A bunch of grocery items won’t be taxed in Quebec anymore starting next week

Starting July 15, a range of products sold in Quebec’s grocery stores, pharmacies and dépanneurs will no longer be charged the Quebec Sales Tax, and your basket is about to get a bit lighter as a result.

The change was confirmed back in May by Premier Christine Fréchette’s government, and unlike the temporary federal GST holiday from a couple of winters ago, this one is meant to be permanent. Finance Minister Eric Girard said the goal is to hand some buying power back to households that feel the squeeze every week, both at the grocery store and at the pump. For a couple with two kids, the province estimates it works out to around $50 in savings a year.

Fréchette, framed the change as fixing an inconsistency in the current law, like the odd gap where a product could be taxed sold on its own but tax-free in a pack of six.

What’s no longer taxed as of July 15

It’s worth knowing that the exemption doesn’t apply to every size. Revenu Québec has laid out specific thresholds for each category. The QST comes off:

• Ice cream, ice milk, sorbet, frozen yogurt and frozen custard, in individual portions under 500 g or 500 ml
• Doughnuts, cookies, glazed or filled croissants, cakes, muffins, pastries, tarts and tartlets, sold individually in portions under 230 g, or in packages of fewer than six
• Custards, flavoured jellies, mousses and flavoured whipped desserts, in individual portions under 425 g
• Prepared fruit salads and fruit platters (cut, washed and so on), sold for a single price
• Prepared vegetable platters (cut, washed and so on), sold for a single price
• Salted or seasoned nuts and seeds, as long as the seasoning isn’t mostly sugar
• Trail-mix-style blends made mainly of oats, cereal, seeds, nuts or dried fruit, whether in bar form or in bulk
• Toilet paper and facial tissues

But if you buy one of these items somewhere that already taxes nearly all its food sales, like most restaurants, nothing changes and the QST still applies. The exemption also doesn’t cover products from a vending machine or anything sold as part of a catering contract.

What was already tax-free

This new exemption stacks on top of a list of products that already skip both GST and QST. If you’re looking to keep the bill down, those include meat (beef, poultry, pork, lamb, deli meats, sausages and the like), cereal, fruit, vegetables, eggs, bread, fish, and dairy products like plain milk, cheese, butter, cream and yogurt.

The other measures

The tax change wasn’t the only cost-of-living move announced in May. The government also set a roughly $50 reduction on licence plate renewal fees, applied automatically starting in September, along with a one-time payment of up to $200 per household for groceries and energy that went out to eligible Quebecers back in June.