Cost of Living Alone in Canada: Monthly Budget by City

Living alone means paying the whole rent and every household bill yourself. This guide puts numbers on it: what a one-bedroom costs in ten Canadian cities, a monthly budget for one person built from Statistics Canada data, the income each city needs, and how much more one person spends than each member of a couple. For the broader picture of household budgets, see average household expenses in Canada and the cost of living guides.

What one person spends besides rent

Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending reports what one-person households spend. The table turns the national averages for the main everyday categories into monthly amounts. They are averages over all one-person households, owners and renters, including people who spent nothing on an item, so a renter whose rent includes utilities will spend less on that line.

Statistics Canada, Survey of Household Spending 2023 (table 11-10-0224-01), average spending of one-person households in Canada, in 2023 dollars. Prices have risen since then; the inflation rate page shows by how much.

Monthly budget for living alone, by city

Each city’s budget below is the average asking rent for a one-bedroom apartment, an adult monthly transit pass (or monthly fare cap) and the national one-person averages from the table above. It leaves out car costs, insurance, savings and income tax.

Rent: Statistics Canada average asking rent for a one-bedroom apartment in each census metropolitan area, second quarter of 2026 (table 46-10-0092-01; Ottawa is the Ontario part of Ottawa-Gatineau). Transit: each agency’s published adult fare; Toronto’s figure is the TTC monthly fare cap (47 adult PRESTO fares), and Edmonton’s the Arc monthly fare cap. Other costs: the one-person total from the table above. Rows run west to east.

Of these ten cities, Edmonton had the lowest one-bedroom asking rent and Vancouver the highest. Rents by city and unit size are on the average rent page and the rentals pages.

Income needed to live alone, by city

CMHC considers housing affordable when it costs less than 30% of before-tax household income, counting the rent (or mortgage payments, property tax and condo fees) plus electricity, heat, water and other municipal services. The table applies it to the asking rent alone and shows the gross income at which the average one-bedroom rent equals that share, the take-home pay at that income, and how much of the take-home pay on a $60,000 salary the rent would take.

Income = average one-bedroom asking rent x 12 ÷ 30%. Take-home pay is for a single employee in the city’s province in 2026, after income tax, CPP or QPP, EI and (in Quebec) QPIP. Rent counts the asking rent only, not utilities or tenant insurance.

The take-home pay for a single employee in 2026 at a few common salaries, per month, for comparison with the budgets above:

Monthly take-home pay after federal and provincial income tax, CPP or QPP, EI and (in Quebec) QPIP, single employee with no other income.

How much more it costs to live alone

The table compares a one-bedroom at the average asking rent with half the rent of a two-bedroom shared by two people.

Statistics Canada average asking rents, second quarter of 2026. Sharing three ways cuts it further: in Toronto a three-bedroom at $3,270 comes to $1,090 each.

Household bills add to the gap. The Survey of Household Spending shows what one-person households spent compared with each member of a couple without children:

Statistics Canada, Survey of Household Spending 2023, average spending per household per year; a couple’s figure is divided by two. Averages include owners and renters.

Groceries, phone and internet for one

One-person households spent $383 a month on food from stores and $156 at restaurants in 2023. The average grocery bill guide has current figures by household size and province, and ways to save on groceries covers the options. For phone and internet, one-person households spent $69 a month on cell phone service and $70 on internet; plan prices are compared in the guides to the average cell phone bill and the average internet bill.

Planning for a single income

With no second income in the household, a job loss or illness has to be covered from savings or insurance. The emergency fund guide looks at how much to set aside. For disability, the maximum CPP disability benefit for a new beneficiary was $1,741.20 a month in January 2026, and the CPP disability benefit guide sets out who qualifies (people who live and work in Quebec, or have worked only there, apply to the Quebec Pension Plan instead). A 50/30/20 budget is one way to split a single take-home pay between needs, wants and savings.

Key figures

• The monthly budget for one person comes to $3,696 in Toronto, $3,848 in Vancouver, $3,041 in Montreal and $2,890 in Winnipeg, before car costs, savings and income tax.
• In Toronto, renting a one-bedroom alone costs $765 more a month ($9,180 more a year) than half of a shared two-bedroom.
• At CMHC’s 30% benchmark, the income needed for an average one-bedroom is $83,600 in Toronto and $52,800 in Winnipeg.

To compare these costs across provinces, see the cost of living by province guide.