More Ontarians fell behind on their mortgage payments at the start of 2026 than the same time last year, according to new data from consumer credit reporting agency Equifax Canada, out Tuesday.
The balance delinquency rate (the total balance of all mortgages with a missed payment for 90 days or more as a percentage of the total open mortgage balance) jumped 52 per cent in Ontario, from 0.24 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 to 0.36 per cent in the first quarter of 2026.
In comparison, the balance delinquency rate jumped 32 per cent nationally over that same period, and was up 36 per cent in B.C.
Rebecca Oakes, vice-president of advanced analytics at Equifax Canada, said this is a reflection of “high value mortgages” (large loans) in “hot housing market regions, or historically hot housing markets,” such as the Toronto region.
“As they’re coming up for renewal, interest rates are much higher than they once were,” Oakes said. The U.S. trade tariffs have “impacted some provinces more than others,” she added, and unemployment had also gone up in Ontario over the past 12 to 18 months.
“A combination of affordability and high interest rates is really impacting those homeowners.”
The volume mortgage delinquency rate (the total number of mortgages with missed payments for 90 days or more as a percentage of the total volume of open mortgages) jumped almost 38 per cent in Ontario from 0.19 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 to 0.26 per cent in the first quarter of 2026.
Brampton had the biggest increases for both the volume (up 63 per cent) and balance (up 64 per cent) measures of mortgage delinquencies in the Toronto region. In the city of Toronto, volume jumped 43 per cent and balance rose 58 per cent.
Severely delinquent mortgage numbers typically are quite small because people protect their homes as much as possible, Oakes said.
But housing prices in areas like the Toronto region have dropped, just as some people are struggling to keep up with bigger monthly payments at higher interest rates.
“It’s not as easy to sell a home, it’s a bit of a buyer’s market at the moment, ” she said.
Since the peak of the market in February 2022, the average sales price in the Greater Toronto Area has dropped by about 21 per cent, with the decrease deeper in some communities, according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board.
Last year saw a wave of mortgage renewals from buyers who locked in at ultra low rates during the pandemic.
But Oakes added she believes some consumers signed up for shorter-term mortgages (a two- or three-year mortgage, for example, instead of five years) in the hopes that interest rates will go down, and those mortgages will be coming up for renewal soon.
“I think the reality is that for many consumers we’re probably going to see there’s still a bit of a payment shock that may still be happening over the next 12 months.”
Insolvency volumes, which include bankruptcy and consumer proposals (a legally binding process to pay down debts that doesn’t include mortgages), have climbed 18.8 per cent nationally, year-over-year, to a high not seen since 2009, the report showed.
But it also found a “consumer fallback in terms of less new credit,” Oakes said. Nonmortgage debt fell by $487 million, year over year, following the holidays.
Oakes said this can have a “knock on” impact on things like businesses and employment levels long term, and is something to “keep an eye on.”
