The Canadian Sole Proprietor Tax Guide
- Targeted Accounting
- Business
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Table of Contents
How You're Taxed
There is no legal separation between you and a sole proprietorship. The business doesn’t file a return; you do, and the business’s profit is simply one more source of income on it.
That has three practical consequences. Your business profit stacks on top of any employment income, so a side business can push you into a higher bracket. A business loss can generally be applied against your other income, which is genuinely valuable in early years. And you are personally liable for every business debt and claim — the reason many owners eventually incorporate has more to do with liability than tax.
Because no tax is withheld at source, the entire year’s liability lands at once. Setting aside 25–30% of every payment received is the habit that separates owners who find tax season routine from those who find it a crisis. The right percentage depends on your bracket and province; confirm yours rather than guessing.
Key Takeaways
- A sole proprietorship is not a separate taxpayer. Business profit is your personal income, taxed at your marginal rate, with unlimited personal liability attached.
- Your return is due 15 June, but any balance owing is due 30 April. Interest runs from 1 May.
- You pay both halves of CPP — 11.90% in 2026, plus 8% on the CPP2 band — which surprises most people in their first full year.
- Home office and vehicle claims are legitimate and frequently under-claimed, but they are also the most audited, and both live or die on documentation.
- Equipment is depreciated, not expensed. Getting the current-versus-capital line wrong is the most common adjustment we see.
The T2125
Form T2125, Statement of Business or Professional Activities, is where the business gets reported. It attaches to your T1 and works through gross revenue, cost of goods sold, expenses by category, business-use-of-home, vehicle costs and capital cost allowance, ending in the net figure that flows onto your return.
File a separate T2125 for each distinct business. A graphic designer who also rents out equipment runs two activities with two industry codes, not one blended statement. Partnerships report their share, and the partnership itself may also need to file a T5013 depending on size.
If you are registered for GST/HST (our GST/HST guide for Canadian small business covers when registration is required), report revenue and expenses net of tax — the tax portion flows through your GST/HST return instead. Reporting gross amounts while also claiming input tax credits is double-counting, and it is a straightforward thing for the CRA to spot.
What You Can Deduct
The statutory test is short: an expense is deductible if it was incurred to earn business income, is reasonable in the circumstances, and isn’t specifically prohibited. Most disputes turn on “reasonable” and on the personal-use boundary rather than on eligibility in principle.
Routinely deductible: advertising, professional and legal fees, business insurance, bank and merchant charges, office supplies, software subscriptions, subcontractors, rent, repairs and maintenance, training that maintains existing skills, and business travel.
Restricted or non-deductible: meals and entertainment are limited to 50%; club dues and most membership fees are not deductible; clothing is not deductible unless it is genuinely protective or a required uniform; the personal portion of any mixed-use cost must be excluded; and capital items are depreciated rather than expensed.
Current versus capital
The line that causes the most reassessments. A repair that restores an asset to its previous condition is a current expense, deductible in full this year. An outlay that improves the asset, extends its life or creates something lasting is capital, and comes off over years through CCA. Replacing a broken laptop screen is current. Buying the laptop is capital.
Business Use of Home
You may claim home expenses if your home is your principal place of business, or if a space is used exclusively for business and regularly for meeting clients.
The claim is proportionate, normally by area: a 120 square foot office in a 1,200 square foot home gives 10%. Apply that percentage to rent or mortgage interest (interest only, never principal), property tax, utilities, home insurance, and maintenance. Where a room is also used personally, prorate again by time.
Two rules define this claim. Business-use-of-home expenses cannot create or increase a business loss — they can reduce your business income to zero and no further. And any amount denied on that basis carries forward indefinitely to be used against future business income from the same business. Owners who assume a disallowed claim is lost simply leave the deduction on the table.
Claiming CCA on the portion of your home used for business is permitted but rarely advisable: it can jeopardise part of the principal residence exemption when you sell, converting a tax-free gain into a taxable one.
Vehicle Expenses
Vehicle deductions are the most commonly reassessed item on a sole proprietor’s return, and almost always for the same reason: no logbook.
You may deduct the business proportion of fuel, insurance, licence and registration, maintenance and repairs, lease costs or CCA, and loan interest. The proportion is business kilometres divided by total kilometres driven in the year. Driving between home and a regular place of business is personal, not business — a distinction that materially changes many claims.
