Free · cited to the CRA
Leaving Canada
Leaving Canada is not a date on a boarding pass. It is a test about ties, and it triggers a tax bill on assets you have not sold. This is the whole record, cited, before it is personalised to your dates and your ties.
- CAD 25,000
- Property list threshold
- Canada Revenue Agency
- CAD 25/day
- Late-filing penalty
- Canada Revenue Agency
- CAD 16,500
- Security required above
- Canada Revenue Agency
- 183 days
- Deemed resident at
- Canada Revenue Agency
Sources verified 2026-09-29
Free, no card, about three minutes.
When you stop being a tax resident
Residency is decided on facts, not on your intention or your flight date. The CRA weighs your ties to Canada against the life you have built somewhere else.
Days in a year
What each mark means
- 183+Stay 183 days or more in a year without significant residential ties and you can still be a deemed resident.
Both, not either
You are an emigrant only if you both leave Canada to live in another country and sever your residential ties with it. Keep the ties and you are usually still a factual resident, taxed on your worldwide income.
Canada Revenue Agency
3 significant
Significant residential ties are a home in Canada, a spouse or common-law partner in Canada, and dependants in Canada. Secondary ties include personal property, social and economic ties, a Canadian driver's licence, a Canadian passport, and provincial health insurance.
Canada Revenue Agency
The latest of 3
Your non-residence begins on the latest of three dates: the day you leave, the day your spouse or common-law partner and dependants leave, and the day you become a resident of the country you settle in. The last one to happen is the one that counts.
Canada Revenue Agency
183 days
Stay 183 days or more in a year without significant residential ties and you can still be a deemed resident. Under 183 days with no significant ties points the other way.
Canada Revenue Agency
Treaty override
If you establish ties in a country Canada has a tax treaty with and are resident there, you may be a deemed non-resident even while you remain a factual resident of Canada. The same rules then apply to you as to non-residents.
Canada Revenue Agency
Kept home = tie
A dwelling place you keep in Canada after you leave, whether owned or leased, and available for your occupation, is a significant residential tie for the whole of your time abroad.
CRA
Arm's-length lease
Lease that home to a third party on arm's-length terms and the CRA weighs all of the circumstances: on its own it may not count as a significant tie, but combined with other ties it can.
CRA
All, not some
Unless you sever all of your significant residential ties when you leave, you continue to be a factual resident of Canada and are taxed on your worldwide income.
CRA
Form NR73
For a written opinion on your status, file Form NR73, Determination of Residency Status (Leaving Canada), with International tax and non-resident enquiries.
CRA
What leaving costs
Canada charges you on the way out. On the day you cease residence you are treated as having sold most of what you own at market value, and taxed on the gain, whether or not anything was sold.
Deemed sale
On ceasing residence you are deemed to have disposed of most property at fair market value and to have immediately reacquired it for the same amount. The resulting capital gain is what people mean by departure tax.
Canada Revenue Agency
50% inclusion
Half of that gain is taxable. The inclusion rate, the fraction that turns a capital gain into a taxable capital gain, is 50% for 2025.
Canada Revenue Agency
Registered plans exempt
Canadian real property, Canadian business property held through a permanent establishment, and registered plans including RRSPs, RRIFs, RESPs and TFSAs are outside the deemed disposition. Your registered accounts are not caught by it.
Canada Revenue Agency
60 months
If you were a resident of Canada for 60 months or less during the 10 years before you left, property you owned when you last became a resident, or inherited afterward, is also outside the deemed disposition.
Canada Revenue Agency
April 30
You can elect to defer paying the tax on the deemed disposition, at any amount, and pay it without interest when you actually sell. The election is Form T1244 and it is due by April 30 of the year after you emigrate.
Canada Revenue Agency
CAD 16,500
If you defer and the federal tax on the deemed disposition is more than CAD 16,500, you have to post adequate security to cover it. For former Quebec residents the threshold is CAD 13,777.50.
Canada Revenue Agency
Reversible
If you later re-establish Canadian residency you can elect to unwind a deemed disposition you already reported, reducing the gain you declared on departure.
Canada Revenue Agency
Leaving is half the question.
Everything above is the published record, and it is true of anyone leaving Canada. The other half is yours alone: where you would go, which residence routes you actually qualify for, and then which of these rules bite your profile, in what order, and by when. That is your Exit Plan, and it starts from your free matches.
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What you have to file, and when
The filings are where the avoidable money is lost. One of them carries a daily penalty and is due even if you owe no tax and file no return.
CAD 25,000
If the fair market value of everything you owned on the day you left was more than CAD 25,000, you must file Form T1161 listing your property inside and outside Canada. Cash, bank deposits and registered plans are excluded from the count, as is personal-use property worth under CAD 10,000 an item.
