Yes. In Ontario the 13% HST is charged on the flooring you buy and on the work of laying it, and on our quotes it also applies to removing the old floor and to delivery. A clear quote either lists the HST on its own line or says plainly that the total already includes it. This page sticks to that one tax line: where the 13% comes from, which parts of a flooring invoice carry it, and why the same job can look like two different prices depending on whether tax is in or out. Every dollar figure below uses our current box prices and the rates behind our flooring installation service, so you can repeat the arithmetic on any quote you receive. It is a homeowner's reading guide, not tax advice; for your own situation, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has the final word.
Quick answer: 13% on materials, labour, removal and delivery
- The rate: HST in Ontario is 13%. Both the Ontario government and the CRA rate table say so.
- What it covers: CRA guidance says most property and services supplied in Canada are taxable. On a flooring job, the planks and the installation labour are both taxed, not only the materials.
- How we apply it: our quotes add up material, installation, removal and delivery first, then charge 13% HST on that subtotal.
- What the paperwork must say: CRA requires a business to tell you whether HST applies and whether it is included in the price or added separately.
- One rate, not two: HST appears as a single 13% rate. CRA tells businesses not to split it into federal and provincial parts on receipts or invoices.
On the 800 sq ft vinyl plank job worked through below, HST adds $613.01 to a $4,715.48 subtotal, for a total of $5,328.49. Spread over the floor, that is $5.89 per square foot before tax and $6.66 after it.
Where Ontario's 13% comes from
Ontario's harmonized sales tax took effect on July 1, 2010. The provincial government describes it as replacing two older taxes: the 5% federal goods and services tax (GST) and the 8% provincial retail sales tax (RST). Its current wording is short: the Harmonized Sales Tax is 13% in Ontario. The CRA administers and collects it on the province's behalf, and the CRA's own table of GST/HST rates by province lists Ontario at 13%.
The rate follows the place of supply rather than the seller's address. CRA illustrates this with a Vancouver furniture store that delivers a mattress to a customer in Toronto; the store charges 13% HST because the place of supply is Ontario. A floor supplied and installed in a Toronto or GTA home is an Ontario supply, so 13% is the figure to look for on the quote.
The rate is the same in a house, a basement or a condo. What moves is the subtotal it is applied to. Our condo installation and removal rates are higher than our house rates, so a condo job carries more HST in dollars even though the percentage has not changed.
Which lines on a flooring invoice carry HST
A flooring quote is a bundle of goods and services. Here is how each common line is priced on our quotes and whether the 13% is added to it.
| Invoice line | How we price it | 13% HST added? |
|---|---|---|
| Flooring material | Whole boxes x box price, ordered on your area plus a 5% waste allowance | Yes |
| Underlayment (laminate and click engineered floors only) | $50.00 per roll, one roll per 200 sq ft of waste-adjusted area | Yes |
| Installation labour | Waste-adjusted area x labour rate (vinyl plank in a house: $1.50 per sq ft) | Yes |
| Removal of the old floor | Original area x removal rate (click laminate in a house: $1.30 per sq ft) | Yes |
| Delivery | $150 flat to Toronto M postal codes | Yes |
| Trim, transitions and stairs | Listed separately when they are part of the job; stairs are priced after viewing | Yes, once they are on the quote |
Installation is a service, and CRA's statement about taxable supplies covers services as well as goods. So when a quote taxes the material line but shows the labour with no tax beside it, ask how the labour is being treated and whether it already includes HST. The same goes for removal and delivery, which are services too.
The underlay line on a laminate quote
Laminate is one of the floors where our quote adds a separate underlayment line, and that roll is taxed like everything else: $50.00 before HST becomes $56.50 with it. A click laminate such as the Egger EM7206 8mm therefore shows up on a quote as material, underlay and labour, each feeding the same taxable subtotal. Vinyl plank with a pad already attached skips that line entirely, which is one reason a laminate and a vinyl quote for the same room can differ by more than the plank price.
