GST/HST Credit: Eligibility, Amounts, and Payment Dates

The GST/HST credit is a tax-free quarterly payment from the Canada Revenue Agency that helps individuals and families with low or modest incomes offset the sales tax they pay on everyday purchases.¹ For the July 2025 to June 2026 benefit year, a single person can receive up to $533, a couple up to $698, and an extra $184 for each child under 19.² You don’t apply separately. File your tax return and the CRA works out whether you qualify.

Who Qualifies

You need to be a resident of Canada for tax purposes in the month before and at the start of the month the CRA issues a payment. You also need to be at least 19 years old, with one exception: if you’re under 19, you can still qualify if you have (or had) a spouse or common-law partner, or you are (or were) a parent living with your child.³

Residency is judged on your ties to Canada: a home here, a spouse or common-law partner here, dependants here, and secondary factors like a Canadian driver’s licence, passport, bank accounts, or provincial health coverage.⁴

One group is expressly excluded. Anyone confined to a prison or similar institution for 90 or more consecutive days is ineligible for the credit during that period.⁵

How Much You’ll Get

Your payment is based on your adjusted family net income (AFNI) from last year’s tax return. AFNI starts with each spouse’s net income, subtracts any Universal Child Care Benefit and Registered Disability Savings Plan income, and adds back any amounts repaid for those programs.²

The current maximums (July 2025 to June 2026) are:

Single individual: up to $533
Married or common-law couple: up to $698
Each child under 19: $184

Households at or below the income threshold get the full amount. Above it, the credit shrinks by 5 cents for every dollar of extra income, as set out in section 122.5 of the Income Tax Act, and eventually phases out to zero at higher incomes.⁶

Amounts are recalculated every July from the return you filed that spring, so a big income change this year won’t affect your payments until the following July.² You can see your specific entitlement in your CRA account or on your notice of determination.

How to Get It

File your income tax return every year, even if you had no income to report.⁷ That’s the whole application. The CRA can’t assess eligibility or calculate a payment without a return, so people who skip filing because they earned nothing tend to be the ones who miss out.

Keep your marital status, address, and number of children up to date with the CRA. Those details drive both your base amount and the phase-out threshold, and stale information leads to overpayments the CRA claws back later.

Newcomers to Canada

If you’ve just arrived and haven’t filed a Canadian return yet, use Form RC151 (GST/HST Credit and Canada Carbon Rebate Application for Individuals Who Become Residents of Canada).⁸ The CRA may ask you and your spouse or common-law partner to report worldwide income for up to two years before you arrived so it can start payments before your first Canadian return.⁹ Supporting documents not in English or French need an acceptable translation. If you have children, filing Form RC66 at the same time lets the CRA assess GST/HST credit eligibility along with the Canada Child Benefit in a single step.⁷

Payment Dates and Delivery

Payments arrive four times a year. The 2026 dates are:

January 5, 2026
April 2, 2026
July 3, 2026
October 5, 2026

A separate one-time top-up payment is also scheduled for June 5, 2026, outside the regular quarterly schedule.¹⁰

You can be paid by direct deposit or paper cheque. Direct deposit is faster and won’t get lost in the mail. If a payment doesn’t arrive on time, check your CRA account and confirm your personal details, then wait 10 business days from the expected date before calling. The CRA won’t trace a payment until that window has passed.¹⁰

Life Changes That Affect Your Payment

Marital status changes have to be reported by the end of the month after the change. If you separated in March, tell the CRA by the end of April.¹¹ Don’t wait until tax time. Whether you’re assessed as single or as part of a couple changes both your base amount and the income threshold.

In shared custody, each eligible parent gets half of the credit for that child, and the same split applies to any related provincial or territorial amounts.⁵ Update the CRA when custody arrangements change. Keep your address current too, because the CRA will suspend payments if mail is returned undeliverable.

Provincial and Territorial Top-Ups

Several provinces run their own low-income sales tax credits that the CRA pays alongside the federal amount. If you qualify federally, the CRA assesses you for these automatically and combines the payments:

New Brunswick harmonized sales tax credit: up to $300 per adult and $100 per child
Newfoundland and Labrador income supplement: up to $520 single, $589 for a couple, plus $231 per child, with a separate seniors’ benefit
Nova Scotia affordable living tax credit: up to $255 for an individual or couple, plus $60 per child
Prince Edward Island sales tax credit
Saskatchewan low-income tax credit: up to $429 per adult and $169 per child, capped at $1,196 per family

Ontario also has a sales tax credit, but it’s paid through the Ontario Trillium Benefit rather than bundled with the federal GST/HST credit.⁵ Each program has its own thresholds, so even a modest federal credit can come with a meaningful provincial top-up.

If You Owe Money or File Bankruptcy

The CRA can intercept your GST/HST credit and apply it to money you owe the government. That includes tax debts, family support orders, and debts to programs like Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, and Canada Student Loans.¹² A smaller-than-expected payment, or no payment at all, is often explained by a government debt somewhere in the system.

Bankruptcy works differently. Under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, GST/HST credit payments are generally exempt from seizure by a trustee. A trustee can retain part of the credit only if there’s no other way to cover fees and disbursements, and any excess has to be returned to you. A court can’t order you to hand over exempt GST/HST credit payments as part of a discharge order, and your discharge shouldn’t be delayed over them.¹³

What’s Changing in July 2026

Effective July 3, 2026, the GST/HST credit is being renamed the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB). Eligibility and structure stay the same, but quarterly amounts go up by 25%, and they’ll continue rising at that rate each year through 2031.¹⁴ For the July 2026 to June 2027 benefit year, the maximums are:

Single individual: up to $679
Married or common-law couple: up to $890
Each child under 19: $234

A one-time top-up payment goes out on June 5, 2026, before the CGEB begins. A single person with $25,000 in net income would receive about $267; a family of four earning $40,000 would receive about $533.¹⁵ You don’t need to apply for either the CGEB or the top-up. If you already get the GST/HST credit, the transition happens on its own.

1
Canada Revenue Agency. GST/HST Credit
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Canada Revenue Agency. GST/HST Credit – How Much You Can Get
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Canada Revenue Agency. GST/HST Credit – Who Is Eligible
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Canada Revenue Agency. Determining Your Residency Status
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Canada Revenue Agency. GST/HST Credit
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Justice Canada. Income Tax Act RSC 1985 c 1 (5th Supp) – Section 122.5
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Canada Revenue Agency. GST/HST Credit – How to Get the Credit
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Canada Revenue Agency. RC151 GST/HST Credit and Canada Carbon Rebate Application for Individuals Who Become Residents of Canada
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Canada Revenue Agency. Newcomers to Canada and the CRA
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Canada Revenue Agency. GST/HST Credit – Payment Dates
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Canada Revenue Agency. Update Your Personal Information with the CRA
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Canada Revenue Agency. How Payments Are Applied to Offset Debt
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Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy. GST/HST Credit Payments in Bankruptcy
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Canada Revenue Agency. Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit
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Canada Revenue Agency. Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit One-Time Top-Up Payment