Taxes · Salt Spring Island
A Salt Spring home assessed at $1.1 million pays about $5,161 a year in property tax before the grant. Here is who gets that money, who decides how much and what the local election can and can’t change.
School tax, rural tax, police tax, BC Assessment and a small financing levy. Not set by this local ballot.
Local and regional services, plus the hospital district. Your CRD director sits on both boards; the LCC runs local services.
Salt Spring Fire Protection District. Its own elected trustees.
Land-use planning. Your two local trustees.
01 / The election
In the general local election, held every four years and most recently on October 17, 2026, you elect one CRD director, four Local Community Commissioners and two Islands Trust trustees. You also elect three school trustees, but the Province sets the school tax. The CRD, LCC and Trust seats have a say over about $2,110 of this $5,161 bill. The rest is set by the Fire District’s own trustees or by the Province.
The CRD line ($1,373) plus the hospital district line ($135). The director is Salt Spring’s representative on the CRD Board in Victoria and sits on the Local Community Commission with four elected commissioners. The LCC runs the local services: parks and recreation, the pool, the library, transit, liquid waste.
Land use, zoning and planning. Trust Council sets this budget. It is separate from the CRD.
The Salt Spring Fire Protection District sets its own budget and elects its trustees at its own meetings, not on the local ballot.
School tax, rural area tax, police tax, BC Assessment and a small financing levy. These rates are not set by the offices on this local ballot.
The director represents Salt Spring at the CRD Board and serves on the LCC alongside four commissioners. The LCC recommends its service budgets; the Board adopts the financial plan. Board votes may be weighted, unweighted or restricted to the areas that pay for a service, so it is not simply “one vote out of 24” on every decision.
CRD voting rules · LCC responsibilities · Who governs Salt Spring, on one page
02 / Your notice
The nine charges on a 2026 rural tax notice, for a home assessed at $1,100,000, the island average. Each line shows who sets it and the arithmetic.
Pays for CRD services on Salt Spring and the CRD’s regional services.
Parks and recreation, the library, transit, liquid waste, emergency programs, plus regional parks, regional transportation and CRD administration. The LCC recommends the local budgets; the CRD Board adopts them. Source ↗
Rate 1.24793 per $1,000 · $1,100,000 ÷ 1,000 × 1.24793 = $1,372.72
Set in Victoria.
The Province sets this rate. Local school trustees do not set the school tax on this notice. Source ↗
Rate 1.24370 per $1,000 · $1,100,000 ÷ 1,000 × 1.24370 = $1,368.07
The Fire District sets its own budget.
An improvement district with its own trustees. The Province collects this tax with your notice. It is not part of the CRD budget. Source ↗
Rate 1.01567 per $1,000 · $1,100,000 ÷ 1,000 × 1.01567 = $1,117.24
Pays for land-use planning and bylaw work.
Trust Council adopts the budget; the Province collects the levy. Source ↗
Rate 0.54889 per $1,000 · $1,100,000 ÷ 1,000 × 0.54889 = $603.78
What rural properties pay the Province instead of a municipal general tax.
A provincial levy for properties outside municipalities. Separate from the CRD. Source ↗
Rate 0.38610 per $1,000 · $1,100,000 ÷ 1,000 × 0.38610 = $424.71
Pays for hospital buildings and equipment, not day-to-day hospital operations.
The CRD directors also sit as the hospital district board. Source ↗
Rate 0.12247 per $1,000 · $1,100,000 ÷ 1,000 × 0.12247 = $134.72
Salt Spring’s share of provincial policing.
The Province sets it. The CRD does not set the provincial police tax rate. Source ↗
Rate 0.08850 per $1,000 · $1,100,000 ÷ 1,000 × 0.08850 = $97.35
Pays for the agency that values your property.
Listed separately from the taxes that fund services. Source ↗
Rate 0.03810 per $1,000 · $1,100,000 ÷ 1,000 × 0.03810 = $41.91
A tiny statutory levy that backs local-government borrowing.
Not set by anyone on Salt Spring. Source ↗
Rate 0.00020 per $1,000 · $1,100,000 ÷ 1,000 × 0.00020 = $0.22
Calculated from BC’s 2026 rural rate table, Gulf Islands Rural, residential class. Each line rounded to cents.
The grant comes off this total. You apply every year. It is not automatic.
Homes assessed above $2,075,000 get a smaller grant.
It assumes the same taxable value for all nine charges and no exemptions. It excludes water and sewer parcel taxes, user fees, specified-area taxes, penalties and other property-specific charges, so it is not the whole cost for every property. Your bill also depends on your property class and which service boundaries you fall inside.