Canada Revenue Agency
CAD 25/day
Filing Form T1161 late costs CAD 25 for each day it is late, with a minimum of CAD 100 and a maximum of CAD 2,500. It is due on your filing date even if you do not have to file a return at all.
Canada Revenue Agency
April 30 or June 15
Your return for the year you leave is due by April 30 of the following year, or by June 15 if you, or your cohabiting spouse or common-law partner, carried on a business in that year, unless its spending went mainly on tax shelter investments.
Income Tax Act
T1243
Form T1243 calculates the gain on the deemed disposition, and that figure carries onto Schedule 3 of your return for the year you left.
Canada Revenue Agency
Line 12700
Schedule 3 turns the gain into a taxable capital gain. If line 19900 of Schedule 3 is positive, that amount goes on line 12700 of your return.
Canada Revenue Agency
Province on exit
Your date of departure goes on page 1 of the return, and you file using the package and Form 428 for the province or territory where you lived on that date, not where you live now.
Canada Revenue Agency
Split year
You report worldwide income for the part of the year you were resident, and only Canadian-source income for the part you were not.
Canada Revenue Agency
Notify payers
If you keep Canadian bank accounts or are paid from Canada, you are required to tell those payers and institutions that you are no longer a resident.
Canada Revenue Agency
Place of management
A company you keep after you leave Canada has a permanent establishment wherever it has a fixed place of business through which its business is wholly or partly carried on, and a place of management is the first thing the OECD Model lists as one.
OECD
Who signs, where
A company also has a permanent establishment in a country where a person acting for it habitually concludes its contracts, or plays the principal role leading to contracts it routinely concludes without material change, unless that person is an independent agent acting in the ordinary course of their own business.
OECD
Deemed resident
A corporation incorporated in Canada after April 26, 1965 is deemed resident in Canada throughout the tax year, and one that is not deemed resident may still be resident under common law.
Canada Revenue Agency
Central management
Under common law a company is resident in the country where its central management and control is exercised, which is usually where the board of directors meets, and what counts is where that control is actually exercised, not where the articles of incorporation place it.
Canada Revenue Agency
Treaty tie-breaker
A corporation that would otherwise be resident in Canada but is resident in another country under a tax treaty is deemed non-resident in Canada, and treaty tie-breakers generally deem a corporation resident in the state where it was created.
Canada Revenue Agency
25% departure tax
A corporation that stops being resident in Canada meets the ordinary rules for becoming a non-resident: a deemed year end and a deemed disposition of its property under subsection 128.1(4), and a 25% departure tax under section 219.1, subject to any treaty that overrides it.
Canada Revenue Agency
CCPC test
A corporation is a Canadian-controlled private corporation only if, at the end of the tax year, it is a private corporation resident in Canada and is not controlled directly or indirectly by one or more non-resident persons.
Canada Revenue Agency
Type change
A change of corporation type may carry significant tax consequences, because certain calculations on the return depend on whether the corporation was a CCPC throughout the tax year, at any time in the year, or at its end.
Canada Revenue Agency
Put your own income against the rate tables.
- These are the charges on the way out.
- The Tax Delta states the other side: what each destination OmniFlag can cite charges on the same income, beside what you pay now, from the government page that sets each rate.
- It is a difference between two tax systems, never a prediction about you.
Canada (federal and Ontario) charges CAD 63,972.
- Malta
- CAD 43,972
- Charges CAD 20,000. Under the Nomad Residence Permit rules, on remote work for an employer or clients outside Malta
- Portugal
- CAD 23,972
- Charges CAD 40,000. Under the IFICI regime, for ten years, if you qualify; qualifying income only
Federal and Ontario income tax, with Ontario's surtax. The Ontario Health Premium is not counted. Sources verified 2026-09-08. See this example in full
The four that catch people
Latest of 3
Non-residence starts on the latest of your departure, your family's departure, and the date you become resident abroad.
Canada Revenue Agency
CAD 25,000
Property worth more than this on the day you leave has to be listed on Form T1161, inside and outside Canada.
Canada Revenue Agency
April 30
The deferral election on departure tax is due by April 30 of the year after you emigrate, and it is interest-free until you sell.
Canada Revenue Agency
CAD 25/day
Late Form T1161 costs this per day, to a maximum of CAD 2,500.
Canada Revenue Agency
What people get wrong about leaving Canada
- Wrong
I sold everything before I left, so there is no departure tax.
The rule
Departure tax is charged on a deemed sale of what you still hold on the day you cease residence, so selling first does not avoid it. It changes when the gain is realised, not whether it is. Selling early can crystallise the same gain a year sooner and inside a Canadian resident tax year.
Dispositions of property for emigrants of Canada, Canada Revenue Agency
- Wrong
I left in March, so I stopped being a tax resident in March.
The rule
Your non-residence begins on the latest of three dates, not on the day you flew. If your spouse and children stay until July, or you do not become resident in the new country until September, that later date is the one that governs, and the months in between are still worldwide-income months.
