If your mortgage comes up for renewal in the next year, the letter your lender sends you is going to look like a decision that has already been made. It is not. It is an opening offer, and the rules changed in 2024 in a way that makes shopping it considerably easier than it used to be. Most people still sign the form.
What is actually happening right now
About 1.2 million mortgages renewed in Canada in 2025. That was the largest single year cohort on record, and 85% of those borrowers had signed when the Bank of Canada’s policy rate was at or below 1%. Roughly 980,000 fixed-rate mortgages come up in 2026, which is around 13% fewer, so the peak has passed. The rate shock has not.
If your five year term started in 2021, the Bank of Canada’s policy rate was 0.25% when you signed. It has been sitting at 2.25% since October 2025. That gap is real, and no amount of waiting has closed it.
The renewal letter is an offer from one lender. It is not the market, and it is not the best your file can do.
The rule change that most people missed
Until late 2024 there was a real imbalance at renewal. If your mortgage was insured, you could move it to another lender without requalifying under the stress test. If it was uninsured, meaning you had put 20% or more down, you could not. Staying put meant no stress test, but leaving meant proving you could afford a rate roughly two points above the one you were being offered. A lot of people stayed put because leaving was harder, not because the offer was good.
That changed on November 21, 2024, when OSFI stopped prescribing the minimum qualifying rate for uninsured straight switches. Three conditions apply: it has to be a stand-alone uninsured mortgage, it has to move from one federally regulated lender to another, and neither the balance nor the remaining amortization can go up. The new lender still underwrites it like any new mortgage and still has to stress your debt ratios appropriately. It just no longer has to use the prescribed stress test rate.
One catch that matters here. OSFI regulates federal lenders such as the major banks. Credit unions like Servus, and ATB Financial, are regulated provincially, so this exemption doesn’t directly apply to them. They set their own qualification standards, which is one more reason the lender your file moves to matters.
In practical terms, shopping your renewal is now easier than it was for the last cycle, and if the last time you renewed was five years ago, this is new information.
What a straight switch keeps
A straight switch moves your mortgage to a new lender without increasing the balance and without changing the amortization. Done that way, it keeps two things that matter.
First, if your mortgage was insured when you bought and has never been refinanced, that insurance follows the mortgage. You keep insured pricing, which is the lowest tier available, for the life of that mortgage. You do not pay the premium again.
Second, if you now have more than 35% equity in the home, you land in low ratio pricing, which sits at or near insured levels even without a certificate. Both of those are explained in more detail on my rates page, because which category you land in moves your rate more than which lender you pick.
What quietly turns it into something more expensive
Add money to the mortgage and it is a refinance. Stretch the amortization back out and it is a refinance. A refinance cannot be insured under any circumstances, so it prices as uninsurable, which is a higher tier. Sometimes that is still the right move, for example if you are clearing high interest debt at a much better rate. But it should be a decision you make deliberately, not something you discover after the fact.
Rolling even a small amount of extra borrowing into your renewal can move your entire mortgage into a more expensive pricing category. If you need funds, it is worth pricing the refinance and the straight switch side by side before deciding, rather than assuming the convenient option is the cheaper one.
When to start
A standard rate hold is 120 days, so you can usually secure a rate about four months before your maturity date. That window is the useful one. It gives you time to see what else is available, and it protects you if rates rise before your renewal date.
If your renewal is inside the next four months, now is the moment. If it is further out, put a note in your calendar for the four month mark. The timing mistake that costs real money is waiting for your lender’s renewal offer and then signing it because there is no time left to do anything else. A federally regulated lender only has to send that renewal statement at least 21 days before your term ends.
Sometimes your current lender’s offer is genuinely competitive, and I will tell you when that is the case. Staying is a perfectly good outcome. What I object to is staying without knowing what else was on the table, because that is the version where you pay more for no reason.
Sources: Renewal volumes, the 2025 cohort size, the 2026 decline and the share of borrowers who contracted at a policy rate of 1% or below come from the CMHC Residential Mortgage Industry Report. The exemption of uninsured straight switches between federally regulated lenders from the prescribed minimum qualifying rate, effective November 21, 2024, is set out in OSFI exempts uninsured mortgage straight switches from the prescribed MQR and implements portfolio LTI limits. The provincial regulation of Alberta credit unions and ATB Financial is described by the Government of Alberta. The treatment of straight switches and the rule that a refinance cannot be insured is set out in Department of Finance Canada, “Straight Switches” and portfolio insurance. The policy rate of 2.25% is from Bank of Canada maintains the policy rate at 2¼% (September 2, 2026), and the date it last changed is from Bank of Canada lowers policy rate to 2¼% (October 29, 2025). This article is general information, not advice on your specific mortgage. The 21 day renewal statement requirement is from Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, Renewing your mortgage. The 0.25% policy rate in 2021 is from Bank of Canada Valet data series V39079, Target for the overnight rate, 2021. Rate holds, qualification and lender policies vary.