Which province do I file in if I live outside Canada?
It depends on which route makes you resident. A factual resident is resident because their ties are here, and those ties normally point at a province, so the return carries provincial tax and provincial credits. Someone resident by operation of a statutory rule, despite having no ties, has no province to point at, and their return is not a provincial return in the same sense. The province question is therefore settled as part of establishing which kind of resident you are, before any figures are entered.
Can a tax treaty make me a non-resident of Canada?
It can reach one of the two routes more readily than the other. Where you are resident because of ties, and you also have ties to a treaty country, a treaty can resolve the conflict and move your residence out of Canada. Where you are resident because a statutory rule says so despite the absence of ties, there may be no competing residence for a treaty to weigh, and the relief you are hoping for may not be reachable at all. Which position you are in is the first thing to establish, because it decides whether the treaty argument is worth building.
My family lives in Canada but I work abroad, what am I?
That is the classic ties question, and a family in Canada is one of the ties that weighs most heavily. It points towards being resident because your life remains here, which brings a full return with provincial tax and provincial credits, and leaves a treaty argument open if the country you work in also claims you. None of that is decided by how many days you spent where. It is decided on the whole picture, evidenced document by document, and it should be settled before a return is filed rather than after a notice arrives.
Do deemed residents get the same credits as everyone else?
Not the same set. The route by which you are resident drives which credits are available, because several of them are provincial and someone resident by statutory rule has no province of residence to claim them from. This is the practical reason the distinction matters even when the income being reported is identical. Two people can both be taxed in Canada on the same worldwide income and end up with different returns, different credit entitlements and different amounts payable, purely because of how they became resident.
How do I prove I am not a factual resident of Canada?
With documents about your life, not with a form. Where you live, who lives with you, what you hold here and what you gave up, each of it evidenced and dated. The case is made by showing that the ties which would make you resident are absent, and that is a cumulative argument rather than a single decisive fact. It is worth assembling before you file, because the position taken on a return is the position you will be asked to support, and evidence gathered years later is thinner.
Does it matter which one I am if the income is the same?
Yes. The income reported can be identical and the returns still differ: which province taxes you, which credits you can claim, and whether a treaty is available to move your residence out of Canada at all. Those are three different outcomes riding on how you became resident rather than on what you earned. It is also why a return prepared on an assumed route is worth checking. The figures may be right and the basis wrong, which is not something an assessment always catches.
Does keeping a bank account or a house make me resident?
A house available to you is one of the strongest indicators, especially with family living in it. A bank account on its own is a secondary tie that matters only in aggregate. Authorities weigh the whole picture: dwelling, spouse and dependants first, then accounts, licences, memberships and registrations. Leaving with a suitcase while the family home stays occupied rarely ends residency. See keeping a home while abroad.
What is the US exit tax and who actually pays it?
How much it is depends on your unrealised gains rather than on a rate, because it is the expatriation regime rather than a fee. A citizen who gives up citizenship, or a long-term permanent resident whose status ends, is tested against three conditions; meet any one and you are a covered expatriate, treated as having sold your worldwide assets the day before you left, with an exclusion for a slice of the resulting net gain — $890,000 for 2025. Deferred compensation, retirement accounts and interests in trusts are handled under separate rules rather than the deemed sale. Form 8854 reports it. See Form 8854.