Leaving Canada (emigrants), Canada Revenue Agency
- Wrong
I closed my bank account and cancelled my licence, so my ties are severed.
The rule
Those are secondary ties. The significant ones are a home in Canada, a spouse or common-law partner in Canada, and dependants in Canada. Keeping the house while cancelling the driver's licence addresses the weaker half of the test and leaves the stronger half intact.
Determining your residency status, Canada Revenue Agency
- Wrong
My TFSA has to be closed before I go.
The rule
You can keep a TFSA as a non-resident and it stays exempt from Canadian tax on its income and withdrawals. What stops is contributing: you cannot contribute while non-resident and your contribution room does not grow. Registered plans are also outside the deemed disposition entirely.
Leaving Canada (emigrants), Canada Revenue Agency
- Wrong
If I owe no tax, I do not have to file anything.
The rule
Form T1161 is due on your filing date even when you do not have to file a return, and late filing runs at CAD 25 a day to a CAD 2,500 maximum. It is the most common avoidable cost of leaving Canada.
Dispositions of property for emigrants of Canada, Canada Revenue Agency
Questions people ask about the departure tax and leaving Canada
Is there an exit tax when you leave Canada?
Yes, and Canada calls it departure tax. On the day you cease residence you are deemed to have sold most of what you own at fair market value and bought it back for the same amount. The capital gain on that deemed sale is taxed even though nothing was sold.
Dispositions of property for emigrants of Canada, Canada Revenue Agency
What does the departure tax apply to, and what is exempt?
It applies to most property, at its fair market value on the day you leave. Canadian real property, Canadian business property held through a permanent establishment, and registered plans including RRSPs, RRIFs, RESPs and TFSAs are outside it. If you were resident for 60 months or less in the 10 years before you left, property you owned when you last became resident, or inherited afterward, is outside it too.
Dispositions of property for emigrants of Canada, Canada Revenue Agency
How do I become a non-resident of Canada for tax purposes?
You become an emigrant only if you both leave Canada to live in another country and sever your residential ties with it. Keep the ties and you are usually still a factual resident, taxed on your worldwide income. Your non-residence begins on the latest of the day you leave, the day your spouse or common-law partner and dependants leave, and the day you become resident where you settle.
Leaving Canada (emigrants), Canada Revenue Agency
What forms do I file for the departure tax?
Form T1161 lists your property if everything you owned was worth more than CAD 25,000 on the day you left, and it is due even if you file no return, at CAD 25 a day late to a CAD 2,500 maximum. Form T1243 calculates the gain on the deemed disposition, and Form T1244 is the election to defer paying the tax, due by April 30 of the year after you emigrate.
Dispositions of property for emigrants of Canada, Canada Revenue Agency
Does the CRA decide my residency, or do I?
Neither, on its own. Residency turns on the facts of your case: your residential ties, and the length, purpose, intent and continuity of your stay in and out of Canada. If you want the CRA's own opinion in writing before you go, Form NR73 is the request for it.
Determining your residency status, Canada Revenue Agency
Can I spread the departure tax rather than paying it all at once?
You can elect to defer payment on the whole amount, and pay it without interest when you actually dispose of the property. The election is Form T1244, due by April 30 of the year after you emigrate, and above CAD 16,500 of federal tax on the deemed disposition you have to post security.
Dispositions of property for emigrants of Canada, Canada Revenue Agency
What tax do I pay on Canadian income as a non-resident?
Canadian payers withhold non-resident tax on certain kinds of Canadian-source income, and that withholding is normally your final obligation. Electing under section 217 lets you file a return instead and be taxed at resident rates, which can produce a refund of the tax withheld.
Electing under section 217, Canada Revenue Agency
Do my benefits continue?
Generally no. As a non-resident you are not eligible for the GST/HST credit or the Canada child benefit. If payments keep arriving after you leave, that is something to raise with the CRA rather than something to bank.
Leaving Canada (emigrants), Canada Revenue Agency
Can I deduct the cost of the move?
Generally not for a move out of Canada. The narrow exception is leaving to study full-time at a post-secondary institution abroad while holding a taxable Canadian scholarship, bursary, fellowship or research grant.
Leaving Canada (emigrants), Canada Revenue Agency
This is the general record. Your dates are what make it a plan.
Everything above is true of anyone leaving Canada, which is why it is free. What it cannot tell you is which of these applies to you, in what order, against your assets and the date you actually go. That sequencing is the Exit Plan, part of Pulse: built from your own answers, cited to the same government sources, and re-derived when they change.
Free. No card. Every page about a place stays free.
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OmniFlag helps you research and plan. It is not a law firm or tax advisor and does not give legal or tax advice. Confirm anything you act on with a licensed professional before you file it.