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Reporting periods

Your annual sales determine how many times a year you have to file GST/HST returns. We refer to these as reporting periods.

For each reporting period, you have to prepare and send us a GST/HST return showing the amount of GST/HST you charged or collected from your customers and the amount of GST/HST you paid or owe to your suppliers.

Your reporting period is based on the total of:

When calculating annual taxable supplies do not include:

  • supplies made outside Canada,
  • zero-rated exports of goods and services,
  • zero-rated supplies of financial services,
  • taxable sales of capital real property, or
  • supplies of goodwill.

We assign your reporting period when you register for a GST/HST account. You can choose to file more frequently as shown in this chart.

Assigned and optional reporting periods
Annual Taxable Supplies Assigned reporting period Optional reporting period
$1,500,000 or less Annual Monthly or Quarterly
More than $1,500,000 up to $6,000,000 Quarterly Monthly
More than $6,000,000 Monthly Nil
Charities Annual Monthly or Quarterly
Financial Institutions Annual Monthly or Quarterly

Changing your reporting period

When you register for a GST/HST account, we assign the reporting period, but you can choose one of the options in the chart. If you qualify for an optional period and you want to change your assigned reporting period, call us or complete and send us Form GST20, Election for GST/HST Reporting Period.

If you want to change from quarterly to annual filing, tell us no later than three months after the beginning of the fiscal year you want the change to take effect. In all other cases, you must tell us no later than two months after the day you want the change to take effect.

Note
If your business is using accounting periods other than calendar months or quarters, or if you want to use fiscal months that do not meet the guidelines, see Accounting periods.

Forms and publications

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