- The gap between two provinces is computed from full take-home pay, not from the difference between two headline rates.
- Comparisons are shown at six salaries because the gap widens or narrows sharply as income rises.
- Only curated pairs are published — thousands of generated permutations would answer nobody’s question.
- Sales tax, property tax and household-specific credits are outside these figures and can easily reverse a small gap.
How the comparisons work
Every comparison runs the same salary through both regions’ full tax calculation — federal tax, provincial or territorial tax, CPP or QPP, EI, and QPIP where it applies — and reports what is left. The difference column is a subtraction of those two results, not an estimate built from a rate difference.
Only pairs people actually search are published: the interprovincial moves Statistics Canada records the most traffic along, and the matchups where one region’s tax system works differently enough to be worth a page of its own. Generating all two thousand combinations would produce thousands of near-identical URLs answering nobody’s question.
Both regions in a comparison are always in the same country. A comparison across a border would need an exchange rate and a cost-of-living adjustment, and putting two currencies in one table implies a precision that does not exist.
The math
The engine behind these pages is the same one behind every take-home figure on the site. For a given salary it computes federal tax on the federal bracket schedule, regional tax on that region’s own schedule, applies the basic personal amount as a non-refundable credit at each level, then subtracts CPP or QPP contributions and EI premiums up to their annual maximums.
Each comparison is computed at six salaries rather than one, because the gap between two regions is not a fixed percentage. Contribution ceilings are flat amounts, so payroll premiums shrink as a share of income; bracket thresholds sit at different incomes in different regions, so a pair that is nearly level at one salary can diverge sharply at another.
What is not modelled: sales tax, property tax, health premiums, employer benefits and every credit beyond the basic personal amount. Those move real disposable income and vary by household, so a page that folded them in would be guessing rather than calculating.
Worked example
Two provinces with a two-point difference in top marginal rate rarely differ by two per cent of a salary. On a middle income most of the money is taxed in the lower bands, where the two schedules are far closer together, so the annual gap is usually a few hundred dollars rather than a few thousand.
The same pair at a much higher salary can look completely different, because the higher-rate bands finally carry real weight. That is why every comparison here shows six salaries: one row is an anecdote, six is a shape.
Key terms
- Take-home pay
- Salary less income tax and payroll premiums. The figure that reaches your account, before benefits or retirement deductions.
- Annual gap
- One region’s take-home pay minus the other’s at the same salary. Positive means the first region leaves you with more.
- Payroll premiums
- CPP or QPP, EI and QPIP. Capped at an annual maximum, so they matter far more to a modest salary than to a large one.
- Effective rate
- Total income tax as a share of gross salary. The fairest single number for comparing two regions at the same income.