Late February is normally the busiest stretch on the Canadian tax calendar for a small business owner who is also an employer, with T4/T5 slips due a few days before the RRSP contribution deadline. In 2026 the calendar collapses those two dates into one: both the statutory T4/T5 filing deadline and the RRSP contribution deadline for the 2025 tax year fall on Monday, March 2, 2026, because their usual cutoffs — February 28 and March 1 — both land on a weekend this year. For Toronto-area owner-managers running payroll and paying themselves through a mix of salary and dividends, that overlap makes early filing more important than usual, not less.
T4 and T5 slips: due March 2, 2026
Every employer must issue T4 slips (Statement of Remuneration Paid) to employees and file the corresponding T4 Summary with the CRA by the last day of February following the calendar year in which the income was paid. The last day of February 2026 is Saturday, February 28, and CRA's standard rule extends a filing deadline that falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or public holiday to the next business day — Monday, March 2, 2026. The same deadline applies to T5 slips (Statement of Investment Income), which is the slip most owner-managed corporations use to report dividends paid to shareholders.
Source: Canada Revenue Agency — When to file a T4 information return.
Late-filing this return is not a soft deadline: CRA charges a penalty of $10 to $25 per day the T4 or T5 information return is late, depending on the number of slips involved, with a minimum $100 penalty and a maximum that scales up to $7,500 for larger filers. For a Toronto CCPC that pays its owner a mix of salary (reported on T4) and dividends (reported on T5), both slip types share the same March 2 deadline this year — a detail worth confirming with whoever prepares your payroll, since it is easy to file the T4 on time and overlook the T5 if dividends were a late-in-the-year decision.
RRSP contribution deadline: also March 2, 2026
The deadline to make an RRSP contribution that can be deducted on your 2025 personal tax return is 60 days after the end of the calendar year. Sixty days after December 31, 2025 falls on Sunday, March 1, 2026, which CRA administratively extends to the next business day — Monday, March 2, 2026, the same day the T4/T5 filing deadline moves to.
Source: Canada Revenue Agency — RRSPs and other registered plans for retirement: Contributions you withheld.
For an owner-manager, this deadline is not just a personal-finance date — it directly affects the 2025 personal tax bill on income already drawn from the corporation. An RRSP contribution made by March 2, 2026 can still shelter 2025 employment or self-employment income, provided you have unused contribution room (found on your most recent CRA Notice of Assessment). This is the last lever available after year-end to reduce 2025 personal tax once salary and dividend amounts for the year are already fixed.
Why the same-day overlap matters for an owner-manager
| Deadline | What's due | Who it affects |
|---|---|---|
| March 2, 2026 | T4 slips + T4 Summary for 2025 employment income | Any corporation that paid salary/wages in 2025 |
| March 2, 2026 | T5 slips + T5 Summary for 2025 dividends and investment income | Any corporation that paid dividends in 2025 |
| March 2, 2026 | Last day to contribute to an RRSP and deduct it on your 2025 return | Individuals with unused RRSP contribution room |
In most years, T4/T5 filings finalize exactly how much salary and dividend income an owner-manager received before the RRSP deadline follows a few days later, giving a short buffer to plan the contribution against a confirmed number. That buffer disappears in 2026: filing the slips and deciding the RRSP contribution now land on the identical business day. Anyone still finalizing a year-end bonus or dividend declaration should get those numbers locked down well before March 2, rather than trying to calculate RRSP room and file payroll slips on the same afternoon.
What Toronto-area owners should do
- Prepare T4 and T5 filings early, ideally by mid-February, rather than treating March 2 as the working deadline — with the RRSP contribution decision competing for the same day, a late slip filing leaves no buffer to adjust your RRSP contribution around the final income figures.
- Check your RRSP contribution room on your latest CRA Notice of Assessment or through CRA My Account well before March 2 — over-contributing past your limit (beyond a small buffer) triggers its own penalty, and this is not something to work out at the last minute.
- Decide the RRSP contribution amount based on final 2025 salary/dividend figures, not a rough estimate made mid-year, now that the T4/T5 numbers should already be locked in.
- If your corporation pays dividends specifically to fund an RRSP contribution, remember dividend income does not generate RRSP contribution room on its own — only earned income (salary, wages, self-employment income) does. This is a common point of confusion for owner-managers who pay themselves primarily in dividends.
- If you use a payroll or bookkeeping provider, confirm now whether they process March 2 filings on the day itself or ahead of it, since a same-day crunch with the RRSP deadline is worth avoiding on principle, not just this year.
For a broader look at how salary-versus-dividend decisions affect both corporate and personal tax in Ontario, see our Ontario corporate tax guide. If your corporation is still working out this year's incorporation or compensation structure, our guide to incorporating a business in Ontario covers the basics.
Key takeaways
- T4 and T5 slips for 2025 income and the RRSP contribution deadline for the 2025 tax year both fall on Monday, March 2, 2026 — an overlap caused by February 28 landing on a Saturday and the usual March 1 RRSP cutoff landing on a Sunday.
- Late-filed T4/T5 returns carry a CRA penalty of $10 to $25 per day, with a minimum $100 penalty, regardless of the reason for the delay.
- Dividend income alone does not create RRSP contribution room — only salary, wages and self-employment income do.
- Because the slip-filing and RRSP-planning deadlines now land on the same day, finalizing 2025 salary and dividend figures early is more important than in a typical year.
- Check your actual RRSP contribution room via CRA My Account rather than estimating — over-contributions carry their own penalty.
If you want your T4/T5 filings and year-end owner compensation planning coordinated well ahead of this year's same-day deadline, RN Canada works with Toronto-area business owners remotely through our bookkeeping and payroll and tax return preparation services from our Edmonton and Vancouver offices.