Understand Dorval before you commit to an address
Dorval is the West Island municipality that contains Montréal–Trudeau airport, several square kilometres of air-cargo and industrial land around it, and about twenty-one thousand residents on the lakeshore south of it. That industrial base is why Dorval charges 0.3964%: the lowest residential rate of any municipality on the island of Montreal, and lower than Montreal's own. Figures come from the province's assessment roll and municipal budget file, measured the same way in all 28 municipalities here. It sits in the Montréal agglomeration, so part of what an owner pays here funds services set by a council this municipality does not control.
The cost of living in Dorval, and what a home costs
Two calculators on Quebec's own rules: semi-annual compounding and the real minimum down payment tiers, and the closing costs this province actually charges.
Rent or buy in Dorval
Whether buying here beats renting, and the year it turns over. Both households start with the same cash, so the comparison is not rigged either way.
Mortgage calculator
Semi-annual compounding, the CMHC premium under twenty percent down, and the 9% Quebec sales tax charged on it in cash at closing, the highest in the country.
Then work out whether Dorval is the right part of the region
No neighbourhood guides for Dorval yet. What is here instead is the whole region on one comparable footing.
What buying in Dorval actually involves
Dorval is the cleanest proof of the rule that runs through this whole region: a municipality with a large non-residential assessment taxes its houses lightly, and one without cannot. The median detached Dorval house is assessed at $649,400 and its owner pays about $2,600 a year. Less than a third of what the same owner would pay on a Beaconsfield house nine kilometres west, in the same agglomeration, with the same police force. Nothing about the two municipalities' service levels explains that gap; the airport does.
The obvious cost is noise, and it is worth being specific about it rather than vague. Montréal–Trudeau publishes its noise exposure contours and runs a complaint line, night flights are restricted but not banned, and the difference between a street under a departure path and one two kilometres south is large and permanent. The lakeshore south of Highway 20 is the quieter half and prices accordingly.
Beyond the airport the town has a substantial industrial and commercial belt and a quiet older residential core along the lakeshore, which are two very different places to live. The lakeshore streets are older and more expensive; the sections near the highways and the industrial park are cheaper for reasons that are audible.
Dorval's services include its own arena, library and marina facilities, and the town has kept a village feel along the water despite the airport at its back. For anyone weighing the noise question, the difference between the lakeshore and the northern half of the town is the single most useful thing to establish on the ground.
Moving to Dorval: check these before you commit
- The aircraft noise contour for the specific address, which the airport authority publishes and which varies enormously across this small city.
- Whether the property is north or south of Highway 20. It is the line that divides the industrial half from the residential one.
- Flood mapping along the lakeshore, which was redrawn across Quebec after 2017 and 2019 and changed what may be rebuilt.
- Whether the address is in the lakeshore village or in the northern half, which are different markets.
The 3,999 detached one-dwelling houses on Dorval's 2026 roll are what the median above describes. The roll was built against market conditions on 1 July 2024 and is fixed for three years, so it is a market value rather than a current one.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Dorval figure below is cited, stamped with the period it describes, and editable, because a number for the whole city rarely describes your purchase. Appreciation and investment returns are assumptions rather than facts, and they are labelled that way. Read the methodology for how the line is drawn.
- Prices, rents and tax rates: published statistics and the official schedules.
- Nothing here is a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice.
Where the Dorval figures come from
- Rôles d'évaluation foncière du Québec: rôle 2026, fichiers par municipalité · Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation, via Données Québec · retrieved Supports: Every property on the 2026 assessment roll of each of these municipalities, with its predominant use, its number of dwellings, its physical link and its value, The median detached one-dwelling residence in each municipality, computed identically across all twenty-eight, The market conditions date each roll was built against: 1 July 2023 for twelve of them and 1 July 2024 for sixteen
- Rapport financier des organismes municipaux: données prévisionnelles non auditées 2026, Simple occurrence · Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation · retrieved Supports: The 2026 residential property tax rate adopted by each municipality, in dollars per $100 of assessment, Special rates for debt service, operating and investment activities where a municipality levies them, under the taux-unique code as well as the taux-variés résiduelle one, The 2026 decree population of each municipality, The adopted-rate file itself rather than the dataset page that lists it, so the next reconciliation is a fetch rather than a search
- Données prévisionnelles non auditées 2026: description des postes · Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation · retrieved Supports: Which code carries which adopted rate: general CPALB01724 taux unique or CPALB01726 taux variés résiduelle, debt CPALB01736 or CPALB01738, operating CPALB01747 or CPALB01749, investment CPALB01758 or CPALB01760, That a special rate adopted at a single rate is recorded under a different code from one adopted per property class, which is the distinction this layer reads both halves of
- Rental Market Survey, Montréal CMA: October 2025 · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved Supports: An average two-bedroom rent of about $1,200 across the purpose-built stock of the Montreal CMA, A vacancy rate of 2.9%, Survey zones that do not correspond to municipal boundaries, which is why this layer carries one regional figure rather than twenty-eight
- Réorganisation municipale: les municipalités reconstituées et le conseil d'agglomération · Gouvernement du Québec, Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l'Habitation · retrieved Supports: The reconstitution of fifteen municipalities on the island of Montreal and four in the Longueuil agglomeration on 1 January 2006, The division between local competences and agglomeration competences. Police, fire, water production, arterial roads and public transit, The agglomeration council's power to set the levy that funds them
- Regulations amending the Insurable Housing Loan Regulations and the Eligible Mortgage Loan Regulations (SOR/2025-55) · Canada Gazette, Part II · retrieved Supports: The $1.5 million insured price cap, which only three of these twenty-eight municipalities' median detached houses exceed, 30-year insured amortization for first-time buyers and new builds