Does crypto go on a T1135?
It can. Canadian foreign-property reporting reaches property held with a foreign platform, so a balance on an exchange outside Canada is squarely inside the question rather than outside it. Two tests decide it: whether the holding is specified foreign property, and whether it is held with a foreign custodian. Neither test asks whether you sold anything. Answer them holding by holding rather than account by account, because one platform account can contain items that fall on different sides, and a single answer applied to the whole account states the position for none of it.
Is T1135 based on cost or on market value?
Cost is what drives it. The reporting question is built around the cost amount of specified foreign property rather than what the property is worth today, which surprises people whose crypto has multiplied in value and who expect the market figure to matter. The practical consequence is that the records you need are historic: what you paid, in Canadian dollars, on the date each lot was acquired. A screenshot of today's balance answers none of it. Market value still has its place on the form, so both sets of records earn their keep, but cost is what the reporting question turns on.
What if I never recorded the Canadian dollar cost?
Then the first piece of work is reconstruction, and it is usually possible. Exchange exports carry the date, the quantity and the price paid in whatever currency the trade settled, and the Canadian dollar cost follows by applying the rate for that date. Coins bought with other coins need the earlier lot traced back as well, which is where the chains get long. Do it once, properly, and the result is a cost schedule you carry forward for every future year. Record the method and the rate source alongside it, because the schedule is only as defensible as its working papers.
Do I file T1135 if I did not sell anything?
Disposals are not what triggers it. The report is due on the strength of what you held during the year, so a year in which you neither bought nor sold can still be a reporting year, and there may be no income entry on the return itself to prompt the thought. This is the most common way the form is missed. Test the position for every year the holding existed rather than only the years with transactions, and keep the year-end holding record even when nothing happened, because a quiet year still has to be evidenced if it is ever asked about.
Does crypto in my own wallet go on T1135?
That is a different question from a balance sitting with a platform, and the two can be answered differently. The custodian limb of the test looks for property held with a foreign custodian, and self-custody has no custodian at all: no account, no institution, no terms. Whether the holding is nonetheless specified foreign property has to be worked through on its own footing. What matters practically is that you can tell the two apart after the fact, so keep the record of which coins sat under your own keys and which sat with a platform, year by year.
Which exchange statements support a T1135 crypto entry?
Start with a complete trade export covering every year of ownership, because the cost side of the report is historic and cannot be rebuilt from a current balance. Add year-end statements, the deposit and withdrawal history with addresses, and the account terms naming the entity you contracted with. Keep the rate source used to convert each acquisition into Canadian dollars. Held together with the working papers, that set lets you show how every figure was derived. Pull the exports while the account is still open, because platforms close and historic statements go with them.
What is the penalty for a late T1135 or a missed FBAR?
Both are penalty regimes attached to the form rather than to any tax, which is why people who owed nothing still face them. The Canadian foreign property statement carries a per-month penalty with much larger amounts for a failure that continues or is made knowingly; the US account report is separate again and pivots on whether the failure was wilful. Relief exists — voluntary disclosure, reasonable cause, taxpayer relief — and it narrows once the authority makes contact. The reporting trigger on the US side is an aggregate balance over $10,000 at any point in the year. See late T1135 penalty relief.
Do I have to declare my dual citizenship?
A tax return does not generally ask you to declare which passports you hold; it asks about residence, and in the US case it applies to citizens by definition. What does ask is your bank. Account-opening self-certification under FATCA and the Common Reporting Standard asks which countries you are a tax resident or citizen of, and the answer is reported onward to the tax authority. So the practical answer is that the information arrives either way. See FATCA reporting.