Catalogue prices are before tax: our box prices with and without HST
A per-square-foot price on one of our product pages is the box price divided by the coverage in the box. Our quotes start from those box prices and add HST at the end, so the catalogue figure is the before-tax number. The table below shows what the same boxes cost once 13% is added.
| Product | Box price before HST | Coverage per box | Price per sq ft before HST | Box price with 13% HST | Price per sq ft with HST |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riche Blonde Sand Oak 6mm SPC vinyl with IXPE pad | $62.93 | 23.64 sq ft | $2.66 | $71.11 | $3.01 |
| Egger EM7206 8mm laminate | $40.48 | 21.42 sq ft | $1.89 | $45.74 | $2.14 |
| Villa European Oak 7.5" engineered hardwood | $97.00 | 19.42 sq ft | $4.99 | $109.61 | $5.64 |
Prices checked October 6, 2026. Box prices and coverage come from our current catalogue; the tax columns are the box price x 1.13, rounded to the cent, and that figure divided by the coverage.
Labour rates behave the same way. Our vinyl plank installation rate of $1.50 per sq ft in a house works out to $1.70 per sq ft once HST is added, and the $2.00 condo rate becomes $2.26. Both rates apply to vinyl jobs over 300 sq ft; smaller jobs are priced after viewing. If an installer quotes you a labour rate, it is worth asking which of those two kinds of number you are looking at.
Worked example: 800 sq ft of vinyl plank, before and after HST
To see the tax on a full invoice, take an 800 sq ft main floor in a house with an M postal code. The old click laminate comes out, and the new floor is the Riche Blonde Sand Oak 6mm SPC from the table above. Its IXPE pad is attached to the plank, so there is no underlay line. Baseboard, trim and transitions are not included in this example; when they are part of a job, they appear as separate taxable lines. The remaining lines are worked out the same way as on our quotes:
- Waste-adjusted area = 800 sq ft x 1.05 = 840 sq ft (our 5% waste allowance).
- Boxes = 840 / 23.64, rounded up = 36 boxes, which cover 851.04 sq ft.
- Material = 36 x $62.93.
- Labour = 840 sq ft x $1.50.
- Removal = 800 sq ft x $1.30 (removal uses the original area, with no waste added).
- Delivery = $150 flat.
- HST = 13% of the subtotal of those four lines, then added for the total.
| Line | Before HST | HST share (13%) | After HST |
|---|---|---|---|
| Material: 36 boxes x $62.93 | $2,265.48 | $294.51 | $2,559.99 |
| Installation: 840 sq ft x $1.50 | $1,260.00 | $163.80 | $1,423.80 |
| Removal of click laminate: 800 sq ft x $1.30 | $1,040.00 | $135.20 | $1,175.20 |
| Delivery, M postal code | $150.00 | $19.50 | $169.50 |
| Total for this example | $4,715.48 | $613.01 | $5,328.49 |
The middle column is there to show where the tax money goes: $318.50 of the $613.01 in HST sits on the labour, removal and delivery lines, more than the tax on the planks themselves. Our quote works out the tax once, on the subtotal: $4,715.48 x 13% = $613.01. Taxing each line separately gives the same $613.01 on this job, but the two methods can drift apart by a cent on other totals. About its own GST/HST calculator, CRA notes: "Due to rounding, calculated amounts may differ from final totals by a cent or two."
Per square foot, before and after tax
Divide each total by the floor area, 800 sq ft, rather than the 840 sq ft ordered. Before HST the job costs $5.89 per sq ft; after HST it costs $6.66 per sq ft. Leave the old laminate in place (if the floor allows it) and the subtotal falls to $3,675.48, the HST to $477.81 and the total to $4,153.29, which is $4.59 per sq ft before tax and $5.19 after. Quote both numbers when you compare: a figure near the first one and a figure near the second one can describe exactly the same job.
Taking HST back out of a tax-included total
If a quote gives only a tax-included figure, divide it by 1.13 to find the pre-tax amount. On this job, $5,328.49 / 1.13 = $4,715.48, which matches the subtotal above. The common slip is to subtract 13% of the total instead. Thirteen percent of $5,328.49 is $692.70, and taking that off leaves $4,635.79, which understates the pre-tax price by $79.69. HST is 13% of the price before tax, but only about 11.5% of a total that already includes it.
