GST/HST Compliance for Canadian Businesses (2026)

If you only need the arithmetic, the GST/HST calculator will add or remove tax for any province in a couple of seconds. This page is for the questions that come after that: what counts as taxable in the first place, how much you actually have to remit, and whether the rules apply to you at all if you are selling into Canada from abroad.

Registering: the $30,000 small-supplier threshold

You must register for GST/HST once your gross taxable revenues exceed $30,000 CAD over four consecutive calendar quarters, and you have 30 days from the transaction that crossed the line. Below that you are a “small supplier” and registration is optional — though registering voluntarily lets you recover tax on start-up costs and commercial rent. Quebec applies a similar $30,000 QST threshold, while British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba run separate PST registries with their own rules.

The registration mechanics — required invoice fields, which rate to charge, and how the threshold interacts with invoicing — are covered in detail in the guide to GST/HST on Canadian invoices.

Zero-rated goods vs. tax-exempt goods

Not everything sold in Canada attracts GST/HST, but “no tax charged” splits into two categories that behave very differently for the business. The distinction is not about what the customer pays — both are $0 of tax — it is about whether you can recover the tax you paid on your own inputs.

• Zero-rated supplies (taxed at 0%): These are taxable supplies with a rate of zero. You charge no tax, but you can still claim input tax credits on everything you bought to produce them. Examples include basic groceries such as milk, bread, and vegetables; prescription medications; medical devices such as hearing aids and pacemakers; and exports of goods and services.
• Exempt supplies (outside the tax entirely): No tax is charged and you cannot claim input tax credits on the costs of providing them. Examples include long-term residential rent, health care and dental services, educational services such as school tuition, and most financial services including bank account fees.

The practical consequence: because a business making exempt supplies cannot reclaim the tax embedded in its own purchases, that tax becomes a genuine cost and is generally passed into the price. It also matters for registration — zero-rated sales are taxable supplies, so they count toward the $30,000 threshold and preserve your credit recovery, while a business selling only exempt supplies generally cannot register or recover anything.

The Quick Method of Accounting

The CRA's Quick Method of Accounting lets eligible small businesses remit a reduced, flat percentage of their tax-included sales instead of tracking input tax credits on every purchase. Rather than reconciling every receipt, you multiply total GST/HST-included revenue by a prescribed remittance rate that varies by province and business type, and keep the difference between what you collected and what you remit.

Eligibility generally requires that your annual worldwide taxable supplies — including those of associates, and including GST/HST — do not exceed $400,000 CAD over the last four consecutive calendar quarters. Certain professions, including accountants, bookkeepers, and lawyers, are excluded from electing it.

Whether it saves money depends entirely on your cost base. Because you give up most input tax credits in exchange for the lower remittance rate, the Quick Method tends to favour service businesses with few taxable purchases, and tends to cost money for businesses that buy a lot of taxable goods. Before electing, it is worth calculating your recoverable tax under the regular method with the input tax credit calculator and comparing. Full eligibility rules and current remittance rates are published in CRA guide RC4058, Quick Method of Accounting for GST/HST.

Digital economy and non-resident vendor rules

Since 1 July 2021, the CRA has required non-resident businesses selling digital products or services to Canadian consumers — and the marketplaces and platforms that facilitate those sales — to register under a simplified GST/HST registration once sales to Canadian consumers exceed $30,000 CAD over a 12-month period.

The simplified regime does not require a full Canadian Business Number. The CRA issues a dedicated simplified GST/HST account number, returns are filed quarterly online, and payment can be made in Canadian or US dollars. The trade-off is that simplified registrants cannot claim input tax credits — a non-resident that needs to recover Canadian input tax generally has to register normally instead.

The same $30,000 threshold reaches further than digital goods. It also applies to non-resident vendors selling physical goods stored in Canadian fulfillment warehouses, and to platform operators facilitating short-term accommodation. Details are on the CRA's GST/HST for digital economy businesses page.

Related tools

• GST/HST calculator — add or remove tax for all 13 provinces and territories.
• Input tax credit calculator — see the recoverable versus non-recoverable split on a purchase.
• Reverse GST/HST calculator — extract the pre-tax price from a tax-included total.
• Sales tax by province — 2026 rates and rules for every province and territory.