What to Bring for Your Tax Return: A Document Checklist

Most of the work in a personal tax return happens before anyone opens the software. The return is assembled from documents: slips that employers, banks and government programs send out, receipts for amounts that may be claimable, and a handful of details about you and the people in your household. This checklist follows what the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) itself tells people to gather, so the paperwork is in one place before a personal income tax appointment or before you file on your own.

It is general information taken from CRA and Service Canada pages, not advice about any particular return. Everyone's pile looks a little different, so use it as a starting point and check which items fit your own circumstances.

Details about you and your household

The CRA's preparation page calls your social insurance number (SIN) a key piece of personal information to have ready. If you have a spouse or common-law partner, it asks for their SIN and net income too, since a number of credits and benefits depend on family income. Alongside those, have on hand:

• Your current mailing address, and the date of any move during the year.
• Your marital status, plus the date if it changed during the year.
• Names and dates of birth for children or other dependants.
• Banking information for direct deposit, if refunds and benefit payments aren't already set up to go to your account.

Income slips

Slips are information returns. The payer sends one copy to you and another to the CRA, which means the CRA already knows the amounts on them. The CRA's February 2026 tax tip on slips makes the point that it doesn't issue them: when one is missing, the employer or financial institution that owes it to you is the place to ask. The slips people bring most often are:

• T4, Statement of Remuneration Paid: employment income and the tax, CPP contributions, EI premiums and union dues taken off it. The CRA says most arrive by the end of February.
• T4A: pension, annuity, scholarship and RESP withdrawal amounts, among others, also usually sent by the end of February.
• T5, Statement of Investment Income: interest and dividends from accounts that aren't registered.
• T3: trust income such as interest, dividends and capital gains. The CRA notes these tend to come later, usually by the end of March.
• T5008, Statement of Securities Transactions: sales of shares, bonds or fund units. Keep your own record of what you originally paid, because the slip doesn't always show it.
• T4RSP and T4RIF: money taken out of an RRSP or a RRIF.
• RRSP, PRPP or SPP contribution receipts. These are receipts, not income slips, but they belong in the same folder. Contributions made early in a year can count toward the year before; for the 2025 tax year, the CRA's due-dates page gave March 2, 2026, as the last day.

Slips from government programs

Benefit slips come from Service Canada or the CRA rather than an employer, and they are the ones people most often forget:

• T4E: Employment Insurance and other benefits received during the year.
• T4A(P): Canada Pension Plan benefits. Service Canada says these can be viewed, saved and printed in My Service Canada Account if you received CPP this year or in the last six years.
• T4A(OAS): Old Age Security pension. The CRA's slip page says it can also be viewed in the CRA's online account once the CRA has it.
• T5007: social assistance or workers' compensation benefits, which the CRA lists among the slips to gather.

Income that comes without a slip

According to the CRA, you are responsible for reporting income you earn whether or not anyone sends a slip for it. Its preparation page uses tips, delivery driver pay, trade work and social media income as examples. If you had income like that, bring the record you kept of it: invoices, payment app statements, a spreadsheet, or bank statements showing the deposits. Money from outside Canada, such as a foreign pension or interest from a bank abroad, is worth raising as well.

Receipts for deductions and credits

Slips report income. Receipts and certificates support the amounts claimed against it, and the CRA says it is up to you to confirm which supporting documents you need. The common ones are:

• Medical expenses for you, a spouse or partner and dependent children: pharmacy, dental, vision and other health receipts, plus premiums you paid yourself for a private health plan.
• Charitable donations: official receipts from registered charities.
• Child care: receipts from the daycare, camp or caregiver showing who was paid and how much.
• Tuition: the T2202 Tuition and Enrolment Certificate from a college or university. The CRA's tuition page says the school's certificate shows the eligible fees paid for the calendar year.
• Moving expenses, if you moved for work or school: receipts for movers, travel, temporary lodging and the cost of selling the old home.
• Union or professional dues that aren't already on a T4.
• Rent or property tax on your home in Ontario. Ontario residents apply for the Ontario Trillium Benefit with the CRA's Form ON-BEN, filed with the return, and the rent or property tax paid on a principal residence is part of that application.

The CRA's slips tip points out that its Auto-fill service doesn't cover things like rent, medical expenses, child care or moving costs. Those figures have to come from your own records.

Self-employment and rental records

Sole proprietors and individual landlords report business and rental income on the personal return, so their pile is bigger:

• Total sales or fees for the year, with invoices and any T4A slips that clients issued.
• Expense records: receipts, bills and bank or card statements for supplies, phone, internet, insurance, advertising, professional fees and vehicle costs, with a log of business kilometres.
• Home office details: the area used for work, the total area of the home, and the utility, insurance and rent or mortgage interest amounts.
• For a rental unit: rents collected, property tax, insurance, mortgage interest statements, repair invoices, and what you paid for the property and any improvements.
• GST/HST returns filed during the year, if you are registered. Our guide to HST filing deadlines covers when those are due.

Self-employed people and their spouses or common-law partners have until June 15 to file, but the CRA's due-dates page is clear that a balance owing is still due April 30. Records kept up month by month make this part of the list shorter, which is one reason some people pair the return with ongoing bookkeeping.

Last year's paperwork

Last year's notice of assessment is worth bringing every time. The CRA's preparation page says the notice, or your online account, is where you find carryforward amounts such as unused tuition, along with your RRSP details. Put these with it:

• Any notice of reassessment or other CRA letter received since you last filed.
• Instalment payments made to the CRA during the year, with their dates.
• A copy of last year's return, if someone new is preparing this year's.

What the CRA's online account can fill in

The CRA's online account for individuals (My Account) shows the slips it has received, your past notices and amounts such as your RRSP limit. Its Auto-fill My Return service lets certified tax software import the slip information the CRA has on file. There are two catches in the CRA's own guidance. A slip only shows up after the issuer sends it in, and the CRA says it is worth waiting until you have all of your slips, documents and receipts before filing. If a slip isn't available through Auto-fill, the details are entered by hand from the paper copy.

Find a slip after you've already filed? The CRA's advice is not to send a second return. Once the notice of assessment arrives, you ask for a change to the return already on file.

How long to keep it all

After filing, the CRA says to keep tax documents and records for at least six years, even if you filed online and weren't asked to send anything. That covers receipts, cancelled cheques and bank statements behind your claims, a copy of the return, and every notice of assessment or reassessment. Those papers are what you would need if the CRA later reviews your return and asks to see the support for a claim.

Bringing your documents to Infoetax

Infoetax (E-Tax & Business Services) prepares personal returns from its office at 537 Queenston Rd. in east Hamilton. That includes returns for self-employed people, landlords, investors, seniors and students, and returns for earlier years that were never filed. If you're looking for help with an income tax return in Hamilton, bring what you have from the list above. Part of the first conversation is sorting out which items apply to your return and whether anything is still missing.

Unsure whether a particular paper matters? Bring it anyway, or ring 905-393-7664 on a weekday between 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM and ask before you sit down with us. A question can also go in through the consultation request form, which costs nothing to send.