If you bank or invest in Canada and are a tax resident of another country, your account information is almost certainly being reported to the Canada Revenue Agency and shared with your home country’s tax authority. That is the practical effect of the Common Reporting Standard in Canada, implemented through Part XIX of the Income Tax Act. The exchange happens automatically once a year, with no notice to you, and it covers who you are, where the account is, what it holds, and what it earned.
The United States is handled separately under FATCA, so if you are a US citizen or green card holder living in Canada, the rules below are not the ones that apply to you. More on that further down.
What Your Financial Institution Sends to the CRA
For every reportable account, a Canadian bank, credit union, insurer, custodian, or investment entity reports a defined set of identifying and financial data. The identifying block covers your name, address, jurisdiction of tax residence, Taxpayer Identification Number, date of birth, and account number. The financial block covers the account balance or value at year-end, plus income figures that depend on the account type.1Canada Revenue Agency. Guidance on the Common Reporting Standard
- Custodial accounts: gross interest, dividends, other income, and gross proceeds from the sale or redemption of financial assets.
- Depository accounts: gross interest paid or credited.
- Other accounts, including cash value insurance: the total gross amount paid or credited to the account holder, including redemption payments.
Institutions send this to the CRA by May 1 of the year after the reporting period.2Canada Revenue Agency. How to Complete and File a Part XIX Information Return The CRA then transmits it to partner jurisdictions through encrypted channels. You get no notification, no consent step, no opt-out. Your home country’s tax office receives it and compares it against what you filed locally. A gap between the two is the whole point of the system.
Which Canadian Accounts Are Reported and Which Aren’t
Most of the registered accounts familiar to Canadian residents are excluded from CRS reporting. That matters if you’re a Canadian resident with ties abroad, and it matters if you’re a non-resident wondering what your Canadian institution will send out. The prescribed excluded accounts include:1Canada Revenue Agency. Guidance on the Common Reporting Standard
- TFSAs
- RRSPs and RRIFs
- RESPs
- RDSPs
- Registered Pension Plans and Pooled Registered Pension Plans
- First Home Savings Accounts
- Deferred Profit Sharing Plans
- Eligible funeral arrangements and net income stabilization accounts
- Dormant accounts with a balance not exceeding US$1,000
Escrow accounts tied to court judgments, real property sales, or secured lending obligations are also out. Regular chequing and savings accounts, non-registered investment accounts, brokerage accounts, and cash value insurance and annuity contracts are in.
If your account is held through a passive entity such as a personal holding company that earns most of its income from investments, the institution has to look through the entity and report the controlling individuals whose tax residency triggers CRS.3OECD. CRS-related Frequently Asked Questions Shell structures don’t insulate the account from reporting.
The Self-Certification You’ll Be Asked to Sign
When you open a new account, the institution will ask you to complete a self-certification declaring your tax residency. Individuals use CRA form RC518. Entities such as corporations, partnerships, and trusts use RC519.4Canada Revenue Agency. Reporting and Sharing of Financial Account Information with Other Jurisdictions The form asks for your full legal name, current permanent address, every jurisdiction where you are a tax resident, and a TIN for each of those jurisdictions.5OECD. Entity Tax Residency Self-Certification Form You sign to confirm the information is accurate.
If a jurisdiction where you’re resident doesn’t issue TINs, you explain that on the form. If it does issue them and you don’t provide yours, expect a $500 penalty per failure under subsection 281(3) of the Income Tax Act, unless you apply for a TIN within 90 days and hand it over within 15 days of receiving it.6Justice Laws Website. Income Tax Act RSC 1985 c 1 5th Supp – Section 281 An incomplete or invalid form can also lead the institution to refuse to open the account.
For accounts that predate the reporting rules, the institution runs its own review of electronic and paper records for indicators of foreign residency, and may still ask you for a self-certification if the file turns up conflicting information.
When Your Situation Changes
A self-certification becomes invalid the moment the institution knows or has reason to know your circumstances have changed. From that point it has 90 calendar days to confirm the existing certification, obtain a new one, or start treating the account as reportable.1Canada Revenue Agency. Guidance on the Common Reporting Standard Many institutions impose their own 30-day contractual deadline for you to notify them. If you move abroad, marry a foreign resident, or acquire property in another country, tell your bank and update the form.
How CRS Decides Where You’re a Tax Resident
Tax residency for CRS is determined by each jurisdiction’s own laws, not by a simple day count. The usual factors are where your primary home is, where your spouse or dependents live, your personal and economic ties, and your immigration status. You can be a tax resident of a country without being a citizen or permanent resident of it, and you can be a tax resident of more than one country at the same time.
Dual residents are common. Tax treaties often supply tie-breaker rules that assign primary taxing rights to one country, but the treaty result does not usually shut off CRS reporting to the other. Your institution needs to know every jurisdiction where you are a tax resident and will report to each. If you tell the form one thing and the institution’s own records point somewhere else, the institution will treat the account as reportable regardless of what you signed.1Canada Revenue Agency. Guidance on the Common Reporting Standard
US Persons Are Under FATCA, Not CRS
Under Part XIX, a “reportable jurisdiction” is any jurisdiction other than Canada and the United States.7Justice Laws Website. Income Tax Act RSC 1985 c 1 5th Supp – Part XIX US persons are reported instead under FATCA, which Canada implemented through Part XVIII. The two regimes run in parallel but differ on the essentials. FATCA is citizenship-based: US citizens and green card holders are covered regardless of where they live. CRS is residency-based. FATCA carries a US$50,000 minimum reporting threshold for individual accounts; CRS generally has no minimum threshold for new accounts. A US citizen in Canada is reported to the IRS under Part XVIII. A French citizen resident in Canada is reported to France under Part XIX.
Penalties If You Don’t Cooperate
The main penalties on account holders are two:
- $500 per failure to provide a TIN when required, with the 90-day/15-day carve-out described above, under subsection 281(3).6Justice Laws Website. Income Tax Act RSC 1985 c 1 5th Supp – Section 281
- $100 per failure to provide required identification information on a prescribed form, under subsection 162(6).8Justice Laws Website. Income Tax Act RSC 1985 c 1 5th Supp – Section 162
Financial institutions that fail to obtain or validate a self-certification face penalties of up to $2,500 per failure under subsection 162(7), which is why they push hard for a complete form.1Canada Revenue Agency. Guidance on the Common Reporting Standard Refusing to cooperate can result in the institution declining to open the account, or freezing an existing one.
Fixing a Past Error Before It Catches Up With You
If you gave incorrect information on a self-certification, or failed to report foreign income that has since been shared with your home country through CRS, the CRA’s Voluntary Disclosures Program lets you come forward and correct filings, with potential relief from penalties and prosecution assessed case by case.9Canada Revenue Agency. Voluntary Disclosures Program The program was updated effective October 2025 to simplify applications. Once a foreign tax authority flags a mismatch based on CRS data received from Canada, the window for voluntary disclosure narrows considerably. Coming forward first is the better position.
Digital Assets Are Being Brought In
The OECD has amended CRS to cover electronic money products, central bank digital currencies, and indirect exposure to crypto-assets through derivatives and investment vehicles. The amendments were developed alongside the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework and are meant to close the gap that digital assets have opened around traditional CRS. Canadian implementation timelines for these amendments have not yet been finalized, but if you hold or transact in digital assets through Canadian institutions, expect reporting obligations to expand.