Cost of living in Canada

When setting out to answer the cost of living in Canada there are few things you need to keep in mind:

Firstly… Canada is vast! Different provinces and territories have very different costs of living. Within individual provinces the cost of living between cities can vary significantly too. Even once you get down to a city level different suburbs and neighbourhoods can be markedly different.  

Second point to keep in mind is cost of living is somewhat a matter of perspective. If you move from New York City to Toronto, the cost of living for you might seem low even though Toronto has some of the highest living costs in Canada.

Lifestyle and expectation also vary between people – do you value being able to get nice meals for a decent price or are you more interested in produce from the store being cheap? Is cost of transport how much your monthly bus pass costs or how much a car and gas cost?

So, with those challenges in mind I’ve tried to lay out this article as logically as possible:

I’ll set the context first by comparing Canada overall with the rest of the world.

Then we’ll cover the cost of living in Canada by province and cities.

Lastly I’ll give the average cost of different items in various Canadian cities.

So let’s get started…

Cost of living in Canada overview

Cost of living in Canada compared to other countries

As of the start of 2023, Canada is the 25th most expensive country to live in in the world.

This is using data from Numbeo which crowd sources various living expenses across the globe and uses New York City as the benchmark (i.e. living in NYC would have a cost of living index of 100).

So Canada has a cost of living index of 66.1 which means it’s around 34% cheaper to live in Canada than NYC.

But for a fuller picture it’s worth considering the following measures too:

Table 1: Cost of living indices for Canada using New York City as a benchmark

So, while the cost of living in NYC is significantly higher than Canada, local purchasing power – which shows how much an average resident on average salary can afford to buy – is similar in Canada to NYC.

Put another way: your average Canadian on an average salary can afford to buy around 2% more goods and services than your average NYC resident with an average NYC salary. More on local purchasing power later in the article.

This has changed somewhat in 2023, for most of 2022 the local purchasing power in NYC was higher than the Canada average.

Cost of living in Canada by province and city

Depending on what report you read, the most expensive place to live in Canada changes somewhat. But in general the top two most expensive cities to live in Canada are always Vancouver and Toronto, but Victoria is now up there with those two. This is largely driven by rent/housing costs so expect to pay significantly more here for rent/housing.

Obviously there’s large variations in cost of living depending on where you live in each province but generally speaking the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario have the highest cost of living of all the provinces. Nine out of the top 10 most expensive places to live in Canada are in Ontario or British Columbia (with Calgary being the other).

Going by Numbeo’s data the following table ranks cost of living (including rent) from most expensive to cheapest (scroll horizontally to see more cloumns):

Table 2: Cost of living in Canada by province and city

Average monthly cost of living by city

Here’s what you might actually expect to pay in cold hard dollars each month for cost of living for a single person and a family of four. This includes all of your goods and services from a Canada average and then by city. It’s in Canadian dollars.

Average salary in Canada by province

According to Statistics Canada’s Canadian Income Survey 2019, median after-tax income of Canadian families and unattached individuals was $66,800 in 2020.

If you exclude families with seniors (those 65 and over), the median after-tax income was $99,600 in 2020.

The Median after-tax income for by province in 2020 was:

Table 3: Canadian median after-tax income by province

Using the same data looking at some of the biggest Canadian cities, the Median after-tax income of households is:

Table 4: Canadian median after-tax income by city

Best place to live in Canada

Using Numbeo data again, if you start including average household incomes compared to cost of living then you get a ranking based on local purchasing power. i.e. how much a resident of that city on average salary can afford to buy. This is one factor worth considering when thinking about the best places to live in Canada and ranks Canadian cities as follows (ranked highest to lowest). Again NYC is the benchmark so 120 would mean you an average resident of that city could afford to buy 20% more than an average resident of NYC.

Table 5: Canadian cities local purchasing power

Cutting it like this, things become interesting: Montreal has the lowest household income on the list and Toronto one of the highest. But look at the results in the local purchasing power, Montreal is above Toronto – so the average higher salary in Toronto doesn’t make up for the significantly higher cost of living.

So does that mean that St Catharines is the best place to live in Canada? Well I definitely can’t answer that here, that’s so subjective to what you’re after and lots of other quality of life measures. Cost of living should only be one factor in deciding where to live!

Cost of living in Canada example costs by city

Below I’ll cover some of the average cost of living in Canada expenses you might expect.

For each expense I’ll detail the average cost using Numbeo data but I will also give you our personal perspective so you can have some real life examples.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars and correct as at February 2023.

Housing cost of living

Table 6: Average cost of housing by Canadian city (CAD)

These numbers tally quite nicely with our experience.

We rent a 3-bedroom house outside the city centre in Ottawa and the price is in line with the figure quoted in the table above. From speaking with friends, house prices in the centre seemed to be around what the table above shows.

And when we were looking at potentially living in Toronto, the prices quoted in the table above seem to reflect what we saw.

Transport cost of living

Table 7: Average travel costs in Canadian cities (CAD)

Our monthly transport card that lets us travel anywhere covered by Ottawa bus and light rail public transport costs us $125.50.

One thing I found really strange when I moved to Canada was that the gas price varies often and dramatically. It can change multiple times a day by easily 10c / litre.

So you’ve really got to watch when you go.

From my experience it’s normally cheapest after 8pm-ish in the evenings.

Weekends it seems to be quite expensive.

