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Kitchen Renovation Cost Calculator (Ontario, 2026)
Kitchens & BathroomsFree Calculator
What Should the Whole Kitchen Renovation Cost? Every Trade, With HST, Before Anyone Quotes You.
Cabinets, counters, backsplash, floors, electrical, plumbing, walls, demolition, appliances, permits and the contingency you will need. No email address required.
A kitchen renovation is eight trades and a cabinet shop, in an order, in a room you cannot cook in. The cabinet quote is a third of it. This prices the other two-thirds line by line, lets you choose whether a contractor runs it or you do, and writes a scope you can hand to three of them.
Step-by-step
Kitchen Renovation Cost Calculator (Ontario)
1
The room and the cabinets
Length times width of the room. A 12 by 13 kitchen is about 155.
Base cabinets along the walls. Uppers are assumed at 80% of this.
0 if none.
New-cabinet rates are the same ones in the cabinet calculator, installed with trim, drawer-heavy base run.
2
Surfaces
Area from the cabinet runs: 2.1 sq ft per foot of base, 3.5 per foot of island.
Area: 1.5 ft high along the wall run.
Whole room. Old floor removal is in demolition.
3
Trades behind the walls
4
Demolition, finishing and appliances
5
Who runs it
6
Where is the kitchen?
Used only to tell you whether this is in our direct service area or a region where we would introduce one vetted contractor.
Enter a postal code to see service coverage.
BuildersOntario.com
Your Kitchen Renovation Budget
Illustrative Ontario estimate
| Item | Estimate |
|---|
Estimated total with HST$0
Example only, using BuildersOntario budgeting rates checked October 2026. Permit fees are included at a typical municipal amount when plumbing, electrical or walls change; your municipality sets its own. Excludes furniture, window coverings, structural surprises, and anything in the rest of the house. A contractor’s written quotation on a signed drawing is the only binding number.
Request a Real Quotation
Your estimate becomes a written scope a contractor can price without rewriting it. Fill in the rest and press Send. Your email program opens with everything filled in; attach photos of the kitchen and a sketch or plan with the measurements before you send it.
What this calculator does, and what it will not do!
It builds a full renovation budget the way a contractor builds one: every trade on its own line, the cabinets and counters priced from the same rates as the other calculators on this site, a permit where one is needed, a coordination fee if somebody else is running it, and a contingency because you will need one. Then HST on the lot, which on a $55,000 kitchen is $7,150 and surprises people every single time.
It does not know your 1962 wall has knob-and-tube in it, that the joist under the island runs the wrong way, or that the floor is three-quarters of an inch out across the room. A contractor finds those in the first week and the contingency is for them. The point is that when the surprise comes, you already know what the rest of the job should cost, so you can tell a real extra from an invented one.
A rule of thumb: in Ontario in 2026, a same-layout kitchen renovation with new mid-grade cabinets, quartz, tile backsplash, new flooring, updated electrical, mid-range appliances and a contractor running it lands at $55,000 to $70,000 with HST. Take out the appliances and the flooring and it is $40,000. Move the sink and take down a wall and it is $80,000. The cabinets are about a third of whichever number you land on.
How I price it
Installed, before HST, Ontario, checked October 2026.
| Line | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinets, sprayed in place | $140 per ft of run | Base and uppers, doors off, booth-sprayed doors, boxes done on site. Not a DIY roller job. |
| Cabinets, refaced | $260 per ft of run | New doors, drawer fronts and veneer on the old boxes. Only worth it on plywood boxes. |
| Cabinets, new | $230 to $900 per ft base | Same grades and rates as the cabinet cost guide, with uppers, trim and a drawer-heavy base run. |
| Countertop | $45 to $150 per sq ft | Same rates as the countertop guide, plus a sink cutout. |
| Backsplash | $22 to $105 per sq ft | Tile installed with grout and edge trim; slab at the counter rate. |
| Flooring | $8 to $18 per sq ft | Installed over a prepared subfloor. Levelling compound is a surprise line. |
| Electrical | $1,800 to $4,500 | Licensed, with the ESA permit and inspection. Kitchens need dedicated circuits for fridge, dishwasher, microwave, and split counter receptacles. |
| Plumbing | $800 to $4,500 | Same spot is a reconnect. A new sink location is a drain, a vent and usually a permit. |
| Walls | $1,500 to $9,000 | Load-bearing means an engineer’s letter, a beam, posts to the foundation, and a permit. Non-load-bearing is a day and some drywall. |
| Demolition and disposal | $1,200 to $3,200 | Two people, a bin, a dump run, and whatever is behind the old cabinets. |
| Drywall and paint | $900 to $3,500 | Every kitchen needs some. Gutted ones need a lot. |
| Permit | $500 | Typical municipal building permit for a kitchen with plumbing, electrical or structural changes. Not needed for a same-layout cabinet swap. |
| Contractor coordination | 18% of trades | Overhead and profit on the trade work and finishing. Not applied to cabinets, counters or appliances, which most contractors pass through at a smaller margin already in the rates. |
| Contingency | 10% | Spent on average. On pre-1980 houses, budget 15. |
Where homeowners go wrong
- Budgeting the cabinets and calling it the kitchen. Cabinets are a third. Counters, backsplash and floors are another quarter. Trades, demolition, finishing and the contractor are the rest, and HST sits on top of all of it.
