Commercial ratepayers in Alberta are in line for a 6.4 per cent increase in their education property tax burden this year. The newly released 2025-26 provincial budget announces higher tax rates for both residential and non-residential properties, pushing the Alberta government’s take up to to $4 per $1,000 of assessed value on commercial and industrial properties and $2.72 per $1,000 of assessed value on residential and farm properties.

This follows after a freeze in the education property tax rate last year that kept it at $3.76 per $1,000 of assessed value on non-residential properties and $2.56 per $1,000 of assessed value on residential and farm properties. The new higher rate is projected to garner about $3.1 billion to help fund the provincial education system, up from $2.7 billion in 2024-25.

The levy will cover approximately 31.6 per cent of education operating costs, with the remainder drawn from general provincial revenues. Education property tax funded 29.5 per cent of costs last year.

“Our education system, facing record enrolment growth, has an increase of funding that will bring total funding above $10 billion. By 2027-28 education funding is expected to increase to over $11 billion,” Alberta’s Finance Minister, Nate Horner, advised in his budget speech. “These increases mean that our schools will be able to hire more than 4,000 education staff, including teachers, educational assistants, bus drivers and other support staff.”

The 2025-26 budget document also notes that revenue from Alberta’s recently introduced land titles registration levy is “projected to increase significantly” since it will be the first full year of collecting the fee, which is set at $5 per $5,000 of a registered property’s value. Total revenue is estimated at $161 million for the coming fiscal year, with a similar amount foreseen for 2026-27 and 2027-28.