What a New Roof Costs in Canada, Province by Province

Labour is the reason the provinces disagree

The Government of Canada publishes roofer wages by province through Job Bank, under NOC 73110 “Roofers and shinglers”. Nationally the occupation runs C$22.00 to C$44.24 an hour with a median of C$30.97 — but the national figure hides the only thing that matters, which is that the provincial medians run from C$25.00 in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to C$37.60 in Quebec. That is a 50% spread on the labour half of the job, and it is the single clearest reason a “Canadian average roof price” is wrong nearly everywhere someone quotes one.

Roofing labour and installed price, by province

Wages: Job Bank, Government of Canada, NOC 73110, wages updated 2025-11-19 (Employment Insurance Survey data, reference period 2023–2024). Installed bands and project ranges: Homeowner.ca province-by-province breakdown, updated 2026-03-15. Homeowner.ca publishes Atlantic Canada as a single region rather than four provinces, so New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador share an installed band — their Job Bank wage bands are published separately and do differ. All figures Canadian dollars, before GST/HST/PST.

The line item American roofing calculators do not have

Snow melts against a warm roof deck, runs down to the cold overhang and refreezes there. The ridge of ice that builds up dams the meltwater behind it, and the water backs up under the shingles — which shed water but do not seal against it. That is an ice dam, and it is why Canadian code makes eave protection mandatory rather than optional.

Article 9.26.5.1 of the Ontario Building Code, adopting Subsection 9.26.5 of the National Building Code, requires a self-adhered membrane on shingle, shake and tile roofs — the article names those three and no others — from the roof edge a minimum of 900 mm up the slope, to a line not less than 300 mm inside the inner face of the exterior wall. The second test is the one people miss: on a house with a deep overhang the 900 mm minimum is not enough, because the membrane has to reach past the wall line to where the deck is actually warm. The calculator above gives you the square footage either way.

The code lists its own exemptions:

• Over unheated garages, carports and porches
• Where the roof overhang exceeds 900 mm measured along the roof slope from the edge of the roof to the inner face of the exterior wall
• On roofs of asphalt shingles installed in accordance with Subsection 9.26.8 — that subsection is "Asphalt Shingles on Slopes of Less than 1 in 3", so a low-slope asphalt roof detailed to it is exempt
• On roofs with slopes of 1 in 1.5 or greater
• In regions with 3 500 or fewer degree-days — in practice only the mildest coastal British Columbia locations

The slope exemption is the one that catches people out: 1 in 1.5 is 8 in 12, so a standard 6:12 roof is inside the requirement and an 8:12 roof is already outside it. The degree-day exemption is worth reading twice too, because it is the only one that turns on climate rather than construction — and in practice it reaches only the mildest coastal British Columbia locations.

There is a second slope exemption at the other end of the roof, and it is easy to miss because it does not read like one. The article also releases roofs of asphalt shingles installed in accordance with Subsection 9.26.8, and Subsection 9.26.8 is “Asphalt Shingles on Slopes of Less than 1 in 3” — 1 in 3 being 4 in 12. So an asphalt roof shallower than 4:12 is exempt too, because the low-slope detail in that subsection waterproofs the whole deck rather than only the eave. That is not a cheaper roof; it is a different and more demanding assembly, and your roofer prices it as part of a low-slope shingle job. Note the boundary: “less than 1 in 3” excludes 4:12 itself, so a 4:12 asphalt roof still needs eave protection.

So on a shingle roof between 1 in 3 and 1 in 1.5 anywhere in populated Canada outside those mild coastal locations, the membrane is required. The calculator above applies all three tests — the material scope, the 1-in-1.5 slope exemption, and the low-slope asphalt exemption — rather than asserting the article over a roof it never covered. On a house with heavy snow load or a history of ice dams, Canadian roofers commonly extend it to six feet; the calculator quantifies that extension separately and does not price it, because no Canadian publication gives a per-square-foot installed rate for eave membrane that could be read to source.

Shedding snow or carrying it

This is the Canadian version of the material question, and it is not really about lifespan. Metal sheds snow, so the roof carries less accumulated load and the ice-dam mechanism largely does not get started. A flat membrane roof — the standard answer on a Montreal plex or on an addition — does the opposite: it holds the snow, and the load is carried by the structure below. Asphalt sits in between, which is why the eave detail matters most there.

Metal's shedding is also its own complication. A winter's accumulation can release in one go over a door, a walkway or a driveway, which is why snow retention at the eave is a standard separate line on a Canadian metal quote. Like the extended membrane, it is flagged rather than priced here — no Canadian source published an installed rate for it, and this calculator does not convert American figures to fill a gap.

What this calculator deliberately does not tell you

• Tax. Every figure is before GST, HST and PST. The Canada Revenue Agency's own rate page could not be read to source when this was built on 2026-08-31, and Nova Scotia's HST moved from 15% to 14% recently enough that a stale secondary figure would be wrong. Provincial sales tax on services to real property also behaves differently from PST on goods in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. An unverified rate on an invoice figure is worse than no rate.
• Cedar shake and slate. Neither Canadian source published an installed band for either that could be read, so they are named as absent rather than interpolated from the materials that are covered.
• The territories. Job Bank publishes no wage band for roofers (NOC 73110) in Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut, and the province-by-province source gives the territories no figure — only that costs run above the national ranges, which is not a number. Reusing a southern band there would be an invention, so the territories are not offered.
• A single number. Two Canadian sources price this market at genuinely different levels, and the calculator shows both spans rather than splitting the difference into an average neither publisher would stand behind.

Sources

• Roofer (NOC 73110) — wages by province — Job Bank, Government of Canada (ESDC). Read 2026-08-31.Wages updated 2025-11-19. Employment Insurance Survey data, reference period 2023–2024. No band published for YT, NT or NU.
• Roof Replacement Costs in Canada: A Province-by-Province Breakdown — Homeowner.ca. Read 2026-08-31.Published 2026-03-11, updated 2026-03-15. Asphalt shingle, CAD, per square foot of roof area. Atlantic Canada is published as one region, not four provinces.
• Roof Replacement Cost in Canada 2026: Prices per Sq Ft & Materials — RenoQuotes (Reno-Quotes Inc.). Read 2026-08-31.Updated 2026-04-13. National CAD bands by material; roof decking per sheet; roof vents per unit; the self-adhered eave membrane practice note.
• Ontario Building Code, Article 9.26.5.1 — Required Eave Protection — Ontario Building Code (adopting NBC Subsection 9.26.5). Read 2026-08-31.Eave protection on shingle, shake or tile roofs: from the roof edge a minimum 900 mm up the slope, to a line not less than 300 mm inside the inner face of the exterior wall. Exempt over unheated garages/carports/porches, where the overhang exceeds 900 mm along the slope, on slopes of 1 in 1.5 or greater, and in regions of 3,500 or fewer degree-days.

Next steps

Pricing the whole job rather than just the roof? The Canadian home renovation cost calculator covers kitchens, bathrooms and basements in CAD. If you are funding it from the house, the home equity calculator and the HELOC calculator show what is actually available to borrow against under Canadian lending limits. And since a re-roof is the moment insurers re-rate a house, the Canadian home insurance estimator is worth a look on the same day.