How do you appeal your property tax assessment in Ontario?

Ontario homes are still assessed at their January 1, 2016 value. File a free Request for Reconsideration with MPAC by March 31, then appeal for $132.50.

Your property tax bill is one number multiplied by another. The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation decides what your home is worth. City council and the province decide the rates applied to that value. Only the first number can be argued with, and Ontario has a set way to do it: a free review by MPAC, and then, if you still disagree, an appeal to a tribunal that costs $132.50.

What are you actually appealing?

The value of your home as of January 1, 2016, not what it is worth now.

MPAC assesses every property in Ontario against a fixed valuation date, and that date has not moved in years. Assessments for the 2026 property tax year are still based on fully phased in January 1, 2016 current values, because the province postponed the assessment update. The City of Toronto says the same thing on its own page: your 2026 assessment is the fully phased in January 1, 2016 value, the same as the 2025 tax year, unless something about the property has changed.

That settles most appeals before they start. A home that is worth less this year than it was three years ago has no argument here, because neither year is the reference year. MPAC gives owners the test to use: could you have sold your property on January 1, 2016 for the assessed value printed on your notice? If the answer is yes, file the notice away. If the answer is no, you have something worth raising.

Where do you start, and what is the deadline?

With a Request for Reconsideration to MPAC. It is free, and for a residential owner it is not optional.

MPAC reviews your assessment free of charge when you file a Request for Reconsideration, online through AboutMyProperty or by mail. The deadline is March 31 of the tax year, which for the 2026 tax year was March 31, 2026. MPAC prints the deadline for each year on your Property Assessment Notice, and that copy is the one to check, because the date moves to the next business day in some years.

The order matters. The Assessment Review Board is blunt about it: if your property is classified as residential, farm, managed forest or conservation land, you must file a Request for Reconsideration with MPAC and receive a decision before you can file an appeal. Business and other non residential owners can skip that step and go straight to the Board, and their 2026 filing deadline was also March 31, 2026.

How long does MPAC take to answer?

Usually within 180 days, and up to 60 days beyond that if it needs the time.

That is MPAC's own stated service standard, and its reconsideration page currently carries a notice saying it is experiencing delays on some requests. If MPAC agrees an adjustment is needed, it issues a new Property Assessment Notice or Property Assessment Change Notice and asks you to sign Minutes of Settlement, which is what tells your municipality to adjust the tax.

What happens if MPAC says no?

You have 90 days from the date on the decision to appeal to the Assessment Review Board, and the residential fee is $132.50.

The Board sets the deadline at no more than 90 days from the mailing date on the reconsideration decision. Its fee is $132.50 for each roll number on residential, farm, managed forest and conservation land properties, with a $10 discount for filing electronically. Multi residential, commercial, industrial and other properties pay $318. The Board also states that it will not waive or refund a filing fee without appropriate circumstances, so treat the money as spent once you file.

What evidence actually helps?

Proof that MPAC's record of your home is wrong, and sale prices and assessed values for comparable properties.

MPAC lists what to gather: photos showing the difference between its records and the property as it stands today, sale information on your property or on comparable ones, the assessed values of comparable properties, recent appraisals, zoning information, and estimates for significant repairs such as a cracked and leaking foundation, water damage from flooding, termite damage or a sagging roof line.

Two things follow from that list. An error in the record is the strongest case anybody can bring, because it is a fact rather than an opinion: a house on file at 2,100 square feet that measures 1,700, a finished basement that was never finished, a second bathroom that does not exist. And every comparison has to be argued back to 2016. A neighbour's sale from this spring is interesting, but it is not the year in dispute.

What can an appeal not do?

It cannot touch your tax rate, because MPAC does not set it.

The City of Toronto calculates a bill by multiplying the phased in assessed value by the council approved city tax rate, the City Building Fund levy and the education rate set by the province. A successful reconsideration lowers the value those rates are applied to, which lowers your share of the total. It does nothing to the rates themselves, and none of this process gives you a place to argue about them.

You missed March 31. What are your options?

Wait for the next notice, unless something about the property has changed.

The deadline is annual, so a reconsideration for the next tax year is filed against that year's Property Assessment Notice by the date printed on it. There is one exception worth knowing. If MPAC sends you a Property Assessment Change Notice partway through a year, which usually follows a renovation, an addition or a new build, that notice carries its own deadline and opens the process again.

And if you are weighing all of this while thinking about a move, the assessed value is not a listing price and never has been. Our net proceeds calculator works from a real sale price rather than an assessment, and the Toronto land transfer tax is usually the bigger number to plan around.