Net Income
What actually lands in your pocket after every deduction — the number that GCI alone will never tell you.
What is net income for a real estate agent?
Net income is the amount remaining after all business-related deductions have been applied to your gross commission income. It represents your true business profit before personal income tax.
Many agents focus on GCI as the headline number — but a $180,000 GCI year and a $120,000 GCI year can result in very similar net income if the first agent runs a significantly higher cost structure. Net income is the only number that accurately reflects the financial outcome of a year of work.
Agent B earns more net income despite $60,000 less GCI. GCI alone is misleading.
How to calculate net income — step by step
Net income is calculated by working down through each layer of deduction from GCI. Here is the full waterfall for an Ontario agent earning $210,000 GCI:
Why net income matters more than GCI
GCI is useful for comparing production across agents and markets. But for personal financial planning — saving for retirement, building an emergency fund, investing in the business — only net income is actionable.
Tracking pre-tax net income throughout the year also enables preparing for tax obligations. Rather than discovering a large tax obligation at filing time, agents who monitor net income can calculate their quarterly instalment obligations and set aside the right amount from each commission cheque.
Key insight: Setting financial goals based on GCI alone routinely leads agents to overestimate their available cash. Always plan from net — not gross.
Net income vs. financial runway
A backward-looking measure of what you earned after costs and tax this period.
A forward-looking measure of how long you can sustain the business without new income.
Both are essential. Net income tells you how the year went. Runway tells you how vulnerable you are to a slow stretch ahead.
How Agent Runway calculates net income
Agent Runway shows your net agent income alongside GCI at every level — per deal, month-to-date, and year-to-date. Your brokerage split percentage, transaction fee rate, and monthly desk fee are configured once and applied automatically to every transaction. The platform also calculates your estimated tax obligation using current federal and provincial rates for all 13 Canadian provinces and territories.
See your real net income in Agent Runway
Stop estimating. Know your exact net income after every split, fee, expense, and tax — updated in real time.