Catch-up
You live outside Canada and still have unfiled Canadian returns. Do you file?
2026-10-20 · 7 min read · Tax Everyday, Vaughan
Maybe, and the answer turns on residency, not on the city you sleep in now. If you kept significant residential ties — a home in Canada, a spouse or dependants who stayed — CRA may still treat you as a resident, and the worldwide income for those years belongs on a T1. If you severed ties, you may have a departure year with a deemed disposition of some property, and then only Canadian-source income afterwards. Guessing “I left, so I am done” is how people discover a five-year resident file they never filed.
A rental property left in Canada is taxable Canadian-source income even after you become a non-resident. Section 216 is an elective return that can tax the net rental income instead of the gross rent that was withheld. It is a choice, with its own deadline. It is not automatic, and it does not file itself because a property manager withheld 25%.
Separate the years before you separate the forms
Write one line per year: where you lived, whether the Canadian home was sold or rented, and whether a spouse stayed. That page is the whole engagement.
- Departure year: date you cut ties, worldwide income to that date, and a list of property that may be deemed disposed of. Do not guess the deemed gains.
- Later years as a non-resident: Canadian employment, Canadian business, and Canadian rent. Not your foreign salary, if residency really ended.
- Section 216: only if you want net rental treatment. There is a filing window. Missing it leaves the gross withholding as the result.
- A 2023 refund, if you were still a resident, still dies on 31 December 2026 if the return is not filed.
- NR4 and NR6 slips from a payer should be in the folder. They are not the return.
These files are quoted
A straightforward resident year is $90 plus HST. A departure year, a non-resident rental, or a section 216 election is not that file. Tax Everyday quotes it after the timeline is clear. Drop the date you left, the address you kept, and any withholding slips.
Do not start with a CRA phone call that invents a departure date you cannot support. The date is a fact. We will tell you what the returns look like before anything is sent.
Short answers
I rent an apartment in Dubai and I never filed a departure return. Am I a non-resident?+
Not automatically. Residency looks at ties in Canada as well as the new country. A lease abroad does not erase a house and a family in Ontario. Bring both sets of facts.
The tenant’s agent withheld 25%. Is that my final tax?+
It is the default withholding, not always the final tax. A section 216 return can produce a lower tax on net rental income if you file it on time and elect. It is optional. Ask before the election window for that year is gone.
Want this applied to your file?
These notes are general. A return is prepared only after we see your slips.