Income Percentiles in Kitchener-Waterloo: Where Your Income Ranks

Kitchener-Waterloo’s technology companies, two universities, insurers and advanced manufacturing make it one of Ontario’s main job centres outside Toronto, and its large student population sits at the other end of the income range. Here are the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo percentiles beside Ontario and Canada, how its bottom and top rows compare, the median and six-figure shares, what the region’s manufacturing and professional-services jobs pay, and how far a median income goes on rent, a home and Ontario tax. The income percentiles overview explains how these tables are produced.

Kitchener-Waterloo income percentile table

Source: Statistics Canada Table 98-10-0064, 2020 income year (2021 Census). Values are interpolated from published $5,000-wide income brackets, not exact published percentiles. StatCan’s own published median for the same population is $42,400, versus this table’s interpolated $40,500, a normal margin for bracket interpolation. A percentile shown as “$150,000+” falls in the open-ended “$150,000 and over” bracket: it is at least $150,000, and the table can’t place it more precisely.

The Census table covers the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo census metropolitan area for 2020 income, including students with part-time earnings.

Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario and Canada

Source: Statistics Canada Table 98-10-0064, 2020 income year (2021 Census), interpolated from published income brackets. The 99th percentile is the floor of the open-ended “$150,000 and over” bracket for all three geographies, so no meaningful difference can be computed at that row.

The region’s 10th percentile, $6,400, is below Ontario’s $6,600 and below Canada’s $7,700. Set against a median of $40,500, that gives a median-to-10th ratio of 6.3, wider than Ontario’s 6.0 and wider than Canada’s 5.1. Higher up the table the pattern reverses: the 90th percentile, $105,100, is 2.60 times the median, below Ontario’s 2.80 and below Canada’s 2.61. Kitchener-Waterloo incomes are spread out at the bottom of the range and comparatively compact at the top.

Median and six-figure incomes in Kitchener-Waterloo

The region’s median income was $45,570 in 2023, higher than Canada’s $45,000. 15.5% of residents with income reported $100,000 or more, below the Ontario share of 16.0%.

Students working part-time pull the median down without changing the top shares much.

Manufacturing and tech pay in Kitchener-Waterloo

Manufacturing is the region’s largest industry in the 2025 Labour Force Survey: 69.3 thousand of the 389.1 thousand people employed in Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, or 17.8%, 2.1 times its share across all CMAs. The occupation counts point the same way: machine operators, assemblers and inspectors made up 6.5% of the employed, about 2.9 times the all-CMA share. Professional, scientific and technical services, the sector that takes in software and engineering firms, held 12.7% of jobs (1.17 times the all-CMA share).

Pay by industry is published for Ontario rather than for the region. The province’s manufacturing employees had a median wage of $1,200.00 a week in 2025, the same as the median for all Ontario employees, or about $62,400 over 52 weeks. Professional, scientific and technical employees had a median of $1,731.00 a week, about $90,012 a year, which clears $75,000; on 2023 returns, 26.9% of the region’s residents with income reported that much or more.

Job Bank’s Kitchener-Waterloo-Barrie economic region is larger than the census area, since it also includes the Barrie area. There, industrial and manufacturing engineers had a median below Ontario’s, while industrial instrument technicians were above it:

How far a Kitchener-Waterloo median income goes

The Canadian Income Survey tables behind this site’s after-tax figures don’t include Kitchener-Waterloo, so this estimate runs the region’s median tax-filer income, $45,570 in 2023, through 2026 tax and payroll rules as if it were all wages: about $37,223 a year remains. A two-bedroom apartment at the CMHC average of $1,834 a month (2025 survey) costs $22,008 over twelve months, 59% of that take-home; a one-bedroom at $1,548 takes 50%. Vacancy was 4.2%, higher than Hamilton’s 3.6% in the same survey. Kitchener-Waterloo rents has the detail by unit size.

For buyers, Cornerstone’s benchmark price for Kitchener-Waterloo (Cambridge is reported separately) was $628,300 in August 2026. Qualifying for it alone at the minimum down payment takes roughly $142,200 of gross income under the stress test (method), above $100,000 but under $150,000; 15.5% of the region’s residents with income reported $100,000 or more. The Waterloo Region housing market page tracks Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge prices, and cost of living in Kitchener-Waterloo puts these incomes next to other local prices.

How Ontario taxes a Kitchener-Waterloo median income

The region’s median of $45,570 falls inside Ontario’s first bracket, which runs to $53,891 at 5.05%. Ontario tax at that income, about $1,689 with the Health Premium, stays under the $5,818 of Ontario tax at which the surtax starts, so no surtax applies. Federal tax adds about $3,412, so income tax takes 11.2% of the median before CPP and EI. The Ontario income tax page shows where the higher brackets and the surtax begin.

Related pages

• One income against the province: the income percentile calculator (choose Ontario); a household’s combined income: household income percentiles
• Ontario income percentiles
• Hamilton income percentiles
• Toronto income percentiles
• Income by age; gender pay gap
• All income percentile pages