What is the minimum down payment required to purchase a home in Ontario?

If you’re thinking of buying your first home, you’re probably wondering how much money you will need to put down!

To summarize the basics: A down payment is the amount of money you put towards the purchase of a home. Your lender deducts the down payment from the purchase price of your home and the mortgage covers the rest.

In Canada, the minimum down payment required is based on the purchase price of the home and works on a sliding scale. If you’re putting less than 20% down, it’s important to know that you will need to pay for mortgage loan insurance along with your regular mortgage payments. The more you put down, the smaller your mortgage is and the lower your payments.

Here’s how minimum down payments are calculated:

Purchase Price: $500,000 or less

• 5% of the purchase price

Purchase Price: $500,000 to $999,999

• 5% of the first $500,000 of the purchase price

• 10% of the portion of the purchase price above $500,000

Purchase Price: $1 million or more

• 20% of the purchase price

Wanna make your life easy? I find this minimum down payment calculator super easy and quick to use. You can also read more about down payments and mortgage insurance on the Government of Canada website.