Richmond Hill Property Tax Due Dates and Deadlines

Richmond Hill property tax due dates fall four times a year, split across two bills. For 2026, residential owners owe interim instalments in March and May, then final instalments on Tuesday, August 4, and Thursday, October 1.¹ Miss any of them and a 1.25 percent penalty lands on your balance the very next day.²

Why There Are Two Bills and Four Dates

Richmond Hill collects property taxes in two rounds each year. The interim bill goes out in January and covers roughly the first half of what you’ll owe, calculated at 50 percent of the previous year’s annualized taxes. It keeps revenue moving while Council finalizes the current year’s budget and rates.³

Once Council sets the new rates, the final bill goes out. Residential owners get theirs in June; commercial and industrial owners get theirs in August.² Whatever you paid on the interim bill is credited on the final one, so the final instalments cover only the remaining balance.

Each bill is payable in two instalments. That’s how you end up with four dates on the calendar.

The 2026 Due Dates

For residential properties in 2026:

Interim bill: two instalments due in March and May. The city posts the exact calendar dates on its Dates and Deadlines page once confirmed.³
Final bill: Tuesday, August 4, 2026, and Thursday, October 1, 2026.¹

Non-residential owners follow a different final-bill schedule, with instalments due in October and November.² If you own a commercial or industrial property, check the city page for the specific dates rather than assuming the residential timeline applies.

What a Missed Date Actually Costs

Richmond Hill charges the maximum penalty and interest allowed under Ontario’s Municipal Act. Miss an instalment and 1.25 percent of the outstanding amount is added the next day. Then 1.25 percent interest accrues on the first of every following month the balance remains unpaid.² Those caps come from Section 345 of the Municipal Act, 2001.⁴

A $5,000 missed instalment picks up $62.50 in penalty on day one and another $62.50 in interest at the start of the next month. Left unpaid for a full year, combined charges run to roughly 16 percent of the original balance. Any payment you make afterward is applied first to the oldest arrears and accrued charges, so a partial payment won’t reduce your current-period amount until the older debt is cleared.

One thing that doesn’t excuse a late payment: a bill that arrived late or never arrived. The due date stands regardless.

Ways to Pay Before the Deadline

Richmond Hill accepts payment through several channels.⁵ Each takes a different amount of time to reach the city, so working backward from the due date matters.

Online or telephone banking through your financial institution. Add Richmond Hill property tax as a payee and use your 20-digit property tax roll number from the bill. Allow a few business days for the payment to arrive.
Credit card through Paymentus (Visa or Mastercard). Paymentus charges a 2.25 percent service fee per transaction, up to a maximum payment of $10,000. The fee is on you, not the city.
In person at Access Richmond Hill, 225 East Beaver Creek Road, ground floor. The cashier counter takes cash, cheques, money orders, and debit. Credit cards go through self-serve kiosks on site.
By mail, with a cheque payable to City of Richmond Hill and your payment stub, sent to the Tax Payments Processing Centre, P.O. Box 1997, Station B, Toronto, ON M5T 3G7. Post-dated cheques for future instalment dates are accepted.
The 24-hour drop-box at 225 East Beaver Creek Road, which accepts cheques outside business hours. Attach the payment stub inside the envelope.

The 20-digit roll number matters. Enter it wrong and the payment can land on someone else’s account while yours accrues penalty.⁵

The city also launched a Property Tax Customer Portal at PropertyTax.RichmondHill.ca in January 2026. It gives you round-the-clock access to view bills, check your balance, pay online, and switch to paperless e-billing.⁶ Setting it up removes the risk of a lost or delayed paper bill.

Skip the Dates Altogether: Pre-Authorized Debit

If tracking four dates a year feels like an unnecessary risk, Richmond Hill offers two pre-authorized debit plans that pull funds directly from your bank account.⁵

The ten-month plan withdraws on the first business day of each month, spreading the year’s total into smaller, predictable amounts.
The due-date plan withdraws only on the four regular instalment dates, matching the manual-payment schedule.

Either plan takes the missed-deadline penalty off the table. The ten-month version also flattens the two larger final-bill instalments into smaller monthly pulls, which helps with budgeting.

If Your Mortgage Lender Pays the Taxes

Many homeowners with a mortgage have their property taxes paid through the lender. The lender collects a portion of the estimated annual tax with each mortgage payment and remits it to the city when instalments come due. In that arrangement, the tax bill usually goes to the mortgage servicer rather than to you.

You might still get a bill in the mail, especially after a mortgage transfer or a clerical mix-up. Receiving a bill doesn’t automatically mean it’s unpaid. Contact your mortgage company to confirm the payment was made, and follow up with the city if anything looks wrong. The penalty starts running whether or not your lender made the mistake.

What Long-Term Non-Payment Leads To

A single missed instalment triggers penalty and interest. Years of unpaid taxes lead somewhere worse: a tax sale. Under Ontario law, a municipality can register a tax arrears certificate against a property once taxes are sufficiently overdue. After registration, you have either one year or 90 days, depending on the property’s circumstances, to pay the full cancellation price before the municipality can sell the property at public auction or tender.⁷

Before a sale proceeds, the property must be advertised once in The Ontario Gazette and once a week for four weeks in a local newspaper. You can stop the process at any point in the redemption window by paying everything owed, including accumulated taxes, penalties, interest, and administrative costs. Once the sale closes, though, recovering the property is essentially off the table. This isn’t where a homeowner ends up for missing one instalment, but it is the final destination for accounts left unpaid year after year.

1
City of Richmond Hill. Dates and Deadlines
2
City of Richmond Hill. About Your Tax Bill
3
City of Richmond Hill. Property Tax Billings
4
Ontario.ca. Municipal Act, 2001, S.O. 2001, c. 25
5
City of Richmond Hill. Payment Options
6
City of Richmond Hill. Richmond Hill Launches Property Tax Customer Portal
7
Ontario.ca. O. Reg. 181/03 – Municipal Tax Sales Rules