I can’t say any particular gas chain (Shell, Petro-Canada, Esso) is consistently cheaper than the others. But Ultramar, at least here in Ottawa, is often the cheapest.

So it’s a bit of a pain really – my general advice is: if you’re passing a gas station and you notice it’s a good price, go in and fill up regardless of if you particularly need it!

Groceries cost of living

Table 8: Average grocery costs in Canadian cities (CAD)

Scroll horizontally to see all the columns.

I won’t go through and comment on the price of each item above but what I will say is that groceries in Canada seem to be significantly more expensive than any other country I’ve ever been to. Meat is expensive, fruit and vegetables are expensive, store cupboard goods are expensive, everything is expensive!

Clothing cost of living

Table 9: Average clothing costs in Canadian cities (CAD)

Clothes are definitely one area for me that are pretty cheap in Canada in general.

Particular bargains can be found at the outlet malls that are dotted across the major Canadian cities – definitely worth checking them out.

Utilities and services costs

Table 10: Average utility and services costs in Canadian cities (CAD)

In general, utilities seem to be kind of in line with what I’d experienced in the UK.

But mobile services, Internet and TV are significantly more expensive than I was used to. We have a guide of our pick of the best mobile contracts here and one on how to get the best Internet and TV deals here.

Banking costs

You can read our complete overview of banking costs and our pick of the best products in our article.

A few people have asked me how we transfer money between our home bank account and our Canadian bank account.

When we first moved here I did a lot of research on the cheapest and easiest way to move our money and a service called Wise (previously TransferWise) came out on top. It’s what we use still to transfer money back and forward. You can check them out here.

All of the products and services I recommend on Canada for Newbies are independently selected based upon what I’ve personally found to be useful. When you sign up to use Wise using the link above I might earn a small affiliate commission. It won’t cost you anything at all and I would never recommend something I don’t believe in and use myself.

Eating out costs

Table 11: Average cost of eating out in Canadian cities (CAD)

The prices quoted in the table above seem pretty aligned to our experiences.

As with most places, you definitely get what you pay for here.

There’s a number of chain restaurants that will fill you up on fairly middle of the road food for middle of the road prices – but don’t expect any gastronomic excitement from them.

In general, anything outside the mainstream seems to be more expensive than I was used to in UK.

Fitness and leisure costs

Table 12: Average fitness costs and going to the cinema in Canadian cities (CAD)

Again, the prices quoted in the table seem to be pretty accurate. Nothing really to add here – it is what it is!

Buying alcohol from a store costs

Table 13: Average costs to buy alcohol from a store in Canadian cities

Buying Alcohol here is another area where Canada was really different to what I’d been used to.

I was used to buying all my alcohol (beer, wine, spirits – whatever) in supermarkets, convenience stores and the likes.

In Canada it’s more controlled where you can buy alcohol. It varies from province to province how strict the rules are but in general, each province has its own provincially owned alcohol store where you need to go if you want to buy anything stronger than beer or wine (for example in Ontario that’s called LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario)).

In Ontario, you have only fairly recently been able to buy beer and wine in some supermarkets and there’s also a store called the Beer Store that just sells beer!

Some provinces are more strict, others slightly less.

Whether it’s because of their strict licensing laws I don’t know but either way, alcohol is expensive in Canada because they don’t ever seem to have special offers or price reductions on it.

I was used to buying wine and spirits in supermarkets that had good deals on which would save you a ton of cash – you just don’t get that here!  

Taxis/Uber/Lyft costs

Table 14: Average cost to take a taxi in Canadian cities (CAD)

I can’t comment on taxi costs in Canada because I’ve never taken one! What I will say is that Ubers and Lyfts seem to be pretty cheap per km. Certainly cheaper than it was in London.

Here’s a summary from ChampionTraveler of Uber 10km ride costs in major cities around the world – Toronto is somewhere around the middle.

Table 15: Average cost to take an Uber in Toronto vs. other world cities

Our experience of deciding where to live in Canada

For us, moving from London, UK, when we were deciding where to live we’d just sort of assumed it would be Toronto – but then when we started thinking about what we wanted Toronto didn’t quite fit.

Coming from an apartment in one big, busy city to another on the other side of the Atlantic didn’t really seem that worthwhile to us. What we realised is really wanted a bit of space: a house with garden. We wanted it to be somewhere with a good vibe and good restaurants and bars but with easy access to the countryside. But we also had to consider our budget – we were going to only be on one salary for a while so it had to be affordable.

Before we made the big move we spent a research vacation to see what life in Ontario was like. We spent a few days exploring the Toronto suburbs and surrounding communities and honestly, didn’t really find anywhere that felt right to us (within our price range). Toronto is an amazing city but for what we wanted it just wasn’t quite right.

Where we ended up with in the end, that was a perfect fit for us, was Ottawa. It’s a big enough city that it’s vibrant and has good restaurants and bars but not too big, crowded and manic.

House prices are a lot cheaper than Toronto so we could afford to rent a house with garden and the countryside is right on your doorstep, it’s super quick to get out the city too. It has a good jobs market and the salaries aren’t that much less than Toronto. All in all, it was just right for us.

I mention our experiences because I’d definitely recommend you don’t consider cost of living in isolation, obviously you have to be realistic about the practicalities of money but don’t let it overshadow all the other factors of what the Canadian dream is for you!

So that’s my overview of the cost of living in Canada. I really hope you’ve found the article useful.

I’d love to know any feedback you have or anything – please leave me a comment below!