Do I need to file Canadian taxes if I live and work in Dubai?

Citizenship alone does not decide a Canadian tax return. Residency does. If you are still a factual resident — a home available in Canada, a spouse or dependants here, provincial health coverage, or other significant ties — CRA generally expects you to report world income, including Dubai salary, even though the UAE does not levy personal income tax.

If you have severed ties and are a non-resident, you usually file in Canada only on Canadian-source income: rent from a Canadian property, employment exercised in Canada, or a business carried on here. Many non-residents with no Canadian-source income do not file a regular T1 at all.

Leaving is its own event

The year you leave you file a part-year return and may face departure tax, a deemed sale of certain investments at fair market value. RRSPs are usually not deemed disposed of. A principal residence has its own reporting. Get the exit year right; cleaning it up later is slower than filing it once.

The old shortcut — “citizens file if world income is over a threshold, non-residents only file Canadian income” — skips the ties test. If you are unsure which side you are on, send us the dates, where your family lives, and what you still own in Canada. We would rather answer that than discover it inside a CRA residency questionnaire.