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Loan-to-Value (LTV) Calculator Canada

Updated

Loan-to-value (LTV) is your mortgage as a share of the home’s value. Lenders use it to decide whether the mortgage must be insured, whether you can refinance or open a HELOC, and sometimes which rate you get. Enter the property value and the loan below to see yours; the rest of the site’s mortgage tools are in the mortgage calculator directory.

Property Value
Mortgage / Loan Amount
Loan-to-Value Ratio
Property Value
Loan Amount
Down Payment / Equity
Equity Percentage
CMHC Insurance Required?

The formula

LTV = loan amount ÷ property value × 100

Buying a $500,000 home with a $400,000 mortgage gives an LTV of 80%.

When the home is already owned, use the current appraised value and the current balance, and add any other debt secured on the home. That gives the combined LTV (CLTV):

CLTV = (mortgage balance + HELOC balance + any other secured loan) ÷ property value × 100

A home worth $550,000 with $280,000 left on the mortgage and $40,000 drawn on a HELOC has a combined LTV of 58.2%.

Equity is the other side of the same number: equity % = 100% − LTV %. Someone with 30% equity has a 70% LTV.

The thresholds that matter

Above 80%: insurance. With less than 20% down you need mortgage loan insurance. The premium is a percentage of the loan that rises with the LTV (the bands and the 30-year surcharge are on the CMHC insurance calculator), and it is added to the mortgage.

The highest LTV you can buy at depends on the price, because of the minimum down payment rule: The minimum down payment is 5% of the first $500,000 and 10% of the rest for homes under $1.5 million, and 20% at $1.5 million or more.

On a $700,000 home, the minimum down payment is $45,000, so the largest loan is $655,000 before the premium, an LTV of 93.6%.

The down payment calculator does this for any price.

Limits for refinancing and HELOCs. Borrowing more against a home you own is capped by LTV:

At a federally regulated lender, two limits apply: the revolving part of a HELOC can't exceed 65% of the home's value, and everything borrowed against the home (the mortgage plus the HELOC, or a refinanced mortgage) can't exceed 80% of its value. HELOC room is therefore the lower of 80% of the value minus the mortgage and 65% of the value. Mortgage insurance can't take a refinance above 80%, except a refinance to build secondary suites that takes no equity out.

So the most a refinance can free up is that overall limit applied to the appraised value, minus what you already owe; the mortgage refinance calculator runs the numbers, and the HELOC calculator applies both HELOC limits to your balance.

Rate pricing. Some lenders price uninsured mortgages by LTV band, and insured mortgages are priced separately from uninsured ones because the insurer carries the default risk. How much this matters differs by lender; current mortgage rates compares insured and uninsured averages.

How LTV falls over time

Your LTV drops as payments reduce the balance and, if prices rise, as the home’s value goes up.

A $500,000 purchase with a $400,000 mortgage at 5% over 25 years, with the home’s value assumed to rise 2% a year:

YearBalanceHome valueLTV
0$400,000$500,00080%
5$354,030$552,04064.1%
10$295,185$609,49748.4%
15$219,857$672,93432.7%
20$123,432$742,97416.6%

Prepayments speed this up: the extra payment calculator shows how fast lump sums or higher payments bring the balance down.

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Sources

The figures and rules on this page come from these sources, last checked against them between September 25, 2026 and October 2, 2026. How we check facts.