Corporate Tax Deadlines in Canada: The Full 2026 Calendar

A Canadian corporation's tax deadlines are not fixed calendar dates — they run on the corporation's own fiscal year-end. The T2 return is due six months after year-end, the balance owing is due two or three months after year-end, instalments (if required) are due monthly or quarterly throughout the year, and GST/HST and payroll remittances run on their own separate schedules. This guide puts every corporate deadline in one place, expressed relative to your fiscal year-end so it stays correct no matter what year you're filing in — plus the personal T1 deadline that applies to owners and the self-employed, which is a completely separate clock.

The corporate deadlines at a glance

The rest of this guide walks through each row, plus the personal T1 deadline, which is not a corporate obligation at all but is easy to conflate with the corporation's own dates.

T2 filing deadline: six months after year-end

Every resident corporation — active, inactive, or non-profit — files a T2 within six months of its fiscal year-end, whatever that year-end happens to be. A corporation is not required to use the calendar year; the year-end is set when the company is incorporated and can be changed with CRA approval. Whatever date you pick, the filing rule is always "six months later":

• December 31 year-end -> June 30 filing deadline.
• June 30 year-end -> December 31 filing deadline.
• March 31 year-end -> September 30 filing deadline.

There is no revenue or income threshold that excuses a corporation from filing — a dormant company with zero activity still owes a T2 every year. See our T2 corporate tax return guide for the schedules and what goes into the return itself.

Balance-due date: earlier than the filing deadline

This is the deadline most owners get wrong. The money is due before the return. The balance of tax owing is generally due:

• Two months after fiscal year-end for most corporations, or
• Three months after fiscal year-end for an eligible Canadian-controlled private corporation (CCPC) claiming the small business deduction.

With a December 31 year-end, that means a general corporation's balance is due February 28 (or 29), and an eligible small CCPC's balance is due March 31 — both well before the June 30 filing deadline. Interest accrues from the balance-due day even if the return is filed on time, so estimate and remit the balance before that earlier date rather than waiting for the six-month filing window.

Instalments: throughout the year, if required

If your corporation's combined federal-plus-provincial tax payable was more than $3,000 in the current or the prior tax year, you must pay tax by instalments rather than in one lump sum at year-end. The default frequency is monthly, due on the last day of each month; eligible small CCPCs claiming the small business deduction, with taxable income at or under the $500,000 small business limit and a clean compliance record, can instead pay quarterly, due on the last day of each quarter. New corporations are exempt from instalments in their first tax year. For the three CRA calculation methods, the Alberta-versus-federal split, and worked examples, see our corporate tax instalments guide.

Provincial filings: Alberta and Quebec run their own clock

Most provinces have their corporate tax collected through the single federal T2. Alberta does not — an Alberta corporation files a separate AT1 return with Alberta Tax and Revenue Administration (TRA), generally also due six months after year-end, with its own balance-due and instalment rules that mirror the federal timing. Quebec is the only other province that administers its own corporate tax separately. A BC corporation, by contrast, files only the T2 — BC's provincial tax rides along with the federal return. Our Alberta corporate tax guide covers the AT1 obligation and rates in full.

GST/HST: filing frequency depends on revenue, not fiscal year-end

Unlike the T2, GST/HST filing frequency is set by your annual taxable supplies, not your corporate fiscal year-end. As of the 2026 tax year:

Whatever your assigned frequency, the net tax owing is remitted by the same deadline as the return, and a nil return is still required for a period with no activity — you can always elect to file more often than your default if you regularly expect a refund. For registration, the $30,000 small-supplier threshold, and how to file, see our GST/HST registration guide and our broader GST/HST/PST overview; to estimate what you owe, use our sales tax calculator.

Payroll source deductions: remitted on a schedule set by withholding size

If your corporation has employees, CPP, CPP2, EI and income-tax withholdings are remitted to the CRA on a schedule driven by your average monthly withholding amount (AMWA), not your fiscal year-end. Most new and small employers are regular (monthly) remitters, with the total due by the 15th of the month following the pay period; larger payrolls move to quarterly or accelerated (threshold-1/threshold-2) remittance schedules as withholding amounts grow. Late remittances draw penalties of 3% to 10%. After the calendar year ends, T4 slips and the T4 Summary are due by the last day of February. See our CPP, CPP2 and EI guide for the current rates and thresholds, and our Alberta payroll guide for the province-specific picture; model the true cost of a hire with our employer payroll cost calculator.

The self-employed and owner's personal deadline (a separate clock)

Everything above is a corporate obligation. A sole proprietor has no corporation at all, so none of it applies — and even an incorporated owner's own personal return runs on a completely separate clock from their corporation's T2. This is worth pulling out on its own because it is the deadline most often confused with the corporate dates above:

• The T1 personal return is due April 30 for most individuals, including incorporated owners drawing salary or dividends.
• A self-employed individual (a sole proprietor, or someone whose spouse or common-law partner carried on a business) gets a filing extension to June 15 — but any balance owing is still due April 30, the same as everyone else.
• A sole proprietor's business income is reported directly on their T1 (via the T2125 form), not on a separate corporate return, and their GST/HST registration, if any, sits on their own SIN-linked CRA account rather than a corporate one.

Because the T1 deadlines are fixed calendar dates rather than fiscal-year-relative ones, they don't shift with your corporation's year-end the way the T2 does — an owner incorporated with, say, a September 30 fiscal year-end still files their own T1 by April 30 (June 15 if self-employed outside the corporation), entirely independent of when their T2 is due. Compare structures in our sole proprietor vs. incorporation guide.

Keeping the deadlines straight

Because the corporate calendar is anchored to your fiscal year-end and the personal, GST/HST and payroll calendars are not, a corporation with employees and GST/HST registration is really tracking four independent clocks at once. The practical fix is a single calendar built around your specific fiscal year-end, instalment obligations, GST/HST filing frequency and payroll remittance frequency — rather than relying on any one "tax deadline" date, which does not exist as a single fixed point for a business of any complexity.

How RN Canada helps

RN Canada is an accounting and advisory firm with offices in Edmonton and Vancouver, led by Ozgur Duymaz, Ph.D., CPA (Canada), ACCA (UK), CMA (US). We build the full deadline calendar for your corporation — T2 filing and balance-due dates, instalment schedule, GST/HST filing frequency, payroll remittance dates, and your personal T1 — so nothing is tracked from memory. Our tax return preparation service covers T2, AT1 and T1 filings end to end, and our bookkeeping and payroll service manages ongoing GST/HST and payroll remittances on the correct cadence.