Canadian Tax Due Dates for 2026

April 30 is the date everyone knows. If you're self-employed, run a corporation, have employees, pay instalments or are looking after an estate, there are several more. These are the main federal dates for 2026 and the rules behind them, so you can work out the ones that apply to you.

2026 dates at a glance

Corporations, trusts and estates run on their own year-ends, so their dates are worked out from those (see below). GST due dates depend on your reporting period, which our GST filing post explains.

Personal returns and RRSPs

For most people, the 2025 return had to be filed and paid by April 30, 2026. If you or your spouse or common-law partner carried on a business in 2025, the filing deadline moves to June 15, 2026, unless the business spending was mostly for a tax shelter investment. Any balance owing is still due April 30, and compound daily interest starts the day after. Our page on self-employed tax returns covers that split in more detail.

Filing late with a balance owing costs 5% of the balance plus 1% for each full month late, up to 12 months. It's higher if you were charged a late-filing penalty for 2022, 2023 or 2024 and got a demand to file. If you can't pay, file on time anyway.

The deadline to contribute to an RRSP, PRPP or SPP for the 2025 tax year was March 2, 2026.

Instalments

You may have to pay tax instalments for 2026 if your net tax owing is more than $3,000 for 2026 and in either 2025 or 2024. For most people they're due March 15, June 15, September 15 and December 15. If farming or fishing is your main source of self-employment income, you have a single instalment due December 31.

Corporations

A T2 corporate return is due within six months of the end of the corporation's tax year. If the year ends on the last day of a month, it's due on the last day of the sixth month after. A March 31 year-end files by September 30, and an August 31 year-end files by February 28.

• Paying the balance: generally two months after the year-end. A Canadian-controlled private corporation (CCPC) for the whole year gets three months if it claimed the small business deduction for this year or last year and its taxable income last year was within its business limit (for associated corporations, the group's combined taxable income and business limits).
• Instalments: generally monthly. The first is due one month less a day after the tax year starts (the last day of the first month when the year starts on the 1st), and the rest on the same day of each month after that. A CCPC can pay quarterly if it has a perfect compliance history and, together with associated corporations, had taxable income of $500,000 or less and taxable capital employed in Canada of $10 million or less for this year or last year. Quarterly instalments start one quarter less a day after the tax year starts, then fall on the same day of each quarter.
• Refunds: a return has to be filed within three years of the year-end to get a refund.

Slips, trusts and estates

T4, T4A and T5 information returns are due by the last day of February for the previous calendar year. Employees must get their T4 slips by the same date. If your business closes, T4 slips are due within 30 days. If a sole proprietor or partner dies, they're due within 90 days.

A T3 trust return, including an estate's, is due within 90 days after the trust's tax year-end, and so is any balance owing. The legal representative of a graduated rate estate can set its first year-end on any date up to one year after the death.

A person's final return is due April 30 of the following year if they died between January 1 and October 31. For a death between November 1 and December 31, it's due six months after the date of death. If someone dies early in the year, on or before the due date for the previous year's return, and hadn't filed it yet, that return is also due six months after the death. Instalments due on or after the date of death don't have to be paid.

Weekends and holidays

When a due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or a public holiday CRA recognizes, a return is on time if CRA receives it, or it's postmarked, by the next business day. A payment is on time if CRA receives it on the first business day after the due date.

How we help

We prepare personal, self-employed, corporate, charity, final and estate returns, and we handle T-slip and payroll filings. If you've missed a few years, we work out which years are missing and file them in order. Everything we file for you is kept in your own online folder, sorted by year, so you can find any of it later.