Somewhere in every Canadian tax program there is a small field asking for the date you became a resident of Canada. It looks like an administrative detail. It is not.
That single date decides how much of your income from abroad Canada is allowed to tax, how much of the basic personal amount you can claim, and whether you owe a foreign property form at all. Everything else in a first return is built on top of it.
This guide is written for someone who has never filed here. It explains each document as it comes up, in the order it comes up.
- World income counts only from the day you became a resident. Before that day, Canada looks at income from Canadian sources and nothing else.
- The foreign property form does not apply in your first year. Form T1135 starts in year two, and your property is measured at what it was worth on the day you arrived, not what you paid for it.
- The Canada Child Benefit needs an application. Filing your return is what keeps it coming afterwards, but it is not what starts it.
First, the vocabulary
Three terms come up constantly, and they are worth settling before anything else.
CRA is the Canada Revenue Agency, the federal tax authority. SIN is the Social Insurance Number, a nine-digit number you need in order to work and to receive benefits. Tax return is the annual income tax filing.
And there is one difference that surprises most newcomers: in Canada, income tax is usually taken off your pay every month by your employer. The return is how the account gets settled. If too much was withheld, you get money back. If too little was withheld, you pay the difference.
When do you actually become a resident?
Immigration status and tax residency answer different questions. A work permit holder, a student and a permanent resident can all be treated the same way for tax, because what the CRA looks at is your residential ties: a home here, a spouse or partner, dependants, plus secondary ties like a bank account, a driver’s licence or provincial health coverage.
The CRA states it directly: you become a resident of Canada for income tax purposes once you have enough residential ties, and for most newcomers that is the first day you live in Canada.
Write that date down. The software will ask for it, and it is what separates the two periods in the next section.
What you report in your arrival year
The arrival date cuts your first tax year into two periods, and each one follows a different rule.
Period | What you report |
Before you became a resident | Income from Canadian sources only |
From that day to December 31 | Your world income, converted to Canadian dollars |
A salary paid in São Paulo in February, to someone who landed in Toronto in August, is not taxed in Canada. Rent from an apartment in Rio, received in October by that same person, is. The date does the work.
There is one place where the CRA does ask about money you earned before arriving: the benefit applications. That is a calculation used to size your payments, not a tax on that income.
The documents you will collect
Between January and the end of February, employers, banks and schools send out your slips. They arrive by mail, by email, or show up in your CRA online account. Each one has a form number, and that is how people will refer to them.
Slip | What it is and who gets it |
T4 | Your employment slip. It shows what you earned during the year and how much tax was already withheld from your pay. Two jobs means two T4s. |
T4A | Income that is not regular employment pay, such as contract work, scholarships and some government payments. |
T5 | Investment income, such as interest on a savings account and dividends. |
T5007 | Social assistance and workers’ compensation payments. |
T2202 | Tuition and Enrolment Certificate, issued by your school. It applies if you studied at a designated educational institution in Canada and it generates the tuition credit. |
Receipts | The CRA asks you to keep receipts for childcare, moving, medical expenses and donations. Keeping them is not the same as being able to claim them, and some of those lines have conditions of their own. |
If you are not sure everything arrived, your slips are listed in CRA My Account, the taxpayer area on the CRA website. It is worth opening in your first year: it is where you track payments, update your address and set up direct deposit.
The steps, in order
- Apply for your SIN. Without it you cannot be hired or receive benefits. It is the first document, not the last.
- Open CRA My Account. It is where you will follow everything afterwards.
- Write down the date you became a resident. The software will ask, and it defines the two periods of your first year.
- Collect the slips from the table above, between January and the end of February.
- Apply for the Canada Child Benefit if you have children. It has its own form and does not wait for your return.
- File by April 30, using certified software, an accountant, or paper.
- Set up direct deposit so refunds and benefits reach your bank account instead of arriving as a cheque.
Why your credits are smaller in year one
A non-refundable tax credit is an amount that reduces the tax you owe, but does not turn into cash if your tax is already zero. The main one is the basic personal amount, a band of income everyone can earn without paying federal tax on it.
Most of these federal credits are prorated for someone who was a resident for only part of the year:
days you were resident ÷ 365 × the full credit
Someone who arrived on October 1 was resident for 92 of 365 days. Their basic personal amount is roughly a quarter of what a full-year resident claims. A few items escape the proration: CPP and QPP contributions, EI premiums and employment-related amounts are claimed in full.
One exception is worth knowing. The CRA calls it the 90% rule. You can claim the remaining federal credits in full if the Canadian-source income you report for the part of the year you were not a resident is 90% or more of your net world income for that period. In every case, the total cannot exceed what a full-year resident could have claimed.
Moving expenses: the line that misleads
Many people arrive assuming that flights and shipping automatically count as a deduction. The rule has a condition.
The CRA sets out that for a move to Canada, from Canada, or between two locations outside of Canada, you must be a factual or deemed resident of Canada and the move has to be from the place where you normally lived to live in another place where you normally lived.
In other words, buying a plane ticket is not the test. Whether your particular move qualifies, against which income it can be deducted and in which year, is worth confirming before you claim it, because getting it wrong invites a CRA review.
The apartment you kept back home
Form T1135, the Foreign Income Verification Statement, is the one that worries people who still own something abroad. Two facts settle most of that worry.
The first is that you do not file it for the tax year in which you first became a resident of Canada. The CRA says so in plain language.
The second is about how it is measured from year two onward. You file only if the total cost of your specified foreign property was over CAD 100,000 at any point in the year, and for a newcomer that cost is the property’s fair market value on the day you became a resident. An apartment bought abroad in 2004 is measured at today’s value, which tends to push people over the threshold rather than under it. A home you use yourself, rather than rent out, is excluded as personal-use property.
