How Much Is Food Tax in Ontario: Groceries, Snacks, Prepared Food

The food tax in Ontario is the 13% Harmonized Sales Tax, but most basic groceries are zero-rated, meaning you pay nothing at the register.¹ Raw ingredients and kitchen staples ring up tax-free. Snacks, candy, most beverages, and prepared meals carry the full 13%. A handful of threshold rules — how many baked goods you buy, how big the ice cream container is, whether your café order tops $4 — can change what you actually pay.

Groceries That Are Tax-Free

Under the Excise Tax Act, most food and beverages marketed for human consumption are zero-rated at 0% HST.² The rule of thumb: if it’s a raw ingredient you’d bring home and cook, it’s almost certainly untaxed.

Fresh, frozen, canned, or vacuum-sealed fruits and vegetables
Raw meat, poultry, and fish
Unflavoured milk, cheese, butter, and eggs
Bagels, English muffins, croissants, and bread rolls without sweetened filling or coating
Flour, cooking oil, spices, seasonings, breakfast cereals, and sweetening agents
Coffee beans, ground coffee, and tea leaves or bags for brewing at home

Plain bread products get specific protection in the law. Bagels, bread rolls, and unsweetened croissants are always zero-rated, regardless of quantity.³ Sweetened baked goods follow a different rule, discussed further down.

Snacks and Confectionery at 13%

The Excise Tax Act carves out a long list of snack foods and treats that are excluded from zero-rating and carry the full 13% HST.³ Buying them at a grocery store instead of a convenience store makes no difference.

Chocolate bars, candy floss, chewing gum, and chocolate-coated nuts, seeds, or fruit
Potato chips, corn chips, cheese puffs, bacon crisps, popped popcorn, and brittle pretzels
Granola bars and granola snacks, unless sold primarily as breakfast cereal
Salted nuts and seeds
Trail mix and similar cereal, nut, seed, and dried fruit mixtures
Fruit bars, fruit rolls, and fruit drops

One useful boundary: unpopped popcorn kernels, including microwave popcorn, are zero-rated. The moment popcorn is popped and bagged, it’s taxable.²

How Beverages Are Taxed

Beverages follow their own rules, and the outcomes are less intuitive than you’d expect. Two categories are always taxable at 13% regardless of packaging or quantity: carbonated drinks, and fruit-flavoured drinks containing less than 25% natural juice.⁴ That sweeps in virtually all soft drinks, flavoured sparkling water, and most juice-like drinks in the refrigerated aisle.

Unflavoured milk is the one beverage that’s always zero-rated, no matter how it’s packaged.² Every other drinkable product — flavoured water, juice above 25% natural content, iced tea — falls under the single-serving rule. These are taxable in single-serving containers, but zero-rated when sold in manufacturer-packaged multi-packs or in containers larger than a single serving.

Plant-Based Milks

Oat, almond, soy, and rice milk are not considered “milk” for GST/HST purposes.² They’re treated as ordinary beverages under the single-serving rule. A one-litre or two-litre carton is zero-rated because it exceeds a single serving. A small single-serve box is taxable.

Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts

Ice cream, frozen yogurt, sherbet, and frozen pudding are taxable when sold as single servings. The CRA defines a single serving as a package under 500 mL or under 500 grams.² A pint (typically 473 mL) sits just under the threshold and is taxable. A standard litre-plus tub is zero-rated. Cones, sundaes, and cups served at an ice cream shop are always taxable. The Nutrition Facts serving size doesn’t matter; only the container size does.

The Six-Item Rule for Sweet Baked Goods

Sweetened baked goods — muffins, donuts, cookies, tarts, brownies, pies, and croissants with sweetened filling or coating — sit between grocery staple and snack. The tax depends entirely on how many you buy in a single transaction.³

Buy fewer than six single-serving items and you pay the full 13%. Buy six or more and the whole purchase is zero-rated. The CRA treats the smaller purchase as a snack and the larger one as a grocery-scale purchase for home consumption.

You can mix items to hit the threshold. Two bagels, two muffins, and two donuts count as six single servings and qualify for zero-rating.² Pre-packaged boxes work the same way: a manufacturer’s box of six or more muffins is zero-rated, a four-pack is taxable. Plain, unsweetened bread items stay zero-rated regardless of quantity; the six-item rule matters only for the sweet ones.

Prepared Food and the $4 Rebate

Prepared food ready for immediate consumption — rotisserie chickens, hot pizzas, sandwiches assembled on-site, food-court meals — is normally taxable at 13%. Ontario softens this with a point-of-sale rebate that removes the 8% provincial portion of the HST when your qualifying prepared food and beverages total $4 or less before tax.⁵ When the rebate applies, you pay only the 5% federal portion.

The $4 threshold looks at the combined pre-tax price of all qualifying prepared items in a single transaction, not at each item.⁶ Buy a $2.50 coffee and a $2.00 muffin from the same café and the qualifying total is $4.50, so the rebate doesn’t apply and you pay 13% on both. Buy the coffee alone and you pay 5%. Non-qualifying items like bottled water or a bag of chips don’t count toward the $4 calculation, even if they’re on the same receipt.

Catering is a separate story. Hot meals, prepared platters, and beverages supplied through banquet or catering services carry the full 13% HST with no rebate, regardless of per-item pricing.⁷

Alcohol

Alcoholic beverages are excluded from zero-rating and carry the full 13% HST.³ Ontario stacks additional provincial liquor taxes on top under the Liquor Tax Act, with rates that vary by product type, producer size, and alcohol content.⁸ That layering is why beer, wine, and spirits always feel disproportionately expensive at checkout.

Vitamins, Supplements, and Baby Food

Vitamins and dietary supplements are generally taxable. The CRA treats products consumed for therapeutic or preventative effects, rather than for sustenance or enjoyment, as outside the zero-rated category.² Anything in pill, capsule, or tablet form is taxable. Protein powders can be zero-rated if they’re mixed with water or another liquid to make a beverage, provided the resulting drink isn’t itself in a taxable beverage category.

Baby food and infant formula get favourable treatment. Beverages and puddings prepared and pre-packaged for consumption by babies are zero-rated even where the same product for adults would be taxable.³ This covers jarred baby food, formula, and baby-specific snacks.

Quick-Reference Summary

0% (zero-rated): fresh produce, raw meat and fish, dairy, eggs, plain bread, flour, cereal, coffee beans, tea, cooking oils, spices, and baby food.
0% with conditions: sweet baked goods in quantities of six or more, ice cream and frozen desserts in containers of 500 mL or 500 g or larger, and plant-based milk in containers exceeding a single serving.
5% only (provincial rebate applies): prepared food and beverages totalling $4 or less before tax.
13% (full HST): candy, chips, granola bars, salted nuts, carbonated drinks, fruit drinks under 25% juice, sweet baked goods in quantities under six, single-serving ice cream, vitamins and supplements, and prepared food over $4.
13% plus provincial liquor tax: beer, wine, and spirits.

1
Canada Revenue Agency. GST/HST Calculator (and Rates)
2
Canada.ca. Basic Groceries
3
Department of Justice Canada. Excise Tax Act RSC 1985 c E-15 – Schedule VI, Part III
4
Canada Revenue Agency. Beverages
5
Government of Ontario. HST: Ontario Point-of-Sale Rebates
6
Canada Revenue Agency. Harmonized Sales Tax for Ontario – Point-of-Sale Rebate on Prepared Food and Beverages
7
Canada Revenue Agency. GST/HST Information for the Travel and Convention Industry
8
Government of Ontario. Notice to Ontario Alcohol Manufacturers: April 1, 2026 Tax Changes