The grant threshold is $2,075,000 in 2026. Above it, the grant shrinks by $5 for every $1,000 of assessed value, and the regular grant cannot reduce the tax below $350 (the additional grant, below $100). The additional grant covers eligible seniors aged 65 and over and certain other owners. Salt Spring is in the CRD, so the higher northern-and-rural grant amounts do not apply.
03 / This year
Your own bill will not move by those exact percentages. Each body decides how much money it needs in total, and then a rate is set to raise that amount across the whole island. What moves your bill is how your assessment changed compared with everyone else’s, which service areas you are in and whether you claim the grant.
The requisition is the total a body collects from the island. The rate is that total spread over all taxable value, in dollars per $1,000. Your bill is the rate times your own assessment. A requisition can rise 8.7% while one home’s bill rises 3% and another’s 14%, depending on whose assessment moved most.
04 / The island total
The CRD collects $10,168,218 from Salt Spring properties in 2026. About half of it runs through the Local Community Commission.
Dollars are approximate: the CRD publishes rounded shares, so each amount is the share × $5,337,208, rounded to the nearest $1,000. Other local services include economic development, grants in aid, street lighting, arts and search-and-rescue.
CRD’s 2026 tax insert (PDF). Shares here are calculated to one decimal; the insert uses whole percentages. Hospital and water-and-sewer requisitions are included in the $10.17 million.
05 / Other charges
The nine-charge estimate above leaves out property-specific water, sewer and street-lighting charges. The island-wide CRD total in section 04 does include water-and-sewer service-area levies. What you actually pay depends on which systems serve your property, their parcel taxes and their user charges. North Salt Spring Waterworks sends its own bill from its own elected board. The CRD’s water and sewer areas (Fernwood/Highland, Maliview, Cedar Lane, Fulford, Beddis, Ganges sewer and others) charge only the properties inside them, on the tax notice or a separate utility bill.
NSSWD is an independent improvement district with its own trustees. Its parcel taxes and water charges are outside the CRD and LCC totals on this page. For 2026 the bylaw lists a base parcel tax of $695.33 (non-metered) or $785.85 (metered) for a residential parcel up to one acre. NSSWD’s August 27, 2026 board package puts the Maxwell capital surcharge at $350 for 2026, up $50 instead of $100 because of the federal grant. The 2027 figures there are a preliminary budget, not adopted rates. Check your own account.
NSSWD board package, Aug 27, 2026 (PDF) · Current billing guidance · Bylaw 325 (PDF)
The 2026 budget reports give Fernwood/Highland a parcel tax of $305.10 and a fixed user charge of $1,438.22 per single-family equivalent; Maliview lists $677.63 and $2,418.70. Consumption charges are extra. Ganges sewer and Maliview sewer also carry small rate-based levies (about $12.87 and $12.00 on a $1.1 million home), and street lighting about $5.75 where it applies. Use the adopted rate notice and your account class for an actual bill.
Fernwood/Highland budget report · Maliview budget report · Rate-based levies
An improvement district with its own elected trustees, not a CRD service. Its property tax is collected by the Province within the district. On a $1.1 million home the 2026 rate of 1.01567 produces $1,117.24.
Trust Council’s 2026/27 spending budget is $11.8 million. The levy on local trust areas is up 8.1% on the existing tax base, with 0.8% more expected from new development. The Trust puts the average across all its islands at $465 to $470. On Salt Spring’s average $1.1 million home, the levy is $603.78.
06 / Check the detail
Residential rows for Gulf Islands Rural, jurisdiction 764. Full-precision rates, not rounded inputs.
Collection, local service boundaries and property-specific taxes.
Island requisition totals, 2025 comparator and LCC service shares.
Weighted, unweighted and service-participant voting.
Delegated services and links to the governing bylaws.
Grant amounts and the $2.075 million threshold.
Principal-residence and other eligibility requirements; reduced grants.
Budget, residential averages and separate Bowen Island treatment.
The Fire District sets its own requisition, separate from the CRD.
2026 surcharge staging differs from the original Bylaw 325 schedule.
Original residential parcel-tax schedule and $400 surtax. Read with the current billing guidance.
Proposed parcel tax and fixed user charge; consumption is additional.
Proposed parcel tax and fixed user charge; consumption is additional.
August 13, 2026 budget review, Service 3.705: $800,250 budget and $780,000 estimated actual. Not final spending.
Staff report describes septage and plant sludge, off-island processing and dewatering considerations.
Spotted an error? Email vote@jessejule.ca. This is independent research, not an official tax notice. For the wider governance picture, see Who does what.