It is worth being clear about what the form is: an information return. It does not create tax on the property. What it creates, if you skip it when you owed it, is a penalty.
Benefits do not start on their own
Benefit | How you get it |
Canada Child Benefit (CCB) | A monthly payment per child under 18. It has its own application: Form RC66 with Schedule RC66SCH. Form CTB9 is also required if your spouse was a non-resident for part of the year. |
Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB) | A quarterly payment for low and modest incomes. It is the benefit that replaced the GST/HST credit in July 2026. No separate application: filing your return is what qualifies you. |
Both calendars, along with CPP, OAS and the provincial programs, are in our guide to benefit payment dates in Canada in 2026.
Canada and Brazil have a tax treaty
The Canada-Brazil Income Tax Convention, signed on June 4, 1984, is in force. It exists so that the same income is not taxed twice in both countries.
What it does not do is decide, on its own, whether you should stop filing in Brazil. That depends on your position with the Receita Federal, including whether you filed the Declaração de Saída Definitiva. Two sets of rules, and they have to be read together.
The number you need and the deadline
Item | What applies |
Deadline for the 2026 tax year | April 30, 2027 |
If you are self-employed | June 15, 2027 to file, but any tax owing is still due April 30 |
Identification | A Social Insurance Number, or a temporary tax number starting with 01 or 03 |
Filing online | Newcomers can use NETFILE-certified software, including those whose SIN starts with 0 |
SIN has not arrived yet | File on paper with a note explaining why, rather than miss the deadline |
NETFILE is the CRA’s electronic filing channel: you complete your return in approved software and it transmits directly to them. Filing without a SIN and attaching an explanation is the CRA’s own instruction. Interest and penalties run from the deadline, not from the day your number shows up in the mail.
You can file without paying anything
The CRA lists three free routes, and none of them requires hiring anyone.
- Free certified software. Several programs on the CRA’s official list have a no-cost version.
- Volunteer tax clinics. Free help for people with modest income and a simple situation.
- CRA liaison officers. Free guidance for the self-employed.
Worth saying plainly: if your situation is simple, the free route handles it. An accountant earns their fee when there is income in two countries, property abroad, self-employment or a corporation.
What happens after you file
The CRA processes your return and sends a document called the Notice of Assessment. It shows the result, whether you have a refund coming or a balance owing, and carries figures you will use the following year.
Through NETFILE, processing usually takes about two weeks. If you set up direct deposit in CRA My Account, the refund lands in your bank account. Without it, the payment becomes a cheque in the mail, which is slower and depends on your address being current.
Keep your receipts. The CRA can ask for them later, even after processing your return without questioning anything at the time.
Four places where the rules trip people up
- Reporting the whole year’s world income. The rule splits the year at the arrival date, and ignoring that split costs real money.
- Not filing because there was little or no income. Every benefit is calculated from the return. No return, no calculation, no payment.
- Waiting for the return to claim the CCB. The child benefit has its own application, and it is not triggered by filing.
- Treating property abroad as irrelevant. It is exempt in year one, then becomes a reporting obligation measured at arrival-day value.
If you are still building the wider picture, our complete guide to the Canadian tax system covers the brackets and the deductions, and our FAQ on taxes in Canada answers what comes up most in a first year here.
A date, not a formality
The word on the form is “arrival”, and it reads like immigration paperwork. For the Canada Revenue Agency it is something else: the coordinate every number on your first return is measured from. Getting the rest right starts with getting that one field right.
MB Tax Solutions works with individuals, self-employed professionals and businesses across Canada, in English and Portuguese, with offices in Toronto, Moncton, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro and Georgetown. Our tax preparation service and a call with our team are both available if your first year here is the one being filed.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
When you have enough residential ties here, such as a home, a spouse or dependants, plus secondary ties like a bank account and a driver’s licence. For most newcomers the CRA treats this as the first day you live in Canada. Immigration status and tax residency are different things.
No. In your arrival year, world income counts only from the day you became a resident. Before that day you report Canadian-source income only, if you had any. A salary received abroad months before landing is not taxed in Canada.
For the 2026 tax year the deadline is April 30, 2027. If you are self-employed you have until June 15, 2027 to file, but any tax owing is still due on April 30.
Yes, and the CRA recommends it. If the deadline is close and your number has not arrived, file on paper without the SIN and attach a note explaining why. Interest and penalties run from the deadline, not from the date your number arrives.
Yes. Electronic filing through NETFILE-certified software is available to newcomers, including those whose SIN starts with 0. What prevents online filing is having no identification number at all, not the fact that it is your first year.
No. The CRA is explicit that you do not file Form T1135 for the tax year in which you first became a resident of Canada. The obligation begins from the following year onward.
At its fair market value on the day you became a resident of Canada, not the price you originally paid. The form is required when the total cost of specified foreign property goes over CAD 100,000 at any point in the year. A home you use yourself is excluded.
You have to apply. The CCB has its own application, using Form RC66 with Schedule RC66SCH. If your spouse was a non-resident for part of the year, Form CTB9 is also required. Filing your annual return keeps the payments coming, but it is not what starts them.
Yes. Every federal benefit is calculated from your return. With no return filed, the CRA has no income figure to work from and payments are not calculated, even if you remain eligible.
Not on its own. The Canada-Brazil Income Tax Convention, signed on June 4, 1984, is in force and exists to prevent the same income being taxed twice. Whether you should continue filing in Brazil depends on your position with the Receita Federal, including the Declaração de Saída Definitiva.
