Accessing our secure online services

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) continues to make more and more of its services available electronically. Today, Canadians can use our various secure, automated, self-service channels to meet their tax and benefit obligations. Our services are tailored to suit the needs of the clients we deal with every day.

During the last 10 years we have continuously kept pace with the changes in technology so that we can meet the strict privacy, confidentiality, and security standards that legislation requires and that Canadians expect from us.

When you sign on to one of our secure online services, you may notice that we ask you to provide a variety of personal information to identify yourself. The following provides a brief overview of the identification processes for individual tax and benefit clients who access our secure online services.

In the future, we will be merging many of our services into a single "My Account" service where each taxpayer will have a single user name and password to access our online services. We thank you for your patience during this period of service integration.

For more information about Internet security, see our Important notices. To get help using NETFILE or Change my address, or accessing My Account (see below), call our e-service Helpdesk.

NETFILE

NETFILE is one of our electronic tax-filing options. It allows you to send your personal income tax and benefit return directly to the CRA using the Internet. To use NETFILE you must have NETFILE-certified software and provide your social insurance number, your date of birth, and the four-digit access code included in your income tax and benefit package.

My Account

My Account allows you to view your personal income tax and benefit information and manage your tax affairs online. You can change your return, change your address or telephone number, formally dispute your assessment or determination, authorize your representative and much more.

Before you can access the services under My Account for the first time, you have to register for a Government of Canada epass. As part of the registration process, you will be required to provide some personal information, create an epass User ID and Password, and select and answer three questions. After you have completed this part of the process, your CRA Security Code will be mailed to you in approximately five business days (15 days if outside Canada and the U.S.).

To complete your registration, return to the CRA My Account Web site and enter your CRA Security Code to access your personal tax and benefit information. To access the CRA's My Account at any time in the future, you simply need to return to the CRA's My Account Web site and log in using your epass User ID and Password.