Contractor Quote Template for Canada: GST/HST, Deposits, and What to Include

Most quote templates floating around the internet are American. The scope and warranty sections travel fine across the border, but the money section doesn't: no GST/HST line, no registration number, sales-tax naming that means nothing here, and no answer to the question every new Canadian contractor eventually googles — do I even charge tax on this quote?Here's the Canadian version, province by province, with a worked Ontario example at the end.

What a Canadian contractor quote should include

• Your business name, contact details, and — if registered — your GST/HST registration number. Commercial clients need it to claim input tax credits, and homeowners read it as “this is a real business.”
• Scope of work, materials, exclusions, and timeline — same discipline as anywhere. Our winning-proposal guide covers that structure.
• A money section with three visible layers: subtotal, tax line(s) named and rated for your province, total. Never bury tax in the price.
• Deposit and payment schedule — 30% up front is common; progress draws on bigger jobs.
• A quote expiry date. Material prices move; don't honour March pricing in August.

The tax line, province by province

The federal GST is 5% everywhere. What changes is whether your province folds it into a single HST, adds its own separate tax, or adds nothing. Rates as of August 2026:

The PST provinces deserve one honest paragraph, because this is where contractors get surprised. In BC and Manitoba, most work on real property is treated so that youpay the provincial tax on materials when you buy them, and you generally don't add a PST line to the client's quote — the PST is a cost you build into your pricing. In Saskatchewan, it's the reverse: PST generally applies to construction services themselves, so quotes carry both GST and PST lines. Quebec runs its own QST alongside GST with separate registration. These rules have real edge cases — supply-only vs supply-and-install, subcontracting, exempt clients — so have an accountant confirm your setup once, then template it.

The $30,000 question: when you don't charge GST/HST

If your total revenue stays under $30,000 across four consecutive calendar quarters, you're a “small supplier” — registration is optional and you don't charge GST/HST. Two practical notes. First, the moment you cross the threshold, registration stops being optional, and busy season can carry you across it faster than you expect. Second, if you're not charging tax, say so on the quote — a simple “GST/HST not applicable — small supplier” line reads far better than a missing tax line that makes a savvy client wonder whether you forgot it or you're working under the table. Many contractors register voluntarily before the threshold anyway: it lets you claim back the GST/HST on your tools, truck, and materials.

Deposits

Show the deposit as a schedule against the taxed total, not as a separate mini-quote: deposit on acceptance, balance (or draws) tied to milestones. Keep the percentages honest for your province's norms — 30% up front is unremarkable; more than half before work starts invites pushback. GST/HST timing on deposits has its own accounting rules, but on the quote itself the client just needs to see the schedule against the bottom-line total.

A worked Ontario example

Here's the money section of a deck-replacement quote done right for Ontario:

Nothing clever — and that's the point. The client sees exactly where the number comes from, the tax is named with the right rate, and the registration number is where a commercial client expects to find it.

Doing this automatically

ProposalProgenerates proposals with the money section built from the numbers you enter — and the generation is jurisdiction-aware, so a Toronto roofer's proposal talks about HST and Ontario licensing language rather than sales tax and US boilerplate. Enter the job once, and the scope, exclusions, pricing table, tax line, payment schedule, and signature block come out as a client-ready PDF your client can sign online. The free tier is three proposals a month, no credit card — enough to quote your next real job with the tax line done properly.