Last week, the previous Calgary city council got a preliminary look at the proposed 2026 city budget, and with it, $5.179 billion in operating expenditures and $3.615 billion in capital costs.
Of course, this comes with a combined 3.6 per cent property tax increase shared between businesses and residents. It’s not known until there’s a full property tax roll how much extra this will mean for the typical Calgary homeowner or business.
The City highlighted four key areas – public safety, transit, housing and infrastructure – where the bulk of the new expenditures would go.
As is the case in any budget, there are always little nuggets to pluck out, and we dug through the new, 140-page, easier-to-read document and through comments provided during the discussion and background information provided by the City of Calgary to find 10 new things you may not have known about the budget.
Here they are (in no particular order):
- Calgary Fire Department budget – According to the City of Calgary, the Calgary Fire Department will get $21 million in additional funding in 2026. That brings the CFD budget increase to 37 per cent over the past three years, according to city budget documents.
- $24.8 million – This is the amount equated to each one per cent property tax increase in the 2026 budget. Here’s why this is important: As we get into election season, when council or mayoral candidates come to the door with promises, you can ask them how much it will cost and where the money will come from. You’ll know that for every $24.8 million in spending, it equates to a combined 1 per cent property tax increase.
- Software licensing costs – The City of Calgary has $41 million in one-time operating costs affixed to “software licensing costs.” When asked about this cost during the budget presentation, city admin said that in previous years these costs were put as capital costs. That accounts for roughly $20 million. The additional $21 million is due to the city’s reliance on third-party enterprise software solutions, and the evolving business model requires them to pay for one licence per employee, instead of having one licence for several employees. This will be addressed further in the 2027-2030 budget.
- Provincial funding changes – According to the City of Calgary, operating adjustments due to “provincial decision imposing new requirements on municipalities” costs an additional $28.9 million in 2026. This includes the removal of photo radar revenue, changes to elections and intermunicipal planning changes. Using the value from point 2 above, that’s the equivalent of ~1.2 per cent in property tax increase.
- $433.2 million – Uncommitted Fiscal Stability Reserve (FSR) expected for 2026. This number is about 9.2 per cent of tax supported gross operating expenditures, which is at the midpoint of the City’s minimum reserve balance (5 per cent) and the target (15 per cent). This is money the City of Calgary can use to cover short term, emerging costs for programs or in the event of emergent issues.
- Transit fares – The cost for a single adult rider is proposed to increase by 2.6 per cent in 2026, which equates to about a dime extra per ride.
- Waste and recycling fees – After the overall bill tumbled in 2025 due to the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility (made producers responsible for the cost of their waste), which reduced the overall waste and recycling costs per household by $6.16 (from $25.70 to $19.54), that bill will rise by just under a Loonie, up to $20.51 per month.
- Downtown incentive program – There’s a $40 million one-time administration ask to continue the City’s downtown conversion incentive program.
“We’ve had previous approval for the downtown incentive. It’s been a very successful program, and we know we have others in the queue, so we’re seeking additional funding,” said the General Manager of Planning and Development Services, Debra Hamilton.
9. 90 per cent; 1.89 – 90 per cent represents Calgary Transit’s target bus on-time performance for 2026. The 2024 actual on-time percentage was a three-year low of 84.4 per cent.
The 1.89 is the target of public transit hours per capita for 2026. It’s up from 1.88 service hours in 2024.
10. $13 per day – This is what the City of Calgary estimates the average Calgary household pays for all services – utilities, user fees, waste and recycling, property taxes, etc.
“In my opinion, that’s really good value when you compare that to other household expenditures,” said Chief Administrative Officer David Duckworth.
11. Key assumptions: In the City of Calgary’s budget, they make key assumptions on population/growth, inflation, and housing starts. Population is expected to be 1.597 million (2.2 per cent growth), inflation 2.1 per cent, and 14,700 housing starts.
