Leasing or financing a boom truck

R 03 mLease, lease-to-own, loan or long-term rental

The choice turns on three numbers you know better than anyone: crane hours a month, how many months the need lasts, and whether you want the truck when it ends. A few hundred hours a year for two seasons points one way; a truck that works every day for six years points another.

A loan is a purchase, so everything on buying a boom truck applies: paperwork, inspection, licence, carrier rules. A lease or long-term rental leaves ownership with someone else, but the truck still has to be certified, inspected and run by a qualified operator while it is yours to use. Ask each offer who carries those duties. If you only need a truck for a job or two, renting with an operator may be simpler than any of the four.

R 06 mHow a lease shows up on your books

Two frameworks apply in Canada. Private enterprises may report under ASPE, Accounting Standards for Private Enterprises; others report under IFRS. Your accountant knows which is yours.

ASPE Section 3065, as summarized by a national accounting firm in 2015: a lessee treats a lease as a capital lease if ownership is reasonably assured to pass to it (a bargain purchase option counts), if the term is usually 75% or more of the asset's economic life, or if the present value of the minimum lease payments is usually 90% or more of its fair value¹. Otherwise it is an operating lease: no asset or liability is recorded, and the rent is expensed straight-line over the term¹.

IFRS 16 requires a lessee to record a right-of-use asset and a lease liability for every lease longer than 12 months, unless the asset is of low value, for periods beginning on or after January 1, 2019². A boom truck leased for more than a year goes on the balance sheet.

Example. A 60-month lease on a truck your accountant gives a 10-year economic life runs 50% of that life, under the usual 75% test¹. It can still be a capital lease if it carries a bargain buyout, or if the present value of the payments meets the 90% test. Lease-to-own deals deserve that check before you sign.

R 09 mGST/HST on lease payments

For GST/HST, CRA treats a lease of tangible personal property as a supply of that property³, so tax applies to the payments at the rate of the province where the supply is made. Which province depends on the term:

• 3 months or less of continuous possession: the province where the supplier delivers the truck or makes it available, fixed at the first delivery³.
• More than 3 months: the province where the truck is ordinarily located, or, for a specified motor vehicle, the province where it must be registered³. Ask your accountant whether your truck counts as one.

Example. A 36-month lease of a truck kept and registered in Ontario runs more than 3 months, and both tests point to Ontario: 13% HST on each payment. A six-week bare rental delivered in Alberta carries 5% GST.

A GST/HST registrant recovers the tax it pays on expenses for its commercial activities by claiming input tax credits⁵. With a loan you buy the truck, so the tax falls on the purchase price at the sale rather than on each payment.

Provincial sales tax and operated hire. A bare lease or rental carries PST in BC, at 7% of the lease price⁶, and in Saskatchewan, at 6%⁷⁸; Manitoba charges its 7% RST on the total charge⁹⁹; Quebec adds 9.975% QST¹⁰. If the supplier also provides the operator, BC and Manitoba treat it as a service, not a lease⁶⁹; Saskatchewan treats a crane rental as taxable and an operator's charge as untaxed only if it is invoiced separately⁷. For GST/HST, CRA says whether such a contract is one supply or several is a question of fact¹¹. Lease accounting sets out the detail.

R 12 mTax: what we can and cannot tell you

What the published rules say. CRA lists Class 10 at a 30% CCA rate¹². For a truck acquired after 2024 and available for use before 2030, the regulation gives three times the normal first-year deduction, two times from 2030 to 2033¹³. CRA's page, last modified 2025-07-21, still describes only two times for 2024 to 2027¹⁴.

On September 15, 2026, Finance Canada proposed a Productivity Mega Deduction: immediate expensing for most depreciable property acquired from that date. Enactment was not confirmed as of 2026-10-05¹⁵. It would exclude certain Class 10 vehicles without naming them¹⁵, and property that does not qualify keeps the accelerated allowance¹⁵.

What we cannot tell you.

• Who claims CCA under each structure. No source we hold covers it. One regulation does reach the lessor: a lease to an arm's-length customer for more than one year, on property worth over $25,000, can limit the lessor's deduction unless the truck is exempt property¹³, which includes a truck designed for hauling freight on highways¹³. Ask your accountant before you choose between a lease, a lease-to-own and a loan.
• Which CCA class a truck-mounted crane falls in. The published classes point in more than one direction; boom truck CCA and tax sets them out.
• Whether the proposed immediate expensing would reach a boom truck. That waits on the draft legislation and an accountant's reading of it.

