Canadian Mortgage Payment Calculator
Your payment, the CMHC premium if you are putting less than twenty percent down, the total interest over the amortization, and the stress test payment a lender will actually qualify you against. Compounded semi-annually, the way Canadian fixed mortgages work.
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Calculate your mortgage payment
monthly, 12 payments a year
- Mortgage before insurance
- $835,000
- CMHC insurance premium (92.8% LTV)
- +$33,400
- Total mortgage
- $868,400
- Total interest over the amortization
- $573,508
Stress test: a federally regulated lender qualifies you at 6.50% — the greater of your rate plus 2% or 5.25% — so you must show you could carry $5,816.75 a month, not the payment above.
Estimate only, for planning purposes. Principal and interest on a fixed rate compounded semi-annually; property tax, condo fees, heat and home insurance are not included. Your lender's figure governs.
How Canadian mortgage payments are calculated
The formula is the standard amortizing payment, but the interest rate that goes into it is not the one most people expect. Section 6 of the Interest Act requires that interest on a Canadian fixed-rate mortgage be compounded no more than semi-annually. So a 5% mortgage does not charge 5 ÷ 12 each month — it charges the monthly rate that compounds to 5% twice a year, which works out slightly lower. Over a $700,000 mortgage the difference is around twenty dollars a month, which is exactly the sort of gap that makes a client think you quoted them wrong.
Variable-rate mortgages are compounded monthly, and this calculator uses the fixed-rate convention, so treat a variable quote as a close approximation rather than the exact figure.
Payment frequency
Bi-weekly and semi-monthly sound interchangeable and are not. Semi-monthly is twenty-four payments a year — the monthly payment halved, twice a month. Bi-weekly is twenty-six payments, every second Friday. The accelerated version of bi-weekly keeps the payment at half the monthly amount, so you make the equivalent of thirteen monthly payments a year instead of twelve. That extra payment goes entirely against principal, which is where the interest saving comes from.
The stress test
Every federally regulated lender must qualify you at the greater of your contract rate plus two percent or 5.25%, under OSFI's B-20 guideline. You do not pay that rate. You have to prove you could. In practice it caps what you can borrow roughly fifteen to twenty percent below what your actual payment would suggest, so it is worth knowing the number before you shop.
Default insurance
Below twenty percent down, mortgage default insurance is mandatory. The premium — 2.8% to 4.0% of the loan depending on how much you put down — is added to the mortgage, so you pay interest on it for the life of the loan. Insurance is not available at all on homes priced at $1,500,000 or more, which is why the twenty percent minimum at that price is absolute.
One cost this calculator does not show: Ontario charges provincial sales tax on the insurance premium, and unlike the premium itself that tax is due in cash on closing. Budget for it alongside your land transfer tax.
Common questions
Why is my payment different from an American mortgage calculator?
Canadian fixed-rate mortgages are compounded semi-annually, not monthly — a requirement of section 6 of the Interest Act. A US calculator divides the annual rate by twelve, which overstates the payment. The correct monthly rate is (1 + annual ÷ 2) to the power of one sixth, minus one, and that is what this calculator uses.
What is the mortgage stress test and does it change my payment?
It does not change your payment — it changes how much you can borrow. Federally regulated lenders must confirm you could still afford the mortgage at the greater of your contract rate plus 2% or 5.25%. You pay your actual rate; you qualify at the higher one.
How much down payment do I need in Canada?
Five percent of the first $500,000, ten percent of the portion between $500,000 and $1,500,000, and twenty percent on any home priced at $1,500,000 or more. Default insurance is unavailable at or above $1,500,000, which is why the twenty percent floor is hard rather than a preference.
What does CMHC insurance cost?
The premium runs from 2.8% of the loan at 80–85% loan-to-value up to 4.0% at 90–95%. It is normally added to the mortgage rather than paid up front, so you pay interest on it for the life of the loan. In Ontario the provincial sales tax on the premium is due on closing and cannot be capitalised.
Is accelerated bi-weekly actually worth it?
Usually, yes. An accelerated bi-weekly payment is simply the monthly payment halved, paid twenty-six times a year instead of twenty-four — one extra month of payments against the principal each year. On a typical GTA mortgage that clears the loan roughly three and a half years early and saves tens of thousands in interest, for about forty dollars a month more.
Does this include property tax and condo fees?
No. This is principal and interest only. Property tax, condo fees, heat and home insurance are real costs and your lender counts them when qualifying you, but bundling estimates of them into the headline payment makes the number impossible to check against a lender's quote.
Put this calculator on your own website
Mortgage brokers, agents and brokerages are welcome to embed it for free. One snippet, no sign-up. It sizes itself to fit, sets no cookies and runs no tracking on your visitors — and we keep the stress test, insurance and down payment rules current, so your copy updates when they change.
Sources
- Government of Canada — Interest Act, section 6
- OSFI — Guideline B-20, Residential Mortgage Underwriting
- CMHC — Mortgage Loan Insurance premiums
- Financial Consumer Agency of Canada — Down payment requirements
Rules last verified 18 August 2026.