The logbook needs the date, destination, purpose and distance of each business trip, plus odometer readings at the start and end of the year. The CRA accepts a simplified approach: keep a full logbook for one representative year, then a three-month sample in later years, provided the pattern stays within a reasonable range of the base year. In practice a mileage app is far easier than either.
Passenger vehicles above a set cost are capped for CCA, lease deduction and interest purposes, so the tax benefit of an expensive car is limited by design. Certain pickup trucks fall outside the cap entirely — see bookkeeping for contractors and trades. These ceilings are adjusted periodically — confirm the current year’s limits before advising on a purchase.
Capital Cost Allowance
CCA is the tax version of depreciation. Assets are grouped into classes, each with its own rate, and you claim a percentage of the remaining balance each year on a declining-balance basis.
| Class | Rate | Typical contents |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | 20% | Furniture, fixtures, most equipment not listed elsewhere |
| 10 | 30% | Most vehicles, and general-purpose computer equipment acquired before class 50 applied |
| 10.1 | 30% | Passenger vehicles above the cost ceiling — each in its own class |
| 12 | 100% | Tools under the prescribed cost, software (non-systems), uniforms, dies |
| 13 | Varies | Leasehold improvements, over the lease term |
| 50 | 55% | Computer hardware and systems software |
| 1 | 4% | Buildings acquired after 1987 |
In the year you acquire an asset, the half-year rule normally limits you to half the usual claim. Various enhanced first-year incentives have applied in recent years and several have expired or been modified; because these change with each federal budget, confirm what applies to the specific acquisition year rather than relying on a general rule.
CCA is optional in any given year, and you may claim any amount from nil up to the maximum. In a low-income year it is usually better to claim little or nothing and preserve the undepreciated balance for a year when your marginal rate is higher. Unclaimed CCA is never lost.
When you sell an asset for more than its remaining tax value, the difference is recaptured and added back to income. Selling for less produces a terminal loss. Neither is intuitive, and both are easy to miss when equipment is traded in rather than sold outright.
CPP and Instalments
Self-employed Canadians pay both the employee and employer shares of CPP — 11.90% in 2026 on net business income between $3,500 and $74,600, plus 8% on the CPP2 band from $74,600 to $85,000. Half is deductible against income; the other half is a non-refundable credit. It is still a real cash obligation of up to roughly $9,300 at the ceiling, and it is due with your April balance.
Once your net tax owing exceeds $3,000 in the current year and in either of the two preceding years, the CRA will require quarterly instalments, due 15 March, 15 June, 15 September and 15 December. Every personal and business date for the year is in our Canadian small business tax deadlines calendar. You can pay the amount the CRA calculates, or base instalments on your own estimate — but if you underestimate, instalment interest applies, and it is not deductible.
Records the CRA Expects
Keep records for six years from the end of the tax year they relate to. That means supporting documents, not just summaries: invoices issued, receipts for purchases, bank and credit card statements, mileage logs, and the working papers behind any allocation you made.
The single most effective control is a dedicated business bank account. Commingling personal and business transactions in one account is not illegal, but it makes every claim harder to defend, multiplies bookkeeping cost, and is often the reason a routine review becomes a broad one.
Electronic records are acceptable and images of receipts are fine, provided they are legible and retained for the full period. Thermal receipts fade within a year or two, so photograph them at the point of purchase.
When to Incorporate
The usual trigger is retained profit. Our comparison of sole proprietorship vs corporation vs partnership sets out the trade-offs, and the T2 corporate tax guide covers what a corporation then owes. While you are spending everything the business earns, incorporation adds cost without much benefit, since money taken out is taxed in your hands either way. Once profit consistently exceeds what you need to live on, the corporate small business rate lets you defer personal tax on the amount left inside.
Liability is the other driver, and often the more important one. So is the ability to sell shares rather than assets, and access to the lifetime capital gains exemption on qualifying small business corporation shares — which is substantial, but requires meeting conditions well before a sale.
Against that, weigh annual corporate filings, separate books, higher professional fees, and the fact that business losses can no longer offset your other personal income. It is a calculation worth running properly rather than deciding by rule of thumb.
First Year Self-Employed?
We’ll set up your books, confirm what you can claim, and tell you what to set aside — before April, not after.
