The Canadian Home Improvement Market in 2026

The Canadian Home Builders’ Association launched a Renovation Market Index in 2026 — a sentiment gauge running 0 to 100, where 50 is neutral, drawn from a panel of renovation-focused member businesses.

The Spring 2026 reading was 50.3, up mildly from 48.3 in late 2025. Flat, in other words.

But the national number conceals the important part. Broken down by project type, the Spring 2026 index reads:

Small jobs are the strongest category in the market and large projects are the weakest. Repairs and retrofits sit at 59 while new additions sit at 39 and accessory suites at 29 — a 30-point spread between the smallest work and the largest.

That is the clearest available evidence for something this sector has always claimed and rarely demonstrated: when confidence softens, homeowners do not stop spending on their homes. They stop spending on the big discretionary projects and keep spending on the work they cannot postpone. The full argument on which demand holds up.

The sector is larger than new home construction and receives a fraction of the attention.

Statistics Canada investment data for Q2 2026 shows the shift clearly.

Nationally, new-construction investment slipped about 1.5%, from $22.49 billion to $22.16 billion year over year, while renovation investment rose.

In Ontario the two crossed over. New-construction investment fell 11.2%, from $7.56 billion to $6.72 billion, while renovation spending rose 5.9% to $7.98 billion. For the first time in this cycle, Ontarians spent more improving existing homes than building new ones.

Other provinces moved differently:

The national picture is a shift toward existing homes. The provincial picture is far from uniform.

The Spring 2026 Renovation Market Index by region:

Two things worth drawing out.

Ontario and British Columbia are the softest markets in the country, and the CHBA links this directly to housing affordability — renovation health tracks affordability conditions, which are worst in those two provinces.

Sentiment and spending are not the same thing. Atlantic Canada has the most confident renovators and saw renovation investment fall 19% in Q2. Ontario has the least confident renovators and saw renovation investment rise 5.9% and overtake new construction. Confidence is a forward-looking survey; investment is what actually happened. Use both.

The American equivalent, the NAHB Remodeling Market Index, averaged 62 through 2025 and registered 62 again in Q1 2026.

Canada at 50.3 against the US at 62 is a meaningful gap. Canadian renovators are considerably less confident than their American counterparts, and more than 70% of those surveyed reported concern about their business outlook for 2026.

Statistics Canada reports renovation prices rising about 3% year over year, though the CHBA argues the real increase is higher.

The main driver is tariffs. Duties introduced in March 2025, including a 25% Canadian duty on steel, aluminium and appliances, pushed up prices on heat pumps, furnaces, solar panels and flooring.

Worth noting the distinction between the cost effect and the confidence effect. The measurable tariff exposure across Canadian industry is narrower than the coverage suggests — much of what is affecting behaviour is uncertainty rather than actual cost increases, with households and businesses deferring decisions because the picture is unclear.

Sentiment moves. The structural drivers do not.

The housing stock is old. Around 75% of Canada’s 16.7 million homes are more than 20 years old, and close to five million require major or minor repairs excluding cosmetic work.

A measurable share needs work now. The 2022 Canadian Housing Survey, conducted by Statistics Canada with CMHC, found 7.3% of households in the provinces living in housing needing major repairs — defective plumbing or electrical wiring, or structural repairs to walls, floors or ceilings. Nearly one in four needed minor repairs. Together, roughly 31% of Canadian households live in a home that needs work, and that is a repair figure rather than a wish list.

Moving has become less attractive. In a CIBC poll, 60% of homeowners said they were renovating instead of selling. Renovation demand partly tracks how stuck people feel, which is why it does not move in step with the wider economy.

Four conclusions.

Weight toward repair and small-project work. The data is unusually direct about this. Repairs at 59 and small interior work at 65 against additions at 39 is not a subtle signal.

Sentiment and investment can diverge. Do not select a market on the survey alone.

Costs are rising faster than the official index suggests. Pricing discipline matters more in 2026 than it did in 2023.

Labour remains the constraint. The sector supports close to 700,000 jobs against an ageing trades workforce. How a business sources skilled people matters as much as how it sources customers. Why that is not necessarily a problem.

• Canadian Home Builders’ Association — Renovation Market Index, Spring 2026 edition; Economic Impacts of Residential Construction
• Statistics Canada — capital formation statistics; residential construction investment, Q2 2026; renovation price index
• Statistics Canada and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation — 2022 Canadian Housing Survey
• National Association of Home Builders — Remodeling Market Index, Q1 2026
• CIBC — homeowner renovation poll

Figures compiled September 2026 and re-verified October 2026. This page is updated as new CHBA and Statistics Canada releases land.