What a flooring quote should show about tax
CRA sets out what a business has to tell customers about GST/HST, and those rules translate into a short checklist for a homeowner reading a flooring quote or invoice:
- Whether HST applies to the purchase at all.
- Whether it is included or extra: either the HST amount sits on its own line next to the amount payable, or the document clearly states that the total includes HST.
- The rate: the HST rate that applies, shown as the total rate (13% in Ontario) rather than as separate federal and provincial parts.
- The business's GST/HST account number: CRA says a supplier must include it on receipts, invoices, contracts or other business papers when it supplies taxable goods or services of $100 or more. CRA also points to its GST/HST Registry as a way to confirm that a business charging you GST/HST is registered.
Our own quotes follow the order used in the worked example: each line before tax, a subtotal, a 13% HST line and the total. If you are lining up several quotes side by side, our step-by-step guide to comparing flooring quotes walks through the other line items. Whether the pre-tax numbers themselves are reasonable is a separate question, covered in our post on per-square-foot benchmarks and red flags.
Comparing a before-tax price with a tax-included price
The easiest way to misread two quotes is to set a before-tax number beside a tax-included one. The table below pairs each product above with our house installation rate for that type of floor and shows the combined rate both ways. These are rate sums for comparison only; a quote also adds the 5% waste allowance, whole boxes, removal, delivery, any baseboard, trim or transitions and, for laminate, underlay.
| Floor (house installation) | Material per sq ft | Labour per sq ft | Combined before HST | Combined with HST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riche Blonde Sand Oak 6mm SPC, click-lock | $2.66 | $1.50 | $4.16 | $4.70 |
| Egger EM7206 8mm laminate, click-lock | $1.89 | $1.50 | $3.39 | $3.83 |
| Villa European Oak engineered hardwood, nail-down | $4.99 | $2.00 | $6.99 | $7.90 |
Picture two quotes for the Villa floor: one written at $6.99 per sq ft plus HST and one written at $7.90 per sq ft with tax included. They describe the same rates. Put every quote on one basis before you compare, either by multiplying the before-tax figures by 1.13 or by dividing the tax-included ones by 1.13. For nail-down engineered hardwood in a condo, the installation rate is priced after viewing, so the condo version of that row cannot be filled in from a rate sheet.
For full budgets that carry this arithmetic through removal, delivery and HST at several room sizes, see our vinyl plank installed cost budgets and the matching engineered hardwood installed cost guide. Labour rates for every floor type, including the ones not shown here, are collected in our flooring installation cost guide for Toronto.
Frequently asked questions about HST on flooring
Is HST charged on flooring installation labour in Ontario?
Yes. Installing a floor is a taxable service, so the 13% applies to the labour charge as well as to the planks. In the 800 sq ft example, the installation line alone carries $163.80 of HST.
Should a flooring quote be written before tax or after tax?
Either can be correct. What matters is that the quote tells you which one it is, with the HST amount on its own line or a clear note that the total includes it. If the document is silent, ask before you sign, because the gap on a mid-sized job runs to hundreds of dollars.
Can the 5% GST and 8% provincial part be listed separately?
CRA's guidance for receipts and invoices is to show the total HST rate and not to break it into federal and provincial portions. A quote with a single 13% HST line is doing what CRA asks.
Is HST charged on delivery and on removing the old floor?
On our quotes, yes. Both are part of the subtotal that the 13% is calculated on, so $150 of delivery becomes $169.50 and a $1.30 per sq ft removal rate costs about $1.47 per sq ft once tax is added.
Does a condo floor have a different HST rate from a house?
No. The rate is 13% anywhere in Ontario. Condo labour and removal rates are higher, though, so the tax in dollars is higher on a condo job of the same size.
Get a flooring quote with the tax line spelled out
Send us your measurements and a few photos, and we will price your floor line by line with the 13% HST shown separately. You can request a flooring quote online or contact us with your questions.
Top Floorings Depot
3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 1, Toronto, ON M1W 3K5
www.topfloorings.com
Call: 416-499-0117
Text: 416-770-8819