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CRA payroll remittance deadlines, explained
Every Canadian employer has to send the CRA the amounts withheld from their staff — but when depends on the size of your payroll. Here is how the schedule actually works, and the year-end dates worth putting in the calendar now.
When you run payroll, you hold back three things from your employees' pay: Canada Pension Plan (CPP) contributions, Employment Insurance (EI) premiums, and income tax. Those amounts — plus the employer's own share of CPP and EI — are called source deductions, and they belong to the CRA. Your job is to remit them by a deadline that matches how large your payroll is.
Your remitter type sets your deadline
The CRA sorts employers into remitter types based on your average monthly withholding amount (AMWA) — roughly, the average of your total monthly source deductions from two calendar years ago. The bigger that number, the more often you have to remit.
- Regular remitter. Most small businesses. You remit once a month, and the deadline is the 15th of the month after you paid your employees. Pay staff in March, remit by April 15.
- Quarterly remitter. Some small employers with a clean compliance history (and new small employers) can remit quarterly, due the 15th of the month following the end of each quarter.
- Accelerated remitter (Threshold 1 and 2). Larger payrolls remit more often — twice a month, or as frequently as within three business days of each pay period, depending on the threshold.
If you are not sure which one you are, check the remittance voucher or the notice the CRA sends you — it states your remitter type and frequency. If a due date falls on a weekend or public holiday, it moves to the next business day.
Your remitter frequency can change year to year as your payroll grows. The CRA reassesses it, and a business that was remitting monthly can be bumped to twice-monthly without noticing — until a payment lands late.
The year-end dates that don't move with payroll size
Separate from the monthly remittance rhythm, two annual deadlines apply to almost every employer:
- T4 and T4A slips — you must file them with the CRA and give copies to your employees by the last day of February for the previous calendar year.
- Records of Employment (ROEs) — issued whenever an employee has an interruption of earnings (they leave, are laid off, go on leave). These are generally due within five calendar days of the end of the pay period in which the interruption happens, so they are event-driven rather than annual.
What late actually costs
Missing a remittance is one of the more expensive mistakes a small business can make, because the penalty is a flat percentage of the amount — not a small fixed fee. Depending on how late you are, the penalty can run from 3% up to 10% of the amount due, and repeated failures can be assessed at 20%. Interest compounds daily on top. Because source deductions are considered funds held in trust for the government, the CRA treats them more seriously than most other balances.
How to stay ahead of it
- Confirm your remitter type at the start of each year, and diarise the recurring deadline.
- Remit from a dedicated account so the money is never accidentally spent as working capital.
- Reconcile your remittances to your payroll records every period, not just at year-end.
- File T4s in early February, not on the deadline, to leave room for corrections.
None of this is complicated once it is set up — it just has to be done consistently, every period, without exception. That is exactly the kind of thing a payroll service exists to take off your desk.
This article is general information for Canadian employers and is current to the general rules at the time of writing. Thresholds, percentages, and dates can change, and your situation may differ — always confirm the specifics on canada.ca or with your accountant before acting.