More New Mortgages Are Variable or Short-Term Than Ever, CMHC Says

The mortgage mix has flipped since 2022

The five-year fixed term used to be the default answer for anyone unsure where borrowing costs were headed. CMHC's own numbers say that default has quietly disappeared.

According to Canadian Mortgage Trends, reporting on CMHC calculations built from Bank of Canada data, more than 85% of new uninsured mortgages carried either a variable term or a fixed term under five years in the first quarter of 2026. Broken down: 35.5% were variable, and 49.5% carried a fixed term shorter than five years. Only 14.9% locked in for five years or longer — down from 22.8% in the first quarter of 2022.

Insured borrowers — typically buyers with less than 20% down — moved the same direction, just from a different starting point. Variable terms made up 33.6% of new insured mortgages and terms under five years another 30.7%, while five-year-plus terms fell to 35.7% from 53.2% four years earlier.

Why CMHC is calling this exposure, not just a preference

“Recent inflation volatility has reminded Canadians that mortgage-renewal risk is real,” CMHC Deputy Chief Economist Aled ab Iorwerth wrote in the agency's Housing Observer, as reported by Canadian Mortgage Trends. His point is structural, not seasonal: because most Canadian borrowers renew every few years rather than locking in for the life of the loan, the whole system passes changes in borrowing costs through to households faster than it would in the United States or much of continental Europe, where long fixed terms are the norm.

That structure has an upside and a downside. Ab Iorwerth notes it's associated with a more resilient banking system and less taxpayer exposure, because lenders aren't stuck carrying long-dated commitments through a shifting economy. The trade-off lands on the household instead: as he put it, choosing shorter mortgage terms means taking on greater exposure to whatever borrowing costs do next.

A shorter term or a variable choice isn't a bad decision on its own. Ab Iorwerth was explicit that mortgage choices reasonably depend on a household's own expectations for borrowing costs and inflation, income stability, whether refinancing options exist, and how likely a move is before the term is up. The shift becomes a problem only when a household hasn't actually weighed those factors — when the shorter term was chosen for the lower payment today, with no plan for what happens if the number moves against them.

What CMHC's own survey found among people who already went through it

This isn't a theoretical risk. CMHC's Mortgage Consumer Survey, cited in the same Housing Observer piece, found that 35% of borrowers who renewed a mortgage reported increased financial pressure as a direct result of a change in what they were paying. Separately, 25% of mortgage consumers said they regretted at least one characteristic of the mortgage they originally selected.

A quarter of borrowers looking back and wishing they'd chosen differently is a meaningful number, and it lines up with what shows up in practice: a household that picked the lowest payment available at the time, without asking what that payment would look like if borrowing costs moved before the term was up.

Turning the CMHC data into a decision you can actually make

None of this argues for a blanket return to long fixed terms. It argues for choosing deliberately rather than defaulting. A few questions are worth putting to yourself, or to a broker, before your next term is up:

• How much would my payment change if I renewed today versus a year from now, in both directions — not just the direction I'm hoping for?
• How stable is my income over the length of the term I'm considering, and what happens to my plan if it isn't?
• Am I choosing a shorter term because it genuinely fits my situation, or because it was the lowest payment on the page?
• If a shorter or variable term is right for me, is there a structure that lets me restructure mid-term without starting over, rather than one that locks me into a single path?

That last question is where a readvanceable structure like RateShield Advance can matter: it's built for households who want the flexibility to adjust as their mortgage-plus-HELOC balance shifts, rather than being boxed into one term's terms for the full stretch. And if your own renewal is coming up regardless of which way you lean, running the real numbers — not the headline payment — against your specific mortgage is the whole point of a renewal conversation before you sign anything.