Is there a late filing penalty for Form NR73?
There is no due date on it, so there is nothing for a late-filing penalty to attach to. It is an optional request for the CRA's view of when your residency ended, and a request you never make cannot be late. What can be late is the return for the year you left, and that is where the charge sits. If you are searching for the penalty on this form, the question underneath it is almost always an unfiled departure year, which is a different and more expensive problem.
I left Canada years ago and never filed — what is the penalty?
The charge is the ordinary late-filing penalty on each outstanding return. For the 2025 tax year that is five per cent of the balance owing for the year plus one per cent of that balance for each full month the return is late, to a maximum of twelve months, with interest compounding daily on the unpaid amount. The departure year is usually the one that hurts, because the deemed disposition on leaving can create a balance in a year with no sale behind it. Establishing the departure date is where that work has to start.
Will sending NR73 now make my unfiled years worse?
It can change which years are late. The determination is reached on the ties you disclose, and if that account puts the end of your residency later than you have assumed, returns you treated as unnecessary become returns that are outstanding. The reverse happens too. The sequence matters more than the form: work out what the facts support, decide which years are therefore required, and file them; then request the determination if a third party needs it. Asking first and filing afterwards is how people end up with a written answer they must then live with.
Does the CRA charge double for a second late return?
Not for repetition on its own, which is the version of this rule that circulates most. The elevated rate needs two things together: a demand to file issued by the CRA, and a late-filing penalty actually charged in any of the three preceding tax years. Where those hold, the 2025 rate is ten per cent of the balance owing plus two per cent for each full month, capped at twenty months. Twelve months to twenty is not a doubling either, so a notice that simply doubles the ordinary figures is worth checking.
Does the penalty on my departure return keep growing every month?
Not indefinitely. The monthly component stops at its cap, and the penalty is not charged on itself, so once the cap is reached that part of the account is fixed at whatever the balance produced. Interest is the part that does not stop. It compounds daily on whatever is unpaid, the penalty included, and on a departure year left for a long time it commonly becomes the larger number. That is the practical argument for remitting an estimate towards the balance while the return and the valuations behind it are still being prepared.
Should I get my residency date settled before filing the late returns?
The date has to be settled; asking the CRA to settle it is a separate decision. You cannot prepare a departure-year return without a date, because the deemed disposition is measured at it and the income split runs from it, so the evidence work comes first either way. What you do not have to do is wait for a determination before filing. The penalty and the interest continue while a request is outstanding, and a request made before the returns are in tends to be answered on a thinner file than it deserves.
What is a section 217 return and should I file one?
An election available to a non-resident receiving certain Canadian pension and benefit payments. Normally those payments suffer flat withholding and that is the end of it. Under the election you file a Canadian return and are taxed on that income at graduated rates as though resident, which produces a refund of part of the withholding where the graduated result is lower — and no benefit where it is not. It is worth modelling before electing, because the choice is annual. See the section 217 return.
What is Part XIII withholding?
Canada's flat withholding on certain payments to non-residents — dividends, interest to related parties, rents, royalties, pension and annuity payments, management fees. The payer withholds and remits, and is liable if they do not, which is why they insist on documentation. A treaty can reduce the rate, but only where the recipient has given the payer the declaration establishing entitlement before payment. Where too much was withheld, a refund claim is the route, with its own time limit. See Part XIII withholding review.
