The carbon tax rebate in Ontario, officially the Canada Carbon Rebate, ended in April 2025 after the federal government removed the consumer fuel charge on April 1, 2025. The final quarterly payment went out that month, and the CRA has confirmed no further payments will follow.1Canada Revenue Agency. Canada Carbon Rebate for Individuals If you were eligible in past years but never filed your tax returns, you can still receive the payments you were owed for 2021 through 2024.2Canada Revenue Agency. Payments for Those Who Have Not Yet Filed Tax Returns for the Applicable Years
How To Claim Payments You Missed
File an income tax and benefit return (T1) for each year you skipped, even if you had no income to report. The CRA uses your return to confirm eligibility and calculates the rebate automatically. There is no separate application.2Canada Revenue Agency. Payments for Those Who Have Not Yet Filed Tax Returns for the Applicable Years
If you lived outside a census metropolitan area during any of those years, tick the box on page 2 of the return for the rural supplement. That single check adds 20% to your base rebate for the year.
Already filed but need to fix something? You can submit an adjustment through your CRA online account, use the ReFILE service in certified tax software, or mail Form T1-ADJ.3Canada Revenue Agency. Direct Deposit for Individuals
The CRA pays the rate that was in effect for the year you’re filing, not the final-year amount. So a late 2023 return produces the 2023 rebate, not the 2024 figure.
Who Qualified
To receive the rebate, you had to meet all of these conditions at the beginning of the payment month:
- Resident of Ontario, and a resident of Canada in the month before the payment
- At least 19 years old in the month before the CRA issued the payment, or under 19 with a spouse, common-law partner, or a child you lived with
Most Ontario adults qualified automatically once they filed a tax return.4Canada Revenue Agency. Who Was Eligible – Canada Carbon Rebate
Two groups were excluded regardless of where they lived: anyone confined to a prison or similar institution for at least 90 consecutive days, and anyone classified as a non-resident of Canada for tax purposes.5Canada Revenue Agency. How Much the Payment Amounts Were The CRA looks at factors like whether you keep a home, spouse, or dependants in Canada when deciding residency.6Canada Revenue Agency. Determining Your Residency Status
Students aged 19 or older who lived away from home for school qualified in their own right, since eligibility hinged on individual residency and age rather than dependency. A student under 19 without a spouse or child couldn’t claim independently, though a parent could receive the child amount for them.
How Much You Would Receive
The final Ontario payments, tied to the 2024 fuel charge year, were the largest the program ever issued. Quarterly amounts:
- Individual: $151
- Spouse or common-law partner: $75.50
- Each child under 19: $37.75
- First child in a single-parent family: $75.50 instead of $37.75
Across a full four-quarter cycle, that came to $604 for an individual, $906 for a couple, and $1,208 for a family of four.5Canada Revenue Agency. How Much the Payment Amounts Were
For the 2023 base year, which paid out from April 2024 through January 2025, amounts were lower: $140 per individual quarterly, $70 for a spouse, and $35 per child.
In shared custody, each parent received 50% of the child amount, adjusted automatically from custody information on the tax return.
The rural supplement added 20% to the base for residents outside a census metropolitan area. A family of four in a qualifying rural area received roughly $362 quarterly in the final year, or about $1,450 annually.7Canada Revenue Agency. Supplement for Residents of Small and Rural Communities – Canada Carbon Rebate The CRA used 2016 Census boundaries; you can check your postal code against the CRA’s rural supplement page. Where you actually lived counted, not where you worked or filed from.
One thing worth confirming for your own records: the rebate was not taxable. You did not report it on your return, and receiving it did not reduce your GST/HST credit or other federal benefits.
Newcomers and Deceased Recipients
If you moved to Canada during 2021 through 2024 and never filed a Canadian tax return, you can apply for the rebate alongside the GST/HST credit using Form RC151, submitted with a tax return for the year you arrived.8Canada Revenue Agency. RC151 GST/HST Credit and Canada Carbon Rebate Application for Individuals Who Become Residents of Canada
If a recipient died before a scheduled payment month, no further payments were issued in their name. If they died during or after the payment month and the cheque hadn’t been cashed, it should be returned to the CRA and reissued to the estate. A surviving spouse or common-law partner had their payments recalculated based on their own eligibility.9Canada Revenue Agency. Notify the CRA of a Date of Death To report a death, call the CRA’s Individual Tax Enquiries line at 1-800-959-8281 or Benefit Enquiries at 1-800-387-1193, or mail Form RC4111 to the deceased’s tax centre.
What Could Reduce Your Payment
If you owe money to the federal government, whether unpaid taxes, overpaid benefits, or a defaulted student loan, the CRA can apply your rebate against that balance instead of paying it out.10Canada Revenue Agency. How We Automatically Apply Credits and Refunds to Your Debt This offset is automatic and applies to retroactive payments too. If you’re filing late and carry a government debt, expect some or all of the rebate to be redirected.
Delivery follows whatever the CRA has on file for you now. With direct deposit set up, funds arrive automatically; without it, you’ll get a physical cheque. Online direct deposit changes take effect the next business day, while mail-in requests can take up to three months.3Canada Revenue Agency. Direct Deposit for Individuals
Why the Rebate Ended
Ontario received the rebate because the province didn’t run its own consumer carbon pricing system that met federal requirements, so Ottawa collected the federal fuel charge and returned the proceeds to residents. In March 2025, the federal government made regulations removing the consumer fuel charge effective April 1, 2025, and dropped the requirement for provinces to maintain a consumer-facing carbon price.11Department of Finance Canada. Removing the Consumer Carbon Price, Effective April 1, 2025 Industrial pricing for large emitters continues, but the consumer charge that funded the rebate is gone, so no new payment cycles will be scheduled.