Do I have to file a Canadian return if I keep my house but live abroad?
It depends on what the house does to your residence, and that has to be settled before the filing question can be answered at all. If the dwelling is kept available for you, it weighs heavily towards continued residence, and continued residence means an ordinary return reporting income from all sources. If it is genuinely let to an arm's length tenant and your other ties have gone, the likely position is non-residence, and then the filing set is quite different: withholding on the rent at source and, if you elect, a return computing tax on the net rental profit instead. One set of facts, two entirely separate filing outcomes.
If I rent out my Canadian house, who sends the tax to CRA?
Where the owner is a non-resident, the obligation sits with the person paying the rent or with the agent collecting it, not with the owner. They withhold from the gross rent and remit it to the authority, and they are the ones exposed if it is never done. That is why a Canadian agent is usually appointed: a private tenant rarely knows the obligation exists, and the arrangement needs to be in place from the first payment. The owner's own filing, if any, comes later and works out the real liability on the profit.
Can I deduct mortgage interest on my Canadian rental as a non-resident?
Not through the withholding, which is calculated on the gross rent and takes no account of what the property costs to hold. Deductions come in only if you file the elective return that computes tax on the net rental income, where the interest, the property taxes, the insurance and the repairs are brought in against the rent. For a mortgaged property the difference between the two outcomes is usually large, because the gross figure bears no relationship to what the owner actually keeps. Whether the election is available to you for a given year is a separate question with its own timing.
Does letting my family live in my Canadian house count as renting it?
Not in the sense that helps you. The weight given to a dwelling turns on whether it is genuinely let at arm's length, on what terms, and who has access to it. An arrangement with a relative, especially one with no real lease, no market rent and an understanding that you can come back, leaves the dwelling effectively available to you, which is the version of the tie that counts against a non-residence position. It can also create a rental source without the commercial terms that make the deductions work. Both halves tend to be discovered together.
I left my Canadian home empty while abroad, am I still resident?
A dwelling standing empty and available for your own use is the single heaviest tie in a residency argument, and leaving it empty rather than letting it is the strongest version of that tie rather than a neutral choice. It does not settle the matter by itself, because a spouse, dependants and the rest of the picture are weighed alongside it, but it is the fact that most often keeps a departing client resident. The practical consequence is the filing set: a resident return reporting income from all sources, for as long as the position holds.
Do I have to tell my tenant that I live outside Canada?
In practice yes, because the withholding duty falls on the payer of the rent and they cannot comply with a duty they do not know they have. A tenant who pays you the full rent for years, in good faith, is the person the authority looks to for the amounts that should have been withheld, and the eventual conversation is a bad one for both of you. Appointing an agent to collect the rent and handle the remittances takes the obligation off an individual tenant and puts it with someone who knows how the mechanism works.
How long do I have to be out of the country to stop being resident?
There is no single period that settles it. Canada looks at whether your ties were actually severed, not at a day count; the United States taxes citizens regardless of where they live; India applies day-count thresholds with a second limb reaching back over earlier years. Time abroad is evidence, not a rule — what decides it is where your home, family and economic life sit. See tax residency.
What is a foreign tax credit?
A credit against your home-country tax for income tax you already paid to another country on the same income, so the same amount is not taxed twice at full rates. It is capped: you cannot credit more than your home country would have charged on that income, which is why a higher foreign rate leaves an unused balance rather than a refund. In the US it is claimed on Form 1116, in Canada on the T2209 and T2036, in India on Form 67. See Form 1116.