- Moving the sink because the drawing looked nicer. A sink that stays is $800 of plumbing. A sink that moves to the island is $4,500, a permit, a vent through a wall, and often a floor opened up. Same-layout is the cheapest kitchen there is.
- Skipping the contingency. Ten percent is what gets spent. Zero percent is what gets borrowed.
- Comparing a contractor’s price to the sum of your own trade quotes. Yours is missing the person who schedules eight trades in the right order, answers their questions, and eats the cost when the tile guy shows up before the electrician. That person costs 18% and earns it.
- Buying appliances last. The fridge opening, the range width, the hood duct and the dishwasher height are all set by the cabinet drawing. Pick appliances before the final measure or budget a change order.
- Forgetting you have to eat. Six to ten weeks without a kitchen. Takeout, a camp stove in the basement, or a month at a relative’s. It is a real line in the real budget.
What a contractor needs from you
The quotation request above hands them a written scope: the room size, cabinet run and grade, countertop, backsplash, flooring, what the electrical, plumbing and walls have to do, demolition level, finishing level, appliance budget, who is running it, your postal code, your timing, and the age of the house. With photos and a sketch, a good contractor can give you a real budget range within a week and a firm quote after a site visit, and you can compare three of them to the same question using the quote comparison guide.
If you are in Simcoe County, Muskoka or the Georgian Bay area, the request comes to us. Everywhere else in Ontario, with your permission, we pass it to one contractor we have checked out, never a list of five. The order the work happens in, and what goes wrong when it does not, is in the order of work guide; the budget tiers and a worked example are in the renovation cost guide.
Questions people ask
How much does a kitchen renovation cost in Ontario in 2026?
Same layout, new mid-grade cabinets, quartz, tile, new floor, updated electrical, mid-range appliances, contractor-run: $55,000 to $70,000 with HST. A refresh with painted cabinets and new counters: $18,000 to $28,000. A full gut with the sink moved and a wall out: $75,000 to $100,000. Luxury starts past that and does not stop.
Do I need a permit to renovate a kitchen?
Not for swapping cabinets, counters and floors in the same spots. Yes for moving plumbing, removing or adding a wall, changing structure, and often for adding electrical circuits, which goes through the Electrical Safety Authority rather than the municipality. Your building department answers the phone and will tell you in two minutes.
Should I hire a contractor or manage the trades myself?
If you have renovated before, have time during the day, and the job is same-layout, managing it yourself saves the 18% and costs you three weeks of your life. If plumbing or walls move, or you work during the day, hire the contractor. The order of work is where self-managed kitchens go wrong, and a wrong order costs more than the fee.
How long does a kitchen renovation take?
Same layout, contractor-run: six to eight weeks from demolition to finished, with the cabinets ordered six to ten weeks before that. Layout changes with walls and plumbing: ten to fourteen weeks. Self-managed: add a third, because trades do not wait for each other when nobody is holding the schedule.
What share of the budget should cabinets be?
Thirty to thirty-five percent of a full renovation. If cabinets are over half the budget, the rest of the job is underfunded or you are not renovating, you are replacing cabinets, which is fine and a different calculator.
Is the estimate an offer or a price?
Neither. It is a budgeting allowance so you walk into the conversation informed. Only a contractor’s written quotation on a signed drawing is a price.
Before you sign anything
Three contractor quotes on one written scope. A drawing you have signed. A payment schedule tied to stages, not dates. Ten percent held back until it is done. And a plan for dinner.
