Line 22900 on Your Tax Return: Eligibility, Forms, and Filing

Line 22900 on your Canadian tax return is where employees deduct out-of-pocket job costs their contract required them to pay and their employer did not reimburse. Entering a figure there lowers your net income, which reduces tax owing or increases your refund. The deduction hangs on three things: your employment contract, a signed Form T2200 from your employer, and receipts you can produce if the CRA asks.

Who Qualifies to Claim

Every one of these has to be true before anything goes on the line:

Your contract of employment required you to pay the expenses yourself.
Your employer did not reimburse you and did not pay you a tax-free allowance for the same costs. If you did receive an allowance, it must be included in your income before you deduct anything.
You performed your duties away from your employer’s place of business, at multiple locations, or from a qualifying home workspace.

These conditions come from Section 8 of the Income Tax Act, which lists every deductible category and the strings attached to each one.¹ The CRA restates them on its Line 22900 page.² Personal living costs never count, no matter how work-adjacent they feel.

What Salaried Employees Can Deduct

If you earn a straight salary with no commission component, the categories are relatively narrow:

Supplies you used up doing your job, such as stationery and ink cartridges, if your contract required you to buy them.¹
A portion of rent, utilities, and maintenance for a qualifying home workspace.
The employment-use portion of long-distance calls, cell phone plans, and home internet access fees. Internet connection or installation fees are not deductible.³
Vehicle costs (fuel, maintenance, insurance, licence, loan interest) if your job required travel away from the employer’s place of business and you had to pay your own travel costs.²

Anything with mixed personal and work use is prorated. You deduct only the employment-use share, which means tracking how much of the phone plan, internet bill, or vehicle mileage actually relates to work.

Extra Deductions for Commission Employees

If your pay includes commissions or amounts tied to sales, Section 8(1)(f) of the Income Tax Act opens up a wider set of costs on top of what salaried employees can claim: property taxes and insurance premiums on a home workspace, advertising, and entertainment tied to sales activities.¹

There is a ceiling. Deductions under this provision cannot exceed the commission income you actually earned in the year. Commissions of $30,000 cap your Section 8(1)(f) deductions at $30,000. This is where commission earners get caught in slow years, when spending stays high but sales drop.

Home Office Expenses

Working from home does not automatically produce a deduction. For the 2023 tax year and after, the CRA requires the detailed method; the temporary flat-rate option ended after 2022.⁴

To use the detailed method you need all of the following:⁵

Your employer required you to work from home, in the contract or through a written or verbal agreement. Voluntary telework arrangements also qualify.
You paid the expenses yourself without reimbursement.
Either you worked from home more than 50% of the time for at least four consecutive weeks, or the space is used only for employment and regularly for in-person meetings with clients or customers.
You have a completed, signed Form T2200 from your employer.

Home office expenses cannot create or increase an employment loss. If workspace costs exceed the employment income left after your other deductions, the unused portion carries forward to a later year, provided you are still earning income from the same employer.³ The carry-forward amount cannot produce a loss in the year you use it either.

Vehicle Expenses

Employees claiming vehicle costs on Line 22900 do not get a flat per-kilometre rate. You deduct the employment-use share of actual costs, calculated as:

(Work kilometres ÷ Total kilometres) × Total vehicle expenses = Deductible amount

Track both figures across the year. Costs that go into the calculation include fuel, oil, insurance, licence and registration fees, loan interest, maintenance, repairs, and lease payments. Work-related parking fees are fully deductible without proration.⁶

If you own the vehicle, you can also claim capital cost allowance (CCA) for depreciation. The maximum capital cost eligible for CCA is $38,000 plus applicable sales tax for a passenger vehicle, or $61,000 plus sales tax for a zero-emission passenger vehicle.⁷ CCA is reported separately from operating costs on Form T777.

One boundary worth flagging: if your employer already pays you a per-kilometre allowance that is not included in your income, you cannot also claim vehicle expenses on Line 22900. You pick one path.

What You Cannot Claim

The CRA draws a clear line around personal costs, and a few items catch people every year because they feel job-related:

Commuting between home and your regular workplace is personal, whether you drive or take transit.
Regular clothing is personal even when the job specifies a look. Only uniforms or specialized protective gear may qualify in narrow cases.
Most tools are not deductible for ordinary employees. Separate rules exist for tradespeople and apprentice mechanics under different provisions.