These answers can move the after-tax cost of an offer more than the payment does, so get them before comparing.

R 15 mWhat a lessor will usually ask for

Each lessor or lender sets its own requirements and its own credit decision. In general terms, expect questions about three things:

• Your business: its legal name, how it is organized (incorporated, sole proprietor, partnership), how long it has operated, and what work the truck will do.
• The equipment: new or used, capacity class, chassis, the seller's quote or bill of sale, serial numbers, and the province where it will be registered and kept.
• The deal: the structure, the term, any down payment and any buyout you want.

Expect a request for financial information about the business too, in a form the lessor specifies. We publish no credit thresholds, because each lessor sets its own.

What we ask is narrower. The quote form asks for business type, years in business, structure and term. It never asks for your date of birth, social insurance number, credit score, bank details, income or driver's licence number. A lessor collects what it needs directly, after you agree to deal with it.

For a used truck, have the paperwork a buyer would check: the current inspection, a complete crane log and load charts that match the crane. See buying a used boom truck.

R 18 mLong-term rental: the published weekly and monthly discount

If you need a truck for weeks or months rather than years, a long-term rental is the fourth option. New Brunswick's government schedule shows how one public buyer converts hourly rates: weekly is hourly × 40 × 0.85, and monthly is hourly × 168 × 0.80¹⁶.

Put another way, a week is billed as 34 hours at the hourly rate and a month as 134.4 hours (computed). At New Brunswick's 2026–27 rate of $166.25 an hour for a boom truck with 7,000–11,000 kg of lift capacity, bare, that is $5,652.50 a week and $22,344.00 a month¹⁷.

Example, computed. On that schedule, the monthly rate beats paying by the hour once the truck works more than 134.4 hours in the month. At 60 working hours, the month costs $372.40 per hour worked; at 168 hours, $133.00. Below that, paying by the hour costs less.

These are public-works conversions for bare equipment, with the operator paid separately; private suppliers set their own discounts. Ownership cost sits underneath every rental rate: amortization and depreciation were the largest share of the rental and leasing industry's operating expenses in 2024, at 22.0%¹⁸. The rental rate converter applies New Brunswick's conversion to any rate.

R 21 mComparing offers

Lease, loan and rental offers are built differently. Put them on one basis: total cost over the period you need the truck, divided by the hours it will work.

1. Set the horizon and the hours. Example: 60 working hours a month for 36 months is 2,160 hours.
2. Add every payment: down payment, the monthly payments you will make in that period, fees and any buyout.
3. Add what the offer leaves to you: operator, fuel, maintenance, inspections, registration and insurance.
4. Subtract what you keep. A truck you own at the end has a resale value; estimate it honestly.
5. Divide by the hours. The result is a cost per working hour that compares across offers, and with a rental quote.

Then read the terms the payment hides: hour limits, return condition, who pays for repairs, the cost of ending early, and whether the rate is fixed for the term.

The rent vs lease vs buy calculator runs this comparison with numbers you enter and fills in none of its own. It leaves out GST/HST, provincial sales tax and CCA, so take its output to your accountant with the offers.

R 24 mRequesting lease or finance quotes: how a request on BoomTrucks.ca works

BoomTrucks.ca is an independent reference. We do not rent, sell or lease equipment, and we do not lend or arrange credit. Request a quote; it only goes to a company with your consent.

What to send

• The structure you are weighing: lease, lease-to-own, loan, long-term rental, or not sure.
• The truck: new or used, the capacity you need at your radius, and the chassis.
• The term you have in mind, your business type and years in business.
• Location, province and when you need the truck.

What happens next

Your request is stored first, with a reference on screen; we send no confirmation email. It is saved, and nothing is sent to a company without your consent. With your consent, your request goes to one company that rents, sells or finances boom trucks in your area. That company may pay BoomTrucks.ca for the referral and contacts you directly; any credit application is between you and it.

Ask every lessor or lender the same questions: the total of all payments, the buyout, fees, who maintains and inspects the truck, hour limits, what ending early costs, and which province's GST/HST applies.