purchasing a new home from a builder — or when building or substantially renovating a home yourself. You may also be eligible if you bought shares in a new co-operative housing complex or substantially renovated a co-op unit you own.

As with most tax measures, conditions apply. The home generally must be used as a primary place of residence. If you’re claiming the owner-built/substantial renovation version, the fair market value must be under $450,000 when construction is substantially completed.

How to claim it

To get a rebate of the GST or the federal portion of the HST you paid, you’ll need to fill out the following forms:

If you live in Ontario, you can recover the provincial part of the HST by filling out:

» MORE: What is the GST/HST credit?

Home accessibility tax credit (HATC)

The Home Accessibility Tax Credit (HATC) allows certain Canadians to claim as much as $20,000 in eligible home renovation expenses, which can translate to a credit worth up to $3,000.

Renovations must be permanent and for the purpose of improving access, mobility or safety for an eligible resident, such as a walk-in bathtub or wheelchair ramp. Other eligible expenses include permits, building materials and equipment rentals.

How to claim it

You must be either a qualifying individual or an eligible individual.

If you meet the criteria, complete the chart for line 31285 using your Federal Worksheet and enter the result on line 31285 of your return. The HATC is a non-refundable tax credit.

Multigenerational home renovation tax credit (MHRTC)

Claiming the MHRTC could be an option if you created a self-contained living space to house a relative who’s 65 or older, or eligible for the disability tax credit.

For a renovation to qualify, the home involved must be located in Canada and owned either by the qualifying individual or an eligible relation.

You can claim up to $50,000 in expenses for each qualifying renovation. For the 2025 tax year, the credit is 14.5% of eligible expenses, up to a maximum of $7,250.

How to claim it

Use Schedule 12 to calculate your claim, then enter the amount on line 45355 of your tax return.

There are a few other scenarios that might translate into deductible expenses, including:

Claiming credits and deductions can feel daunting — checking numbers, wrangling forms — but there’s no reason to be intimidated. And if an extra few hours of tax-related toil makes homeownership a little less expensive this year, it’ll be well worth it.