The CRA’s Employment Expenses guide states this plainly: commuting, most tools, and everyday clothing cannot be claimed on Line 22900.⁸

The Forms and Records You Need

Form T2200 from Your Employer

Your employer completes and signs Form T2200 to certify the conditions of your employment required you to pay for specific expenses.⁹ Without it, Section 8(10) of the Income Tax Act bars the deduction outright.¹ No official deadline governs when the employer has to hand it over, but most issue it alongside the T4 early in the year. If you worked for more than one employer with reimbursable conditions, each has to complete a separate T2200.⁸

Form T777 for Your Numbers

Form T777 is where you itemize the actual expenses and work out the total.¹⁰ The final figure transfers to Line 22900 on your T1.²

Keeping Your Records

Hold on to every receipt and supporting record for at least six years from the end of the tax year they relate to.¹¹ Each one should show the date, the amount, and how the cost connects to your job. Digital records are fine, but files must be in an accessible, non-proprietary format an auditor can open. The same six-year rule applies to electronic records.¹²

How to File the Claim

The filing itself is short. Complete Form T777, put the allowable total on Line 22900 of your T1, and file. NETFILE-certified software walks the T777 numbers into the return automatically. On paper, attach the T777.

Do not send the T2200 or your receipts with the return. Keep both ready. The CRA often sends a verification letter weeks or months after filing asking to see them, and if you cannot produce them, the claim can be reduced or disallowed.⁸

Claiming the GST/HST Rebate

Line 22900 has a companion benefit that many people skip. If your employer is registered for GST/HST and is not a listed financial institution such as a bank or insurer, you can recover a portion of the sales tax you paid on deductible expenses by filing Form GST370.¹³

The rebate rate depends on what tax applied to the purchase. For 5% GST it is 5/105 of the deducted amount; for HST use 13/113, 14/114, or 15/115 depending on the provincial rate.¹⁴ The total goes on Line 45700.

Not every deducted expense qualifies. Rent, property taxes, home insurance, vehicle insurance, and licence fees are excluded. The rebate mostly covers supplies, vehicle fuel and maintenance, travel, and similar operational costs where GST/HST was clearly paid.

One catch people forget: the rebate you receive in one year has to be reported as income on Line 10400 of the following year’s return.¹³ You still come out ahead, but missing that inclusion can trigger a reassessment.

If the CRA Reviews Your Return

Line 22900 claims get flagged for review more often than most deductions, especially when the amounts are large relative to income. The CRA usually sends a letter asking for the T2200 and receipts. Organized records and a T2200 that matches what you claimed make the review routine.

Claims come apart when the T2200 does not actually support the numbers on the T777. If your employer certified that you had to pay for supplies but said nothing about travel, a vehicle claim will draw questions. The T2200 certifies specific conditions, not a blanket authority to deduct every job-related cost, and the CRA compares what was certified against what was claimed. A clean paper trail, and a T2200 that reflects your real working conditions, is the strongest protection you have.

1
Justice Laws Website. Income Tax Act – Section 8
2
Canada Revenue Agency. Line 22900 – Other Employment Expenses
3
Canada Revenue Agency. Expenses You Can Claim – Home Office Expenses for Employees
4
Canada.ca. Home Office Expenses for Employees
5
Canada Revenue Agency. Eligibility Criteria – Detailed Method – Home Office Expenses for Employees
6
Canada Revenue Agency. Motor Vehicle Expenses
7
Canada Revenue Agency. Capital Cost Allowance (CCA)
8
Canada Revenue Agency. Employment Expenses 2025
9
Canada Revenue Agency. T2200 Declaration of Conditions of Employment
10
Canada Revenue Agency. T777 Statement of Employment Expenses
11
Canada Revenue Agency. Where to Keep Your Records, For How Long and How to Request the Permission to Destroy Them Early
12
Canada.ca. Electronic Record Keeping
13
Canada Revenue Agency. Line 45700 – Employee and Partner GST/HST Rebate
14
Canada.ca. How to Complete Form GST370, Employee and Partner GST/HST Rebate Application