Data Sources
Where our public data comes from, what is official, and how estimates are built.
How the estimates are built
True Income separates official reference data from planning estimates. Tax calculations use federal and provincial bracket references, CPP, and EI assumptions. City affordability pages combine rent, groceries, and transport into a monthly baseline for one adult, then show salary-needed ranges and move-in cash requirements as planning estimates.
Primary public sources and refresh status
CPI indexes, fuel prices, retail product prices, population, commute, language, housing, and Crime Severity Index references. Latest synced datasets include 2026-03 CPI/fuel, 2025 retail references, 2024 crime data, and 2021 Census profiles.
National mortgage rate benchmarks. Latest successful mortgage-rate sync: 2026-04-29.
Rental market data and housing benchmarks used to sanity check housing assumptions where official city-level coverage is available.
Federal and provincial income tax references. The 2026 fallback table is versioned in the site and last refreshed on 2026-01-03.
CPP and EI payroll deduction references used by the income calculator.
Rent, groceries, and transport methodology
Rent uses city or regional housing references when available, with provincial fallback when a city is not published separately. Groceries use basket-style retail product and CPI references, adjusted conservatively by province and city context. Transport combines fuel and local transport assumptions, with northern and remote cities treated separately when public data supports it.
Salary-needed and affordability methodology
Salary-needed pages start from local monthly essentials and gross up to salary ranges for essentials, balanced, and comfortable planning. These are not employer salary recommendations; they are affordability thresholds for estimating whether after-tax pay can cover local costs.
Official data vs estimates
Official data includes tax rules, public statistical tables, rate benchmarks, and published public datasets. Estimates include city baselines, move-in setup costs, total car ownership assumptions, and salary-needed ranges. Estimate pages are designed for planning and should be adjusted to a household, neighborhood, lease, lender quote, or employer offer.
Fallbacks and limitations
When a city or category has no direct public coverage, we use provincial or regional baselines and keep conservative estimates. Fallbacks are stored with the data configuration and are shown on city pages where relevant. Local prices can change faster than public datasets, especially rent, insurance, and fuel.
Update cadence
The data pipeline is intended to run monthly or when a source publishes a material update. The current site data was last synced on 2026-05-01. Methodology text is updated separately, so this page shows both dates.