Red Deer property owners will see an increase in their tax bills this year after city council unanimously approved the 2026 tax rate bylaw on April 14, 2026.
Under the new rates, residential and non-residential property owners will face a 5.49 per cent increase, while multi-family property owners will see a 10.79 per cent hike. For a home with an assessed value of $100,000, this change means an extra $50.60 per year, or approximately $4.21 per month.
The total tax bill is made up of two distinct parts. About 75 per cent goes toward municipal services, while the remaining 25 per cent is collected on behalf of the Alberta government for provincial education taxes. While the municipal portion of the tax increase was limited to 3.97 per cent, the overall impact on residents was driven higher by a 12.83 per cent spike in the provincial education requisition. This equates to $56.4 million that the city must collect for the province, an increase of $6.4 million from last year.
During budget deliberations, Mayor Cindy Jefferies and council worked to lower the municipal portion of the tax increase from an initially proposed 7.36 per cent to the final 3.97 per cent. Despite these efforts to manage costs, some members of council have raised concerns about the impact of the final total increases on residents. Councillor Bruce Buruma noted that the new tax rates are a concern for Red Deerians.
The city, which operates under a $482.6 million operating budget and a $63.9 million capital budget for 2026, expects to collect $186.4 million in total property taxes this year. The rise in provincial education costs is a province-wide trend, with the total provincial education requisition reaching $3.6 billion for the 2026-27 period, marking a 40 per cent increase over the last five years.
