1.15 million mortgages renew this year. For many, the payment jumps 26%.

About 1.15 million Canadian mortgages renew in 2026, with another 940,000 behind them in 2027, according to CMHC. Roughly 60 per cent of all outstanding mortgages reset across 2025 and 2026 combined. It is the largest refinancing wave in the country's history — and it's landing in the worst rate environment in years.

Do the math on a $500,000 mortgage with 25 years left. At 2.21 per cent — the average rate on new insured five-year fixed loans in August 2021, when this year's renewers signed — the payment is $2,171 a month. At 4.34 per cent, the best broker rate available this October, it's $2,734. That's $563 more every month, a 25.9 per cent jump, for the same house and the same balance. (Our calculation.) The Bank of Canada's own staff estimates put the average increase for 2025–26 five-year-fixed renewers at 15 to 20 per cent — and those estimates predate September's bond-yield surge, so reality is likely worse.

The pain isn't evenly spread. The C.D. Howe Institute finds roughly a third of mortgage holders will face higher payments by the end of 2026 — and 10 per cent of variable-rate borrowers renewing will see payments rise more than 40 per cent. Three-quarters of those facing increases hold five-year fixed mortgages, the Bank of Canada notes. And borrowers are adapting in ways that store up risk: just 8.8 per cent of July originations took five-year-plus terms, the lowest share since records began in 2013, per National Bank — meaning rate changes now hit household budgets faster.

The early warning lights are already on. Equifax reports mortgage balance delinquency up 32 per cent year over year nationally in the first quarter — 52 per cent in Ontario — with consumer insolvencies at their highest since 2009. CMHC's own data shows arrears typically surface 6 to 12 months after renewal, which means the 2026 wave's damage won't fully show until 2027. Toronto's 90-day delinquency rate is up 58 per cent year over year; Brampton sits at 0.64 per cent, the highest in Canada.

There is a wider context the headlines miss. About $200 billion in mortgages taken out during the 2020–2022 ultra-low-rate era renews in 2026 alone, per Bank of Canada analysis. And $300 billion in new mortgages was written in just the second and third quarters of this year — the most since 2021 — driven not by homebuying but by refinancing, as fall-2020 five-year terms came due. The machine is refinancing itself at higher rates, quarter after quarter.

My take: stop asking whether the Bank of Canada will hike. For renewing households, the tightening already happened — in the bond market, months ago. The question now is cash flow: how many budgets built on $2,171 can absorb $2,734, and what breaks first — spending, savings, or the mortgage itself. The arrears data of 2027 will be the report card on the decisions of 2021. Nobody got a vote, but everybody's paying.