Canadian Tax Deadlines

April 30, 2025*: Personal income tax return filing deadline (without self-employment income)

Last day to file Canadian personal income tax returns for individuals without self-employment income.

Exception re preparing returns for deceased persons:

• The filing deadline for personal returns may be later if an individual or spouse died during the year. For more information on the final return due date, please view the Canada Revenue Agency guidance on this link.

April 30, 2025: Payment of Tax – Any tax owing must be paid no later than this date; however, your tax return is due on June 16, 2025. The deadline is extended to the next business day if the normal filing deadline (June 15 in this case) falls on a weekend.

June 16, 2025*: Deadline to file your personal income tax return with self-employment income. See date above for income tax owing due date.

Exception re preparing returns for deceased persons:

• The filing deadline for personal returns may be later if an individual or spouse died during the year. For more information on the final return due date, please view the Canada Revenue Agency guidance on this link.

*Since June 15, 2025 falls on a Saturday.

A registered charity must complete Form T3010, Registered Charity Information Return, annually and submit it within six months of the end of its fiscal period.

For example: If a charity has a December 31 year end for its 2024 fiscal year, its filing deadline is June 30, 2025. The deadline is generally extended to the next business day if the filing deadline falls on a weekend.

Note: In January 2024, the CRA released a new version of Form T3010. Learn more about which version of the form to complete on this page.

February 28, 2025: Deadline to file T4’s (wages).

General Guidance: Corporation income tax returns (T2’s) are due no later than six months after the business’ year-end.  A corporation’s year-end varies, but the most common year-end is December 31. For example: If a business has a December 31 year end for its 2024 fiscal year, its filing deadline is June 30, 2025. The deadline is generally extended to the next business day if the filing deadline falls on a weekend.

February 28, 2025: Deadline for businesses to file T4’s (wages) and T5’s (dividends).

General guidance:

• Not-for-profit organizations are required to file a T2 Corporate Income Tax Return annually.
• Not-for-profit organizations may also be required to file the T1044 Non-Profit Organization Information Return annually.
• If your not-for-profit corporation is federally incorporated and has annual revenues over $250K you are required by law to have an audit.

For more information, please see this page on the CRA website.

February 28, 2025: Deadline to file T4’s (wages).

The partnership information return is due April 1, 2025* if throughout the fiscal period, all partners are individuals.

If, throughout the fiscal period, all partners are corporations, including end members of tiered partnership, the partnership information return is due 5 months after the end of the partnership’s fiscal period.

In all other cases, the partnership return is due the earlier of:

• March 31, 2025 and
• the day that is five months after the fiscal period the partnership ended.

• Deadline for contributing to an RRSP for the 2024 tax year is March 1, 2025. For example, to make contributions for the 2024 tax year, you would need to do so by March 1, 2025. Note: You can also specify that a contribution made in 2025 before March 1 is for the 2025 tax year.
• December 31 of the year you turn 71 years of age is the last day you can contribute to your own RRSP.

Your annual RRSP contribution limit is the amount you are able to contribute to your RRSP each year. Contribution room is the lesser of:

• 18% of your previous year’s pre-tax earnings, OR
• the yearly maximum set by the CRA.
• PLUS any unused RRSP deduction room from previous years (which carries forward indefinitely).

You can find your RRSP deduction limit on your latest notice of assessment or notice of reassessment from the CRA.

• The contribution limit for 2024 has increased to $7,000.
• If you have never contributed to a TFSA and have been eligible since its introduction in 2009, your cumulative contribution room will be $95,000 in 2024.

You can find more information about the TFSA on the CRA website on this link.

Bill C-32 introduced enhanced reporting requirements for trusts. These rules apply to most trusts with a taxation year-ending on or after December 31, 2023, including trusts that have never filed a return previously.  For additional information, please view the Canada Revenue Agency guidance on this.

For a T3 return (Form T3 RET, T3 Trust Income Tax and Information Return) your filing due date depends on the trust’s tax year-end.

You have to file a T3 return, the related T3 slips, NR4 slips, and T3 and NR4 summaries no later than 90 days after the trust’s tax year-end. You should also pay any balance owing no later than 90 days after that year-end.

For example: For a Trust with a calendar year-end (December 31, 2024), the due date is March 31, 2025.

2023 Bare Trust Filing Exemption: On March 28, 2024, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced that bare trusts would be exempt from filing for the 2023 tax year only as they recognized the challenge in identifying bare trusts. The CRA said in their press release that over the coming months they would work with the Department of Finance to further clarify its guidance on this filing requirement. The CRA stated they would communicate with Canadians as further information becomes available. Unless further guidance is released that states otherwise, bare trusts should expect to file for the 2024 tax year

Canada Revenue Agency penalties are a strong motivation to get your tax filings and payments in on time. Before you consider filing or paying late, take a look at the potential impact on your pocketbook.

Penalties

If you file your tax return late, you will be fined an additional 5% on the total owing PLUS another 1% per month up to a maximum of 12 months. This is potentially an additional 17% in taxes owing!

AND in the case that you were asked to file a tax return AND were charged a late-filing penalty for any one of your prior three taxation years, the penalties could be substantially higher! If this situation applies to you, expect to pay 10% on the total owing PLUS another 2% per month up to a maximum of 20 months. This could result in a total additional penalty of 50%!

Interest

In addition to the late fees above, the CRA also charges interest on your unpaid tax balance. The interest is compounded daily based on the annual interest rate prescribed by the CRA. The prescribed rate is updated quarterly but currently (June 2024) stands at a hefty 10%.

Example

Here’s an illustration* for someone who is:

• a repeat late filer
• owes $5,000 to the CRA and
• is 20 months late with their payments.

In the worst case scenario, this individual could be on the hook for approximately $8,900 including interest and penalties!

*In this example, the CRA prescribed interest rate for the entire 20 months was fixed at 10%.