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British Columbia Sales Tax Calculator 2026 | 12% GST + PST

Updated

This calculator adds British Columbia’s GST and PST to a price, showing each tax separately, or switches to reverse mode to take them out of a total you’ve already paid.

What do you want to do?
Amount Before Tax (Pre-Tax)
Total After Tax
Pre-Tax Amount
GST
Total Tax

Stores round each tax line separately, so a receipt can differ from this result by a cent or two.

How sales tax works in British Columbia

BC is one of the four provinces that charge the GST and a provincial tax as two separate taxes (Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec are the others). A purchase carries the 5% GST, collected for the Canada Revenue Agency, and the 7% PST, administered by BC’s Ministry of Finance, for 12% in total. Each is calculated on the pre-tax price, so a $100 item costs $112.00.

BC briefly had an HST. It harmonized on July 1, 2010, voters rejected the HST in a 2011 referendum, and the separate PST returned after March 31, 2013. Because the two taxes have separate rules, plenty of items carry the GST but not the PST, which is what makes BC’s system different from the single-rate HST provinces. Next door, Alberta charges only the 5% GST; every province’s rate is on the sales tax by province page.

What BC’s PST doesn’t apply to

BC exempts these from PST without any paperwork (the GST may still apply; basic groceries and prescription drugs are also free of GST, as the zero-rated and exempt section explains):

  • Food for human consumption, including basic groceries and restaurant meals
  • Books, newspapers and magazines
  • Children-sized clothing and footwear
  • Bicycles
  • Prescription medications and household medical aids such as cough syrup and pain medication

Others need documentation at the time of purchase, such as adult-sized clothing and footwear bought for a child (below), school supplies for students, and safety equipment and protective clothing. (The PST exemption for used zero-emission vehicles ended after April 30, 2025.)

Clothing and footwear in children's sizes are exempt from BC's PST with no paperwork. The exemption follows the item's size, not the buyer's age, so adult-sized clothing and footwear bought or rented for a child under 15 is exempt only with a signed certificate of exemption.

Restaurant meals and liquor

Because food is PST-exempt, a restaurant meal carries only the 5% GST: a $50 bill with no alcohol or soft drinks has $2.50 of tax, against $6.50 under Ontario’s HST. Liquor is the exception. BC charges a 10% PST on it instead of the general 7%, so alcohol on the same bill is taxed at 15%. Soft drinks are the other exception: sweetened carbonated drinks, and any drink poured from a soda fountain, carry the general 7% PST.

Vehicles

BC’s PST rate rises with a vehicle’s price. A passenger vehicle bought from a dealer for under $55,000 carries the general 7%, but at $65,000 the rate on the whole price is 10%, so the PST is $6,500 and the total tax with GST is $9,750. A private used-vehicle sale carries no GST but a 12% PST below $125,000, charged on the greater of the price and the vehicle’s average wholesale value.

The full band table, the higher starting price of the bands for zero-emission vehicles, trade-ins and the federal luxury tax are on the car sales tax by province page.

Online and out-of-province purchases

PST applies to taxable goods delivered to BC, wherever the seller is. A business elsewhere in Canada that delivers goods to BC customers and solicits their orders (with targeted ads or flyers, for example; a website that doesn’t target BC doesn’t count) must register to collect BC PST whatever its sales. One that doesn’t solicit must register once its sales of goods, software and telecommunication services to BC customers are over $10,000 in the previous or next 12 months. When an online marketplace collects the payment, the marketplace collects the PST instead. When a seller doesn’t charge PST on something taxable, the buyer owes it and reports it to the province.

Sources

The figures and rules on this page come from these sources, last checked against them between September 24, 2026 and October 3, 2026. How we check facts.