Filing and paying taxes as a Canadian citizen is an inevitable part of life. Skipping out on this responsibility could mean many negative consequences down the road, so it’s best to get ahead of the deadlines and requirements as soon as possible.
You definitely don’t want to file late and owe a larger tax balance than necessary. Accruing interest, penalties and fees is no fun. Plus, late tax payments can impact your government benefits negatively—all bad things if you’ve got financial goals like getting out of debt, building wealth or both.
The good news is that you can get through the process much quicker with an online filing. If you want to know how to file taxes, this guide will help you with the basics of filing your taxes online if you live in Canada.
What are the benefits of filing taxes online?
Filing your taxes online can be beneficial for a few reasons. For one, you can complete the process relatively quickly and receive an almost immediate confirmation that your filing has been submitted and accepted. Electronic filing is preferred, because, well, it's not 1993.
You could also get information about the status of your return via telephone if you have the patience for that sort of thing. However, if you don’t file electronically, it could take longer for this information to appear in your account along with related updates.
Another reason you’d want to file online is that the interfaces or online applications that help you prepare your taxes can make the tax filing process much easier and reduce the chance of errors. Online software can help you get the most accurate results while maximizing the amount of your return. Plus, there’s no need to send in receipts with your online filing unless the CRA requests them at a later time.
Finally, filing online means you’ll get your refund faster. With direct deposit, you may receive your refund in as little as 2 weeks.
Be aware of key dates
Before you file your taxes, you should be aware of key dates:
Filing dates for your 2024 tax return
April 30, 2025: Deadline to file your taxes
June 15, 2025: Deadline to file your taxes if you or your spouse or common-law partner are self-employed. Although that's a Sunday, so you actually have until the next business day, June 16, 2025.
Payment date for your 2024 tax return
Tax payments are due April 30, 2025, whether you’re self-employed or not.
Prepare supporting documentation
Much of the supporting documentation you’ll need to file your taxes online should arrive by the end of February, if not well before. Some tax software will allow you to enter some information and save your return for a later time when you can enter the rest.
Income
Here are some common income sources you may need supporting documentation for when filing your taxes, and you may have one or more types of income to report:
Income. If you are employed, you would normally receive a T4 from your employer.
Employment and self-employment income. This is any income related to employment and self-employment, including commissions and foreign employment income.
Pension and savings plans income. This is pension and savings plans income like old age security, Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) or Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) benefits, or pensions from other countries.
Investment income. This is income earned through investments like interest, dividends, and capital gains.
Benefit income. This includes income from benefits such as Employment Insurance (EI) and any other benefits you might receive, such as workers’ compensation benefits or social assistance payments.
Claim deductions, expenses, and credits
There are many deductions and expenses that you can use to reduce your taxable income (and any tax payments due as a result). There are also credits that can reduce the tax amount you owe. Some, called non-refundable credits, can only reduce your taxes to zero. Others, called refundable credits, can actually be refunded to you. Here are some common deductions and credits you may be eligible for:
Deductions
Registered Pension Plan (RPP)
Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) Deduction
Deduction for an Elected Split-Pension Amount
Union, Professional, or Like Dues
Child Care Expenses
Disability Supports Deduction
Allowable Business Investment Loss (ABIL)
Moving Expenses
Support Payments Made
Other Employment Expenses
Clergy Residence Deduction
Security Options Deductions
Capital Gains Deduction
Northern Residents Deductions
Carrying Charges and Interest Expenses
Non-refundable credits
Basic Personal Amount
Age Amount
Spouse or Common-law Partner Amount
Amount for an Eligible Dependent
Canada Caregiver Credit or Amount
Volunteer Firefighters’ and Search and rescue volunteers' Amount
Home Buyers’ Amount
Home Accessibility Expenses
Adoption Expenses
Disability Amount for Self
Disability Amount Transferred from a Dependant
Interest Paid on your Student Loans
Tuition Tax Credit
Tuition Amounts Transferred From a Child
Eligible Medical Expenses
Donations and Gifts
Provincial or Territorial Tax Credits
Refundable credits
Refundable medical expense supplement
Canada Workers' Benefit
Canada Training Credit
Eligible educator school supply tax credit
Determine how you will file your taxes
Now that you are ready to file your taxes online, you must determine how to complete the online filing process. There are a few different ways to file your provincial/territorial and federal taxes with the CRA. (You may have to follow additional instructions for filing in Quebec.)
To file your taxes online, you’ll have to make sure that you are filing using a NETFILE-certified platform. If you have to file a Québec tax return too, your software will also need to be NetFile-certified by Revenu Québec.
NETFILE is an electronic tax-filing service that lets you file taxes online and send your income tax and benefit return directly to the CRA.
As long as you’ve filed taxes at least once since 2017, your information should be stored in the CRA’s database and retrievable by any NETFILE-certified tax software. If you are signed up for a CRA My Account, you should also be able to pre-populate your tax info using Auto-fill my return.
It’s important to know that not all tax software is certified for all years. So whether you are filing for the current tax year or before, check this page for a list of NETFILE-certified tax software developers along with the years they are approved for.
Filing your taxes online
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to file your Canada taxes for free. If you choose to do it yourself online, once you have gathered your information and chosen the software to complete your online filing, you’ll navigate to the mobile app or desktop version of your certified tax provider and create an account by entering the following information:
Name
Social Insurance Number
Date of birth
Whether or not the return is for a deceased person
Preferred language
Home address
Telephone number
It’s possible that you may receive a prompt to automatically populate some information in your return with Auto-fill my return based on the account information that you enter. From here, you’ll start entering information about your income, expenses, deductions, etc. if the information isn’t already populated.
Submitting your tax filing online
Once you’ve entered all of the required information, you can submit your return by connecting directly to NETFILE (through your tax software), which electronically submits your return to the CRA. You should get an immediate confirmation that your return has been received. From here, you can check the status of your return via phone or via your CRA “My Account” site. Your return should show one of four statuses:
Assessed
In process (The CRA is assessing your return)
Received (Received, but not assessed)
Not received (The CRA did not receive your return, or the CRA received your return but did not yet update this status.)
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