The First-Time Home Buyers' GST Rebate: How It Works on a New Home in BC

If you are buying your first home and it is newly built, the First-Time Home Buyers' GST rebate can return up to $50,000 of the GST you pay. Whether you qualify depends on dates, price and your ownership history, not just on being a first-time buyer in the everyday sense.

This guide walks through the eligibility rules, the amount, the timing traps for pre-sale buyers, and the two ways to claim, so you know what to check before you sign.

What the rebate is and where it came from

GST applies to newly built and substantially renovated homes, but not generally to resale homes. The First-Time Home Buyers' (FTHB) GST rebate gives back some or all of the GST a first-time buyer pays on a new home, up to $50,000.

Parliament enacted the rebate in the Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act, which received Royal Assent on March 12, 2026. The rebate provisions are deemed to have come into force on March 20, 2025, so they reach back to agreements signed from that date. The CRA is now accepting applications.

This article goes into the detail. For how the rebate fits alongside BC's property transfer tax exemption, the FHSA and the Home Buyers' Plan, see our overview of first-time home buyer programs in BC.

How much you can get back

The amount depends on the price, or for some homes the fair market value:

• $1 million or less: the rebate is the lesser of $50,000 and the GST you paid.
• Between $1 million and $1.5 million: the rebate shrinks in a straight line as the price rises.
• $1.5 million or more: no FTHB rebate.

The CRA's own example: a new home bought for $1.25 million sits halfway between $1 million and $1.5 million, so the buyer is eligible for half the maximum, or $25,000.

The FTHB rebate is added on top of the existing GST new housing rebate, but it is calculated so that the two together do not exceed the cap. The existing rebate is not available once the price reaches $450,000, so for most new homes in the Lower Mainland the FTHB rebate is the only GST rebate in play.

Who counts as a first-time home buyer

On the relevant date, you must:

• be at least 18;
• be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident;
• not have lived, in the current calendar year or the four before it, in a home you owned, or that your spouse or common-law partner owned, as your primary place of residence, whether in Canada or elsewhere; and
• not have received an FTHB rebate before, and your spouse or common-law partner must not have received one either.

The dates that decide eligibility

For a home bought from a builder, all of the following must be true:

• The agreement of purchase and sale is signed on or after March 20, 2025, and before 2031. An agreement signed before March 20, 2025 does not qualify.
• Construction or substantial renovation begins before 2031 and is substantially completed before 2036.
• Ownership transfers to you before 2036.
• You are buying the home as your primary place of residence, judged when you become bound by the agreement.
• You are the first person to live in the home after it is substantially completed.

The first-time buyer test is applied on the date ownership transfers to you, not the date you sign. For pre-sale buyers, that can matter. The CRA gives the example of someone who sold a home they had lived in during June 2022: if ownership of the new home transfers in August 2026, they do not qualify, because 2022 falls inside the lookback period; if it transfers in February 2027, they can. A completion date that moves can change the answer either way.

Similar rules apply, with their own thresholds and timing, if you buy the home and lease the land from a builder, buy a share in a new housing co-operative, or build or substantially renovate your own home. For an owner-built home, the CRA treats construction as beginning when excavation starts, not when the permit is issued.

How to claim: builder credit or direct application

There are two main routes for a home bought from a builder.

The builder credits the rebate on closing

Many new-home contracts assume the builder will pay or credit the rebate to you, usually as a credit on the statement of adjustments. If you and the builder agree to this, the builder files your application with the CRA, and you cannot then file your own application for that home. The CRA says the builder must include a copy of the statement of adjustments and the signed purchase agreement. You sign Form GST190 in front of the builder or your lawyer, usually around completion.

You apply to the CRA yourself

If the builder does not pay or credit the rebate, you apply directly, online through your CRA account or by mail on Form GST190. You have up to two years from the date ownership transfers to you.

If the builder credited only the regular new housing rebate and not the FTHB rebate, for example because your purchase closed before Royal Assent, you can still apply to the CRA for the FTHB rebate, within the same two-year limit.

What to check in your contract before you sign

The rebate turns on facts that the purchase agreement often fixes in advance. Before you sign, or during any rescission period, check:

• how the price is stated: whether it includes GST, and whether it assumes the rebates will be assigned to the builder;
• what happens if you turn out not to qualify: many contracts make the buyer pay the builder the amount of any rebate that was credited but not available;
• the expected completion date, against the lookback period if you have owned a home before;
• who is on title: if you are buying with someone who has owned a home, ask how that affects the rebate before you commit; and
• your intended use: a home bought to rent out or for a relative to live in is not your primary place of residence.

Our guide to the pre-sale disclosure statement and 7-day rescission right explains the window you may have to review these terms on a BC pre-sale.

Buying a new or pre-sale home? Have the GST terms checked before you sign

Our real estate lawyers can review your purchase agreement and its GST and rebate terms, confirm the dates that affect eligibility, and handle the rebate forms and statement of adjustments on completion.

Call 604-259-2844 or send us a message to arrange a consultation at our Vancouver office.