First Time Home Buyers' PTT Exemption
Also known as: FTHB exemption · FTHB · First Time Home Buyer exemption
A BC Property Transfer Tax exemption for qualifying first-time home buyers — available for homes up to $835,000 fair market value: full exemption (no PTT) to $500,000, $8,000 off from $500,000 to $835,000, linear phase-out $835,000–$860,000.
The First Time Home Buyers' (FTHB) exemption was raised April 1, 2024: it is available for fair market values at or under $835,000, with the exemption equal to the PTT on the first $500,000 of FMV. A home at or under $500,000 pays no general PTT; a home from $500,000 to $835,000 gets $8,000 off. Above $835,000 the exemption phases out linearly, reaching $0 at $860,000 — buyers at or above $860,000 receive no exemption.
To qualify, the buyer must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, must occupy the home as their principal residence within 92 days of registration and remain for at least 1 year, and must never have held a registered interest in a principal residence anywhere in the world. Foreign nationals are not eligible. The exemption is mutually exclusive with the Newly Built Home Exemption.
Related terms
- Property Transfer Tax — A provincial tax payable to the Province of British Columbia on the registered fair market value of any residential property title transfer, calculated using marginal-rate brackets.
- Newly Built Home PTT Exemption — A BC Property Transfer Tax exemption for newly constructed homes with FMV at or under $1,100,000, with linear phase-out to $1,150,000.
- GST New Housing Rebate (BC) — A federal partial rebate of the 5% GST paid on a new owner-occupied home — full 36% rebate up to $350,000, phasing out linearly to zero at $450,000 (the 1991-set thresholds have not been indexed).
- Closing Day (Completion) — The contractually-stipulated date on which the buyer's lawyer registers the title transfer at the BC Land Title Office and the purchase funds are released to the seller — distinct from the possession date (typically completion + 1 day) and the adjustment date (the date utilities/property tax/strata fees are prorated).
See also
Use any of these formats. Codex content is licensed under CC BY 4.0 — attribution required.
@misc{bronsonjob-bc_ptt_fthb_exemption,
author = {Job, Bronson},
title = {{BC First Time Home Buyer PTT exemption}},
howpublished = {BC Real Estate Codex},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.bronsonjob.com/codex#bc.ptt.fthb_exemption},
urldate = {2026-05-19},
note = {Fact ID: bc.ptt.fthb_exemption, version 2.}
}Job, B. (2026). BC First Time Home Buyer PTT exemption. *BC Real Estate Codex*. Retrieved 2026-05-19, from https://www.bronsonjob.com/codex#bc.ptt.fthb_exemption
BC First Time Home Buyer PTT exemption — Bronson Job PREC, BC Real Estate Codex (2026-05-19). https://www.bronsonjob.com/codex#bc.ptt.fthb_exemption
Fact id: bc.ptt.fthb_exemption · v2 · machine-readable: /api/v1/facts/by-id/bc.ptt.fthb_exemption.json
Verified sources (1)· re-verified 2026-05-19Click to expand
Every claim on this page is sourced to a primary government, regulator, or industry-association URL. We re-verify quarterly; the verification dates below show when each source was last confirmed against the live government page.
- BC Governmentretrieved 2026-05-19First Time Home Buyers' Program — exemption amounthttps://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/taxes/property-taxes/property-transfer-tax/exemptions/first-time-home-buyers/current-amount
bc.ptt.fthb_exemption · v2View in Codex →License: This definition is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Cite as: "First Time Home Buyers' PTT Exemption", BC Real Estate Glossary by Bronson Job, https://www.bronsonjob.com/glossary/first-time-home-buyer-exemption.
