The GST/HST Credit and Canada Child Benefit: Money You Must Claim

A lot of newcomers spend their first year in Canada thinking the government takes money from them. Income tax, CPP, EI, sales tax on almost everything you buy. It feels like a one-way street.

What most people don’t realise — and what nobody at the bank or the immigration office tells you — is that the government also pays money back. Real money. Every month, or every three months, straight into your bank account. Tax-free.

Two of the biggest benefits are the GST/HST credit and the Canada Child Benefit (CCB). If you have kids, the CCB alone can be worth more than $7,000 per child per year. And yet I’ve met families who lived here for two or three years before they figured out they were leaving thousands of dollars on the table.

Here’s what I wish someone had explained to my parents — and what I want every newcomer reading this to know.

Why Our Parents Missed This Money

When my parents arrived, the idea that the government would just send you money sounded like a scam. Where they came from, government letters meant trouble. You didn’t go looking for attention from the tax office.

So they didn’t file taxes in their first year. They didn’t apply for benefits. They worked, they saved, they paid for everything in cash, and they assumed that staying invisible was the safer move.

It wasn’t. Staying invisible meant missing every cheque the CRA could have sent. And it meant their first real tax filing came with a confusing pile of back paperwork.

The Canadian system isn’t perfect, but on this one thing it’s actually generous: if you file a tax return, the government pays you benefits you’ve already earned just by living here. You don’t need to be a citizen. You don’t even need to have a job. You need to be a resident for tax purposes and you need to file.

What the GST/HST Credit Actually Is

Every time you buy something in Canada, you pay sales tax. Five percent federal GST, plus a provincial portion in most provinces (so 13% HST in Ontario, 15% in the Atlantic provinces, separate PST in BC and others). For a low- or middle-income family, that adds up fast.

The GST/HST credit is the government’s way of giving some of that back to people who can least afford it. It’s paid four times a year — usually in January, April, July and October — straight to your bank account.

For the July 2024 to June 2025 benefit year, the maximum annual amounts were roughly:

• Up to $533 per single adult
• Up to $533 for an eligible spouse or common-law partner
• Up to $184 per child under 19

So a couple with two kids could receive up to roughly $1,434 for the year, paid in quarterly chunks (verify the current 2025-26 figures at canada.ca/cra before counting on them — these amounts adjust with inflation each July).

The amount you get depends on your family income. The lower your income, the closer you get to the maximum. As your income rises, the benefit slowly phases out. Most newcomers in their first few years are well within the range to get something — often the full amount.

What the Canada Child Benefit Actually Is

If you have kids under 18 and you’re a resident for tax purposes, this is the big one.

The Canada Child Benefit is a monthly, tax-free payment for families raising children. It’s calculated on family net income from the previous tax year, and it’s redone every July when the new benefit year starts.

For the July 2024 to June 2025 benefit year, the maximum annual amounts were:

• Up to $7,787 per child under age 6
• Up to $6,570 per child aged 6 to 17

That’s per child. Per year. A family with two young kids and modest income could receive over $1,200 a month, tax-free (verify the current 2025-26 numbers at canada.ca/cra — these are indexed to inflation and the federal government adjusts them every July).

Like the GST/HST credit, the full amount goes to lower-income families, and it phases out as income rises. But the phase-out is gradual — middle-income families still get meaningful amounts. A household earning around $60,000 with two young kids was still getting roughly $9,000 to $11,000 a year in CCB in 2024-25.

Who Counts as a Newcomer for These Benefits

You don’t need to be a Canadian citizen. You don’t need to be a permanent resident, though that helps. The CRA looks at whether you’re a resident for tax purposes, which mostly comes down to whether Canada is now where your life is — your home, your family, your work, your bank account.

You’re generally eligible for these benefits if you fall into one of these groups:

• Canadian citizen
• Permanent resident
• Protected person (refugee status)
• Temporary resident who has lived in Canada for at least 18 months and holds a valid permit in the 19th month
• An Indigenous person registered under the Indian Act

Work permit holders, study permit holders and refugee claimants can qualify too, depending on how long they’ve been here and their permit status. If you’re unsure, the CRA can confirm — or a free tax clinic during tax season can walk you through it.

How to Actually Apply

This is where most newcomers get stuck. The benefits aren’t automatic in your first year. You have to apply, and the forms have different names for different situations.

For the GST/HST credit in your first year

Newcomers without kids should fill out Form RC151 — the GST/HST Credit Application for Individuals Who Become Residents of Canada. You file this once, in your first year here. After that, the CRA automatically considers you for the credit every time you file your tax return.

For families with kids

Fill out Form RC66 (the Canada Child Benefits Application) and the RC66SCH schedule for newcomers. This one form gets you registered for the CCB and the GST/HST credit at the same time — you don’t need to file the RC151 separately.

You’ll need:

• Your SIN (Social Insurance Number) and your spouse’s, if you have one
• Your children’s information — names, birthdates, and proof of birth if they were born outside Canada
• Proof of your status in Canada (PR card, work permit, study permit, etc.)
• Income information for both spouses for the last two years, including foreign income before you landed

The foreign income part trips people up. The CRA wants to know what you earned in your home country before becoming a resident, because they use it to estimate your benefits for the first year here. You’re not paying Canadian tax on that money — they just want to make sure benefits go to families who actually need them.

After your first year

This is the easy part. Once you’re registered, the benefits flow automatically — as long as you file a tax return every year. Both spouses must file, even if one had no income. The CRA recalculates your benefits every July based on the previous year’s family income.

The Mistake That Costs the Most Money

Not filing a tax return because you didn’t earn anything.

I cannot stress this enough. In Canada, you file taxes to receive benefits, not just to pay them. The CRA has no way of knowing whether you qualify for the GST/HST credit or the CCB unless you file. A zero-income return takes 20 minutes to do and unlocks thousands of dollars a year for many newcomer families.

If you missed previous years, you can usually still file them. The CRA can pay the Canada Child Benefit retroactively for up to 10 years and the GST/HST credit for up to 3 years if you catch up on missing returns. It’s worth doing.

Free Help, Because the Forms Are Confusing

You don’t need to pay an accountant for any of this. The CRA runs a program called the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (CVITP), where trained volunteers help people with modest incomes file taxes for free — usually from February to April every year. Many newcomer settlement agencies host clinics in multiple languages.

Search canada.ca for “free tax clinic” plus your city. Many run year-round for back-filing.

You can also file online for free with certified tax software. Wealthsimple Tax and several others let you file federal and provincial returns at no cost for simple situations, which is most newcomers’ first few years.

One More Thing About Trust

Our parents weren’t wrong to be careful. Government paperwork in many countries means trouble, fees, bribes, or worse. The instinct to stay quiet and stay invisible kept a lot of families safe in places where it mattered.

But here, on this specific thing, the system works differently. Filing a tax return doesn’t put you on a list to be punished. It puts you on a list to be paid. The same CRA that you might be nervous about is the one writing the cheque.

If you’ve been in Canada for a year or two and never filed, don’t panic — just file. If you have kids and haven’t applied for the CCB, send in the RC66 this week. If you’ve been working hard and feeling like the system only takes from you, find out what it owes you back.

It’s not a handout. It’s money that was set aside for families exactly like yours.