What should I do before I arrive in Canada as a retiree?
Work through your plans and accounts while you are still outside the Canadian net, because the options narrow on the day residence begins. In practice that means three things. Establish when residence will begin and what fixes it. Get a value recorded for every asset as at that day, since it becomes the Canadian cost. And have the documents for each retirement arrangement read against the treaty, so you know before the first payment which country is entitled to tax it. Reviewing all of this before arrival is materially cheaper than restructuring afterwards, and some of it cannot be done afterwards at all.
When do I actually become a Canadian resident for tax purposes?
It follows from facts rather than from a filing. Establishing a home here, your spouse and dependants arriving, and the ordinary ties of living somewhere are what make you resident, and the date is drawn from them. Immigration status is evidence but not the test. The date matters more here than in most questions, because the cost of your worldwide assets resets to their value on it and everything received after it is potentially Canadian income. Settle it deliberately, gather the evidence as it is created, and keep that evidence with the first return.
Should I take a lump sum from my pension before moving?
It is one of the few decisions that genuinely has to be made before the date, so it belongs early in the sequence. A payment received while you are not yet resident is generally outside Canadian income; the same payment a month later generally is not, and the treaty article for that class of payment may or may not change the result. Whether taking it is sensible also depends on what the paying country does with the withdrawal, what the plan loses by being broken into, and where the money would then sit. The point is that the option is live only before arrival.
Which of my accounts will Canada want me to report?
Reporting on holdings outside Canada is a disclosure regime separate from the tax on their income, and it takes in more than bank accounts: investment accounts, some interests in foreign entities and certain property held abroad can fall within it. Not everything does. A personal residence you use and some pension entitlements are treated differently. The practical starting point is a complete list of everything held outside Canada with its country, currency and value at the arrival date, and then a decision on each line about whether it sits inside the regime.
Do I need valuations of my overseas property before I move?
For anything you may one day sell, yes, and the time to get them is around the arrival date rather than at the point of sale. Becoming resident is treated as acquiring what you own at its value that day, so that value is the figure Canadian tax on a later gain is measured from. Years afterwards a value has to be reconstructed and can be argued with. A contemporaneous appraisal for property and dated statements for accounts are ordinary documents to obtain at the time, and they are the cheapest part of the whole exercise.
Will I be taxed twice on the pension I bring with me?
Usually not twice in the end, but often twice at first. The paying country commonly deducts at source, Canada taxes the same payment because you are resident here, and relief arrives as a credit for the foreign tax rather than as an exemption, which means the money is collected in both places before the accounts are squared. Where a treaty article gives the taxing right to one country for that class of pension, the deduction at source can sometimes be reduced or reclaimed instead. Establishing which of those applies to each stream, before the first payment, is the work.
I work remotely from another country for a company back home — who taxes me?
Usually the country you are physically in, because employment income is generally sourced where the work is done, with your residence country taxing it as well if you are resident there and giving credit. Three things follow: your employer may acquire withholding and social security obligations where you sit, a treaty tie-breaker may be needed if both countries call you resident, and a short trip that becomes a long stay can cross a residence threshold nobody was watching. See remote workers and digital nomads.
Is the foreign tax credit refundable?
No. It reduces your tax to nil at most; it never pays out beyond that. Where foreign tax exceeds the credit you are allowed, the excess is generally carried back or forward within its own category rather than refunded — so a high-tax year abroad can leave a balance you use in a later year. Tracking those balances matters, because an unused carryforward can expire. Our carryforward tracker keeps the running position.
