Saskatchewan Budget 2025

On March 19, 2025, Deputy Premier and Minister of Finance Jim Reiter presented Saskatchewan’s 2025–26 budget. Titled “Delivering for You” and projecting a surplus of approximately $12 million—in stark contrast to last year’s deficit of $273 million—this year’s budget touts an income tax reduction for every resident of the province, as well as significant investments to improve healthcare, education, affordability, and community safety.

The budget includes numerous increases to personal income tax credits and exemption amounts, as well as several tax measures of interest to businesses, which are summarized below.

Commodity Tax Measures

PST Rebate on New Home Construction 

To improve housing affordability and encourage new home construction, a provincial sales tax (PST) rebate on new home construction was introduced by the province in 2020 and expanded in 2023. This year’s budget confirms that this rebate is now a permanent program, retroactive to April 1, 2023.

Under the program, a rebate to a maximum of 42% of the PST paid is available on the purchase of a newly constructed, previously unoccupied home with a total price below $550,000 before taxes and excluding the value of land, furniture, furnishings, and appliances. Note that the rebate amount is phased out for homes with a total price between $450,000 and $550,000. 

PST on Vapour Products 

Effective June 1, 2025, vapour liquids, products, and devices will be subject to PST. This change is designed to further discourage the use of vapour products and treat these items in a manner similar to tobacco products. 

Elimination of Lloydminster VPT Exemption

Retail sales of vapour products within the city of Lloydminster are currently exempt from Saskatchewan’s vapour products tax (VPT). This exemption is no longer required as Alberta, the other province in which Lloydminster is located, has agreed to join the federal Coordinated Vaping Products Taxation Agreement. Accordingly, the province has announced that the VPT exemption for Lloydminster will be repealed, effective June 1, 2025.

Tax on Electric Vehicles 

Owners of electric passenger vehicles are charged an annual road use charge when registering their vehicles in Saskatchewan. The province has announced that, effective June 1, 2025, the road use charge will be increased from $150 to $300. Ostensibly, this charge is intended to ensure that electric vehicle owners contribute a fair share to the cost of provincial road maintenance, which has traditionally been financed through the province’s fuel tax.

Corporate Tax Measures

Extension of Small Business Tax Rate 

In this year’s budget, the province announced that it will maintain its small business tax rate at 1% for eligible business income up to $600,000, extending this preferential rate for a second year.

New and Enhanced Tax Credits

The government also announced the introduction, extension, and enhancement of a few corporate tax credits, including proposed measures to:

• Create a nonrefundable Small and Medium Enterprise Investment Tax Credit, effective July 1, 2025, equal to 45% of an eligible equity investment by a qualifying individual or corporation, subject to an overall annual cap and certain other conditions.
• Further extend the application period for the Saskatchewan Commercial Innovation Incentive tax rate reduction to June 30, 2027, and reduce or eliminate certain threshold requirements for that incentive.
• Launch a Low Productivity and Reactivation Oil Well Program, which will provide a crown royalty and freehold production tax incentive to low-producing and inactive oil wells meeting certain criteria between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2029.
• Extend the Oil Infrastructure Investment Program, which offers transferable crown royalty and freehold production tax credits, by four years, allowing new applications until March 31, 2029, and delaying the final date for royalty credit claims until 2040.

Further details on the new, extended, and enhanced tax credits are expected to be released by the province in the coming weeks.  

Property Tax Measure

Education Property Tax Rate Reduction 

With 2025 being the first year in a new four-year assessment cycle and a general property reassessment underway in Saskatchewan, the province announced that it will decrease all education property tax mill rates, effective January 1, 2025, to offset expected increases in property assessment values and keep total education property tax revenue derived from existing properties consistent with the prior year. 

As a result, the education property tax mill rates by property class for 2025 will be:

• 1.07 (down from 1.42) for agriculture
• 4.27 (down from 4.54) for residential
• 6.37 (down from 6.86) for commercial and industrial
• 7.49 (down from 9.88) for resource

Potential Impact of Tariffs

No contingency funds have been set aside in the budget for the potential impact of current and looming U.S. tariffs. However, the government acknowledged that the tariff situation remains fluid and noted that the potential economic impact has been analyzed based on the information available at the time and consultation with industry. For now, it appears that the province plans to mitigate any risks posed by U.S. tariffs through export diversification and import substitutions from other countries. 

More Information

Further information on Saskatchewan's 2025 budget may be found on the province’s website.

To read key updates from all of Canada’s latest provincial budgets, please visit our Key Changes | 2025 Canadian Federal and Provincial Budgets page.

If you have any questions about how changes proposed in recent Canadian budgets might impact your organization, please do not hesitate to contact the Ryan TaxDirect^® line at 1.800.667.1600 or taxdirect@ryan.com.