Canada capital gains tax calculator: shares, crypto and property

Canada taxes 50% of a net capital gain as income. The taxable half is added to your other income for the year and taxed at your federal and provincial marginal rates, so there is no separate capital gains rate: the tax on a gain depends on what else you earned.

Your gain is the sale price minus the adjusted cost base and the costs of selling. For shares of the same company or units of the same fund, the adjusted cost base is the average cost of everything you hold, so each purchase changes the base for the next sale. Crypto works the same way: selling it, swapping it for another coin and spending it are all dispositions, and the CRA counts the gain in Canadian dollars at the time of each one. Import your Wealthsimple, Questrade, Interactive Brokers or exchange CSVs and the calculator pools the trades at average cost.

If you sell at a loss and you or your spouse buy the same property within 30 days before or after the sale, and still own it at the end of that window, the loss is superficial and denied. The calculator lists superficial losses in its checklist.

The gain on your principal residence is exempt from tax for each year you designate it as your principal residence. If you lived in the home for every year you owned it, the whole gain is exempt, and the calculator treats a home with the principal residence box ticked that way.

You still report the sale. The CRA requires the sale of a principal residence on Schedule 3 of your return and the designation on Form T2091. Only one property per family unit can be designated for any one year, so a couple with a home and a cottage chooses which one to shelter. If you owned the home for years you did not live in it, the exemption covers only part of the gain, and that part-year calculation is outside the calculator.

A rental property, a second home or a cottage you do not designate as your principal residence is taxed as an investment: the gain is the sale price minus selling costs minus your adjusted cost base, which includes the purchase price, closing costs and capital improvements. Half of the gain is taxable.

If you claimed capital cost allowance on a rental building, the CRA also recaptures that allowance as ordinary income when the property sells above its undepreciated value. That recapture sits outside the capital gain and is not part of the calculator.

Gains on qualified small business corporation shares, farm property and fishing property can be sheltered by the lifetime capital gains exemption, $1,250,000 per person in 2025 and indexed to inflation. The exemption comes off the capital gain before the 50% inclusion, so a sheltered gain is never taxed. Tick the exemption box on a qualifying sale, enter the amount you used in earlier years in section 3, and the calculator tracks the remaining room.

A capital loss offsets capital gains only. Half of the loss is allowable, which mirrors the 50% inclusion on gains. Net capital losses you cannot use in the year carry back up to three years or forward without a time limit against taxable capital gains, and they never reduce other income.

Enter the net capital losses from your notice of assessment in section 3 and the calculator applies them against this year's taxable gains and shows what carries forward.

Report sales on Schedule 3 with your T1 return. The return and any balance owing are due on April 30 of the year after the sale: April 30, 2027 for 2026 sales. Self-employed filers have until June 15 to file, but the tax is still due April 30. Quebec residents also file a separate provincial return.

Pick your province or territory in section 3 and its tax on the gain, surtaxes included, is added to the federal figure. The calculator covers one calendar year at a time, so open a return for each year you sold in.