Do I file one Canadian return or two for the year I moved?
One return for the calendar year, with the date residence began or ended stated on it. It is not two returns; it is a single return with a line drawn down the middle of the year. On one side of the date only Canadian-source income belongs on it, and on the other side income from all sources does. Personal amounts are apportioned to the part of the year you were resident. That makes the date the most consequential entry on the return, which is why it is settled from documents before any income figure is entered rather than assumed while the schedules are filled in.
What date do I put in the residency box on my return?
The date your residence actually began or ended, which is a question of fact rather than a date you may nominate for convenience. It is evidenced by the things that moved: when the dwelling became available or ceased to be, when a spouse and dependants arrived or left, when the employment started or ended, when the household goods were shipped. Where those events are spread over several weeks the documents decide which one carries the date. Put in a date you cannot support and it will not merely be the one entry that is wrong, because the apportionment, the property treatment and the foreign reporting all key off it.
Do I report foreign income earned before I moved to Canada?
Not on the Canadian return. For the part of the year before residence began, Canada looks only at Canadian-source income, and salary, interest and rent arising abroad in that period stay off the return. From the date onwards income from all sources is reportable, wherever it arises and whether or not it is brought into Canada. The practical trouble is income that straddles the date, such as employment paid in arrears or an annual distribution, which has to be allocated rather than dropped on whichever side is convenient. That allocation is part of the filing work and needs its own supporting calculation.
Are my personal tax credits reduced in the year I arrived?
Several of them are. The personal amounts are apportioned to the part of the year in which you were resident, so claiming them as though you had been here for the whole year overstates the claim and invites an adjustment. Not every credit is treated the same way, and some are tied to income earned in the period of residence rather than to the length of that period. Because the apportionment is driven by the transition date, an incorrect date quietly changes the credits as well as the income split, and the two errors can partly mask each other on the bottom line.
Do I have to report my foreign property in my arrival year?
Foreign reporting starts when residence starts and stops when it stops, so the date decides the question, and the first year of residence is treated on its own terms rather than as an ordinary resident year. We settle the date first and then determine whether the obligation arises for that year at all, because the two possible answers look nothing alike: either a full statement of the foreign holdings is due or none is. Assuming the ordinary resident treatment applies to an arrival year is the more common error, and assuming it never applies is the other one.
I filed as a full-year resident by mistake, can it be fixed?
Yes, by adjusting the return rather than filing a second one, and the adjustment is larger than it sounds. Introducing the correct date means the income split, the apportioned personal amounts, the treatment of property held at the date and the foreign reporting position all move together, so an amendment that changes the date and nothing else will not reconcile. Where the year in question is followed by returns prepared on the same mistaken footing, those years usually need restating too. The work is to rebuild the year from the date outwards, then file the adjustment with the reasoning attached.
Does foreign employment income create RRSP room?
Only where it is earned income reported on a Canadian return. RRSP room is built from earned income that Canada sees, so a non-resident year of foreign salary generally builds none, and foreign tax paid does not create room of its own. This is why people returning to Canada after years abroad find their contribution room much smaller than the years elapsed suggest, and why the notice of assessment is the only reliable statement of it. See returning to Canada after years abroad.
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.
