How to Fill Out and Submit the CRA Direct Deposit Enrollment Form

The CRA direct deposit enrollment form is a one-page paper form you complete with your Social Insurance Number and Canadian banking details, then mail to the Receiver General for Canada at PO Box 5000, Matane, QC G4W 4R6. The mailed form takes up to three months to process, so if you can sign in to CRA My Account or use your bank’s online portal, those routes update your profile by the next business day.¹

What to Have Ready

Before you print the form, pull together four pieces of information:

Your nine-digit Social Insurance Number, entered without dashes or spaces.
Your branch (transit) number: five digits identifying your specific bank branch.
Your institution number: three digits identifying your bank (for example, 001 for BMO, 004 for TD).
Your account number: up to twelve digits for your chequing or savings account.

All three banking numbers appear along the bottom of a paper cheque in the magnetic ink line. The first block of digits is the cheque number and can be ignored. The second block is the branch number, the third is the institution number, and the last block is the account number.¹ If you don’t have paper cheques, most banks let you generate a digital void cheque or view the same numbers under your account details in online banking.

One detail that trips people up: the name on the bank account has to match the name on your CRA tax file. A mismatch is one of the most common reasons enrollment fails.

Filling Out the Form

Download the PDF from the Canada.ca direct deposit page and print it. The form has three parts.

Part A collects your personal information: full name, address, and Social Insurance Number.

Part B asks you to indicate whether you’re adding, modifying, or deleting direct deposit information. Tick one.

Part C is the banking section, and it works one of two ways. You can attach a void cheque from your account, in which case you can leave the Part C fields blank. Or you can write the banking numbers into Part C manually, but then your financial institution must stamp the form to verify the details.¹

The bank stamp is the step people forget. Without a stamp and without a void cheque attached, the form gets returned. If your branch is close by, attaching a void cheque is the simpler path. If you bank entirely online, plan a visit to a branch and ask a teller to stamp Part C.

Where to Send It

Mail the completed form, along with any attached void cheque, to:

Receiver General for Canada
PO Box 5000
Matane, QC G4W 4R6

Every paper enrollment form for individuals in Canada goes to this one address. Don’t route it through your local tax centre; it’ll be forwarded to Matane anyway, and the detour adds time.

How Long It Takes

The mailed paper form takes up to three months to process, and sometimes longer.¹ Until it’s processed, the CRA keeps sending you paper cheques.

If you’re switching from one account to another, keep the old account open until the first deposit lands in the new one. A payment that bounces because the old account was closed before the switch took effect means waiting on a reissued cheque.

The Faster Alternatives

If you’ve filed at least one tax return, you can skip the paper form entirely.

Through CRA My Account, sign in, select your Individual account, go to Profile, scroll to the Direct deposit section, and select Edit. Enter your branch, institution, and account numbers and confirm. Your direct deposit information updates by the next business day.²

Many Canadian banks and credit unions also let you enroll from within their own online banking portal, without visiting the CRA site at all. Participating institutions include ATB Financial, BMO, Canadian Western Bank, CIBC, BlueShore Financial, First Nations Bank, and First West Credit Union, among others listed on the CRA’s direct deposit page.² Once you consent through the bank, your CRA profile updates by the next business day.

You can no longer enroll or update banking details by phone. The CRA line at 1-800-959-8281 handles account access issues, not banking changes.²

What the Enrollment Covers

One enrollment covers every individual payment the CRA sends you. That includes:

Income tax refunds
GST/HST credit payments
Canada Child Benefit and related provincial or territorial payments
Canada Workers Benefit advance payments
Other deemed overpayments of tax and applicable benefit payments for previous years

You don’t sign up separately for each type.¹

When the Standard Form Won’t Work

Two situations block the standard enrollment path.

The first is a security flag on your account called the Client Authorization Required (CAR) indicator. The CRA sets this on accounts where there’s been suspicious activity or an identity concern. While it’s active, you can’t add, change, or delete direct deposit information by any method. To clear it, call 1-800-959-8281 or write to Attention: Team Leader, T1/T3 Direct Deposit and Program Support, Sudbury Tax Centre, 1050 Notre Dame Avenue, Sudbury, ON P3A 5C1.²

The second is non-resident status. Non-resident individuals, businesses, and trusts don’t use this form. You’d complete Form NR304, Direct Deposit Request for Non-Resident Account Holders and NR7-R Refund Applicants, and mail it to the address on that form. Non-resident direct deposit still requires a Canadian bank account.³

A Note on Scams

The CRA will never email or text you asking for your banking information, and it will never send a link to claim a refund or demand payment in cryptocurrency, prepaid credit cards, or gift cards.⁴ The only legitimate ways to give the CRA your bank account details are through CRA My Account, a participating financial institution, or the mailed paper form covered above.

1
Canada.ca. Canada Direct Deposit Enrolment Form
2
Canada Revenue Agency. Direct Deposit for Individuals
3
Canada Revenue Agency. Direct Deposit for Non-Resident Individuals, Businesses and Trusts
4
Canada Revenue Agency. Recognize a Scam