Nova Scotia cuts its HST rate from 15% to 14% from 1 April 2025

What changed in detail

SOR/2025-77, the Regulations Amending Various GST/HST Regulations, No. 14 (Nova Scotia), was registered on 6 March 2025. It was published in the Canada Gazette, Part II, Vol. 159, No. 7, on 26 March 2025.

It adds a new section 33.6 to the New Harmonized Value-added Tax System Regulations:

• s. 33.6(1) prescribes 9% as the tax rate for Nova Scotia. This is the provincial part of the HST, defined in subsection 123(1) of the Excise Tax Act;
• s. 33.6(2) sets the same 9% for the Nova Scotia offshore area.

The provincial part was previously 10%. With the 5% federal GST, the combined HST in Nova Scotia falls from 15% to 14%.

The new rate applies to supplies made after March 2025, so from 1 April 2025. The same instrument sets transitional rules that keep the 10% rate for some transactions straddling that date.

What it means

The 14% rate is still in force. The consolidated New Harmonized Value-added Tax System Regulations, current to 19 October 2026, still read “the prescribed rate for Nova Scotia is 9%” in s. 33.6(1). No later amendment has changed it.

For anyone invoicing into Nova Scotia, the practical points are now about history. Systems should show 15% for supplies made before 1 April 2025 and 14% after. Credit notes and adjustments that relate to pre-April 2025 supplies follow the transitional rules, not the current rate.