Calgary council approves 2026 budget with 1.6% property tax increase

Calgary's budget has been finalized and a property tax increase is coming next year, but the city’s new council has brought down the hike quite a bit.

After a marathon meeting, Calgary’s new-look council approved the 2026 city budget with a 1.64 per cent property tax increase on both the residential and non-residential sides.

It’ll mean the typical single-family residential property will pay an estimated $4.50 more per month in property taxes next year compared to 2025.

An increase in utilities will also see the monthly water, wastewater and stormwater bill jump by $5.29 per month for the average home.

The final city decision comes after more than 130 public speakers and 38 proposed amendments over eight days in what was one of the longest Calgary budget debates in recent memory.

“We’ve shown we can continue to invest in the needed areas like transit, housing, public safety and infrastructure while reducing the burden on Calgarians,” Mayor Jeromy Farkas said.

“So it’s been a little bit of a longer process, but this has been an amazing opportunity to get to work alongside our brand-new team of city councillors.”

Coming into last week’s budget adjustments, single-family homes were in line to see a 5.8 per cent increase—an increase of about $13 per month.

In order to bring down that proposed increase, councillors cancelled the planned tax shift from homes to businesses and relied on redirecting $50 million in investment income into the operating budget instead of putting it into reserves.

Among the dozens of amendments passed, councillors approved a transit fare increase for 2026, boosted transit funding by $6 million to get more buses on the road, passed a $9-million pilot project to deploy more security at transit stations during rush hour and cut $9 million from the city’s climate and environment department.

Additionally, councillors green-lit a pair of pedestrian safety efforts to install new flashing beacons at two locations in each ward ($2 million) and will explore possible environmental design and structural changes on streets to improve safety ($7.5 million).

“We are having one of the worst accident rates in our city (for pedestrian collisions), and we actually need to start tackling this from the physical-built environment side of things,” said Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson.

Wednesday’s final decision comes after very little was actually cut from the budget, with elected officials instead relying on dipping into several reserves for one-time spending.

“Ever since I first got elected, every single council I’ve ever been on, one of their first objectives is to cut, cut, cut,” said Andre Chabot, the veteran representative for Ward 10.

“This is the last year of a four-year budget. There’s not a lot to cut.”

Instead of impacting the property tax rate, nearly $60 million of one-time spending will come from the city’s fiscal stability reserve (FSR), a contingency fund set aside for operational emergencies or urgent capital costs.

At the end of 2024, the FSR totalled more than $1.2 billion, the majority of which has already been committed to future projects and programs.

“The fiscal stability reserve is our last go-to reserve that could be utilized for capital or operating, which is why I’m always concerned about drawing that one too far down. We just don’t know what emergencies might come up over the course of the next year,” Chabot said.

Late Wednesday, councillors debated a motion that would have brought next year’s property tax increase down to zero.

It would have required city officials to find $41 million in savings next year without touching the budgets for police, fire and transit.

That motion was defeated in a 5-10 vote.

Estimated costs for the city’s property taxes are considered preliminary until property assessments are completed in January.

The city’s portion of the property tax amount above is separate from the province’s education tax requisition.

On the final decision with all of the amendments considered, it was a 12-3 vote in favour of the budget.

Councillors Landon Johnston, Mike Jamieson and Jennifer Wyness voted against.