How Much Does Snow Removal Cost in Ottawa? Seasonal Contracts, Per-Visit Rates and the Subsidy Nobody Mentions

A residential driveway seasonal contract in Ottawa is published at roughly $400 to $900, and per-visit driveway clearing at $40 to $100. Salting is quoted separately at $25 to $75. But the number is only half the decision here, because two things decide what you are actually buying: the City plows your street and leaves a ridge across your driveway that is legally your problem, and the company you hire is supposed to hold a snow plow contractor licence. There is also a City subsidy that pays up to half the cost per event for eligible households, and no company selling you a contract is going to bring it up.

What Ottawa companies publish

These are published figures from Ottawa Snow Removals, read 2026-08-12. They are one company's pricing, not ours and not an average of the market. Use them as something to hold a quote against.

Treat any single range with care. Other Ontario sources publish bands that do not agree with these, from about $300 to $500 a season at one end to $400 to $1,800 at the other. When published ranges disagree by that much, it usually means driveway size, laneway length and whether salting is included are doing most of the work, so the only number that means anything is a quote against your actual driveway.

The windrow is the part you are really paying for

When a plow clears your street it leaves a pile across the end of your driveway. The City of Ottawa calls this a snow windrow, and its guidance states plainly that property owners are responsible for removing the windrow. Source: City of Ottawa, clearing snow from your property, read 2026-08-12.

This matters more than it sounds. Windrow snow is not the fluffy stuff that fell on your driveway. It has been pushed, compacted and often part-frozen by a plow blade, it arrives in a dense ridge at the one point you have to drive through, and it appears after you have finished shovelling. For most Ottawa households that ridge, not the driveway, is the reason they pick up the phone. When you compare quotes, confirm the windrow is included rather than assuming it, because a quote for clearing a driveway and a quote that includes returning after the plow are two different services.

The licence to ask for, and why the cheap quote is cheap

The City is direct about this. Anyone operating a snow plow business must obtain a snow plow contractor licence, and a company you hire must have a valid business licence to operate. The requirement does not apply to a person clearing snow with a shovel or a manual snow-blower, or to farmers clearing snow to help out the community. Same source as above.

That exemption is the useful detail. A neighbour's teenager with a shovel is not required to hold anything, and there is nothing wrong with hiring one. A truck with a plow blade taking cash for a whole street is a different proposition, and the licence is the line between them. Two more rules bind whoever you hire: the Use and Care of Roads By-law (No. 2003-498) prohibits placing snow or ice on the City's right-of-way, and private operators cannot dispose of snow at City snow disposal facilities, which exist only for snow taken off public property. A contractor who solves your snow problem by moving it onto the street is creating a different one.

Snow Go Assist: the City pays up to half, per event

The City runs two programmes, and almost no commercial page in this market mentions either, for the obvious reason. Source: City of Ottawa, get help clearing snow, read 2026-08-12.

• Snow Go is a matching service. It refers older adults and people with disabilities to an individual or contractor working in their neighbourhood. It is a referral only: you pay the contractor directly at the rate you negotiate.
• Snow Go Assist is the money. For approved applicants it pays up to 50 per cent of the cost of snow clearing per event, to a seasonal maximum of $250, rising to a seasonal maximum of $450 for rural residents with excessively high snow removal costs. The City notes the amount paid depends on the number of applicants and available funding.

Eligibility for the subsidy is an older adult of 60 years or older, or a person with a disability; a single person with annual income below $46,500, or a household of two or more below $56,000; and no one living in the home who is physically able to do the work. Applicants provide proof of income through GIS, ODSP, the Canada Pension Plan Disability Benefit, Ontario Works, Essential Health and Social Supports or Home Help, and must have a signed snow removal contract or proof of payment. That last condition is the one to plan around: the subsidy reimburses a contract, so the contract comes first.

Applications run through nine community support agencies split by postal code rather than through the City directly. As of 2026-08-12 the City's page showed applications for the 2025/2026 winter season closed, so the move in late summer is to contact the agency for your area and ask when the next intake opens. Western Ottawa Community Resource Centre covers Barrhaven, Kanata, Bells Corners, Carp, West Carleton and Goulbourn; Eastern Ottawa Resource Centre covers Cumberland and Gloucester; Rural Ottawa South Support Services covers Manotick, North Gower and Richmond.

Seasonal contract or per visit

A seasonal contract is a fixed price for the winter however much it snows, which is insurance as much as a service. Per-visit is cheaper in a mild winter and considerably worse in a bad one, and it comes with the problem that the visits you want most are the ones when every contractor in your area is already committed to their contract customers. At published rates, a season with a dozen clearings at $40 to $100 a visit lands inside or above the $400 to $900 seasonal band, so the break-even is closer than it looks.

Whichever you choose, four questions settle most of the difference between quotes: does it include the windrow after the City plows, does it include salting or is that billed separately, what snowfall depth triggers a visit, and what is the response window after a storm ends.

What you are responsible for either way

Hiring someone does not transfer all of it. The City asks residents to keep snow off the right-of-way, to use driveway markers made of wood, plastic, fibreglass or metal that are no larger than a hockey stick and set back from the street, to clear snow and ice away from catch basins near the property so meltwater can drain during a thaw, and to help keep fire hydrants clear. Catch basins are marked by a yellow T bar painted on the roadway. The marker rule is worth following for a selfish reason as well as a civic one: markers that are too large or too close to the street are what get destroyed by plows.

Book in September, not December

Seasonal contracts in Ottawa are sold ahead of winter, and operators build routes by geography because efficiency on a route is the whole margin in this business. Once a route through your street is full, you are either paying a per-visit premium or being turned down. The cheapest version of this service is bought in September and October; the most expensive version is bought during a storm.

Where to shortlist Ottawa snow removal companies

The snow removal directory on Ottawa Service Directory lists Ottawa companies with their Google rating, the review count behind it, and the date last checked. Claimed listings are labeled and may appear first; how other listings are chosen is on the methodology page. Shortlist two or three, ask for the snow plow contractor licence, confirm the windrow is included, and get it in writing before the first storm.