Tax in Canada

Stripe supports tax calculation for businesses making sales into Canadian provinces. The requirements for tax collection, the types of tax collected, and which types of transactions are included, vary from province to province.

When and how to register for tax collection

The Canadian tax system consists of a combination of federal and provincial taxes.

• If your business is based outside of Canada, Stripe monitors whether you must collect tax at the federal level and for each province that has its own tax. You can register to collect federal tax using either a simplified or a normal GST/HST registration.
• If your business is based in Canada, Stripe monitors whether you must collect provincial taxes when you sell products in provinces other than the province of your business origin. To collect federal tax, you must register with the Canadian government using a normal GST/HST registration.

See Thresholds to get insights about your potential tax registration obligations in Canada. Stripe also notifies you with email and Dashboard alerts when you need to register to collect tax. Learn more about how the monitoring tool works.

After registering to collect tax in a province or with the government, add your registration in the Registrations tab of the Dashboard to start collecting tax on your transactions in that location.

How we calculate taxes

Stripe determines whether federal tax (GST or HST), provincial tax (PST, QST, or RST) or a combination of both types of taxes apply to the specific transaction.

Canada typically taxes sales of goods and services within Canada based on the customer’s location. Canada treats goods shipped from Canada to customers abroad as zero-rated exports for Canadian tax purposes. These transactions might incur taxes and customs duties in the destination country, but Stripe doesn’t calculate them.

For sellers registered under the normal GST/HST regime, Stripe calculates GST/HST on:

• Sales of goods from abroad to Canadian customers
• Admissions to events and other venues in Canada

We don’t calculate GST/HST for these type of sales by sellers registered under the simplified GST/HST regime.

Sales of services provided from Canada to customers in other countries are generally not taxable in Canada, but the tax of the customer’s country might apply. Sales of services provided to Canadian customers by sellers established in other countries are generally taxable in Canada, with the following exceptions:

• Remote sellers registered under the simplified GST/HST regime must collect GST/HST for sales to individuals, but not for sales to business customers who provide their GST/HST registration number.
• Remote sellers must collect QST on sales to individuals in Quebec, but not on sales to business customers who provide their QST registration number.
• Remote sellers must collect provincial sales taxes for sales in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia regardless of individual or business customers. To treat sales to customers in these provinces as exempt from provincial sales taxes, set the customer tax status to exempt.

Report and file your taxes

Stripe Tax has filing partners—Taxually, Marosa, and Hands-off Sales Tax (HOST)—to help automate your tax filing. These partners automatically sync your tax transaction data in real time, eliminating the need for manual data entry or file transfers. Learn more about tax filing.

Stripe also provides reports of your completed tax transactions. Go to Registrations to access these reports. Learn more about the different types of reports.