If you moved for a new job, a business or full-time school, part of what the move cost can come off your income. The deduction only reduces income you earn at the new location, though, so when you move and when you pay both affect what you can use.
Moves that qualify
Generally, two things have to be true:
- You moved to work or run a business at a new location, or to attend a post-secondary program full time at a university, college or other educational institution.
- Your new home is at least 40 km closer to the new work location or school, measured by the shortest public route.
You also have to set up the new place as where you normally live. Selling or renting out your old home, or advertising it, shows that. Generally, the move has to be from one place in Canada to another. A move to or from Canada can qualify if you're a factual or deemed resident of Canada, or a full-time student, and you moved from where you normally lived to a new place where you'll normally live. A move between two places outside Canada needs you to be a factual or deemed resident. Renting an apartment abroad for a temporary job while your family stays in your home in Canada doesn't count.
What you can claim
- Packing, hauling, movers, in-transit storage and insurance for your household items, including boats and trailers.
- Travel to the new home for you and your household, including vehicle costs, meals and accommodation. Not everyone has to travel together.
- Meals and temporary lodging near the old or new home for up to 15 days.
- The cost of breaking the lease on your old home (not rent paid before the lease was cancelled).
- Changing your address on legal documents, replacing driver's licences and non-commercial vehicle permits (not insurance), and utility hook-ups and disconnections.
- Up to $5,000 to keep up your old home while it sits empty and you're making reasonable efforts to sell it: interest, property taxes, insurance, heat and utilities. Not for any period when it's rented out.
- Selling costs for the old home: advertising, notary or legal fees, real estate commission, and a mortgage penalty for paying off early.
- Legal or notary fees for buying the new home, and taxes (other than GST/HST) paid to transfer or register its title, if you or your spouse or common-law partner sold the old home because of the move.
You can't claim house-hunting or job-hunting trips, work to make the old home easier to sell, a loss on the sale, cleaning or repairs to meet a landlord's standards, mail forwarding, or mortgage default insurance. Selling costs don't count either if you held off selling to wait for a better market.
Meals and driving: detailed or simplified
For travel meals and vehicle costs you can choose either method. With the detailed method you keep every receipt and claim what you actually spent. With the simplified method you claim a flat rate per meal and a set rate per kilometre for the province where the trip began. The latest rates the CRA has published are for the 2025 tax year: $23 a meal, up to $69 a day per person, and 59.5 cents a kilometre for a trip that starts in BC. You don't need detailed receipts for the simplified method, but you still have to track your kilometres and the CRA can ask for backup.
Which income it comes off
If you moved for work, the deduction only comes off employment or self-employment income earned at the new work location. It can't reduce investment income or employment insurance benefits, even if you received them after the move. If your employer reimbursed you or paid you a moving allowance, you either include that amount in your income or reduce your claim by it.
When your expenses are more than your eligible income at the new location in the year you moved, the unused part carries forward and comes off that same kind of income in later years. Expenses you pay in a later year, say because the old house took a while to sell, are claimed on the return for the year you paid them. You can't carry them back to an earlier year.
You work it out on Form T1-M, Moving Expenses Deduction, with a separate form for each move, and the result goes on line 21900 of your return. Don't send receipts with the return, but keep them in case the CRA asks. The CRA may also ask for a letter from your employer saying you weren't reimbursed.
Students
If you moved to study full time, you can only deduct the costs from the taxable part of scholarships, fellowships, bursaries, certain prizes or research grants. If you moved for a job, summer work included, the costs come off what you earned at that job. You can claim a move at the start of each academic period as long as you meet the 40 km rule and earned income at the new location, and co-op students moving back after a work term can claim on the same terms. Our post on student tax returns covers the other credits students can use.
How we help
Moving expenses are one of the items quoted on top of a base personal income tax return, because they take extra work. The moving expenses form is one of the government forms we fill out for clients. If a move was left off an earlier return, we can look at fixing an earlier year's return.