Newcomer to Canada — first return checklist
What a first Canadian return needs, including the arrival-value documentation that sets your cost base.
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What a first Canadian return needs, including the arrival-value documentation that sets your cost base.
The document pack
- The arrival date, with the immigration document that supports it
- A list of property owned on arrival, with its value on that day
- Statements or valuations dated as close as possible to the arrival date
- Income received before arrival and after arrival, separately
- Foreign pension, retirement and savings account details
- Any foreign business or company interest
- Spouse and dependant details, with their own arrival dates
- Foreign tax returns and assessments for the year of arrival
Why each of these is asked for
The arrival valuation is worth more than any deduction on the return: property is generally treated as acquired at that day's value, so pre-arrival growth falls outside the Canadian charge — but only if it can be evidenced. Separating pre- and post-arrival income is what makes the part-year computation and the prorated credits work.
What to do next
Send what you have and we will tell you what is missing. A complete pack is usually the difference between a filing that takes a fortnight and one that takes a season. One call is usually enough to know whether this is a filing or a project.
Read and approved for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, Cross-Border Tax Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. Written as general guidance, not as a recommendation for your situation. Talk it through with us before acting on it.
Global mobility international tax returns, in practice
Readers arrive here searching for global mobility international tax returns, and newcomer to Canada is what the page is about. Below: who it catches, what has to be filed, and what it costs — quoted in writing, before anything is done.
Why clients bring newcomer to Canada — first return checklist to us
Residence is tested, not assumed
Where you are resident for treaty purposes is a question with a method. We work through it and write down the answer, with the facts it rests on.
The quote comes from your documents
Nothing is priced from a phone call. We read what you have first, then the fee is set — so the scope and the number are agreed on the same evidence.
A named reviewer on every file
Every page on this site and every file we deliver says which practitioner reviewed it — a person, not a team inbox.
Cross-border is the whole practice
International and cross-border tax is all we do — not a sideline next to domestic work. The edge cases on this page are our ordinary Tuesday.
What these engagements turn on
Establishing arrival values for a portfolio held before the move
A client arrived holding listed shares and mutual funds built up over a working life abroad, and assumed a later sale would be taxed on everything since he bought them. We obtained broker statements dated as close to the arrival date as the institutions issued them, together with independent price records for that day, and set a value for each holding. The engagement produced a documented cost base for the whole portfolio at the arrival date, with the source of every figure recorded, so a disposal in any later year starts from an evidenced position.
Splitting employment income around an arrival date
A client kept being paid by her former employer abroad for a period after she landed, and her annual foreign summary showed one figure for the whole year. We worked from payslips rather than the summary, allocated each payment to the period it related to, and set the pre-arrival and post-arrival amounts out separately with the foreign assessment alongside. The work produced a part-year computation built on the actual dates, prorated credits calculated from them, and a schedule tying the Canadian figures back to the foreign documents.
A family arriving on different dates in one tax year
One spouse came ahead to start work and the rest of the family followed after the school term. The household had been treating the later date as everybody's. We took the immigration documents for each person, established individual arrival dates, and prepared each part year on its own facts. The engagement produced separate residence positions for the adults, dependant details tied to their own dates, and a written summary of who became resident when, which the family kept for the years in which those dates still matter.
A foreign company interest disclosed on a first return
The client held shares in a private company abroad and had not mentioned it, because the company had paid nothing out and felt unconnected to his move. It was relevant twice over: it was property held on arrival and so needed a value at that date, and it brought reporting of its own. We obtained the accounts, established a value on the arrival date and documented the basis. The work produced an arrival value for the holding and a first return that disclosed the interest rather than leaving it to surface later.
Reconstructing an arrival valuation for a home kept abroad
A client came to us some years after arriving, having kept a house in her former country and now wanting to sell it. No valuation had been obtained at the time. We assembled what could still be evidenced for the arrival period — comparable registered sales, a retrospective appraisal from a local valuer, and dated listing records — and documented the limits of each. The engagement produced a supported value for the arrival date, a written explanation of how it was arrived at, and a disposal computation that runs from it.
Pension accounts identified before the first return was filed
The client listed bank accounts when we asked what he held on arrival and left out two workplace pensions abroad, on the basis that he could not touch them yet. They still form part of what was owned on the arrival date and they carry their own treatment. We obtained the scheme documents and statements around the arrival date for each. The work produced a complete schedule of property held on arrival, values for the pension interests, and a first return prepared on the full picture rather than the visible part of it.
Coming Back to Canada After Years Abroad
Returning restarts Canadian residence and re-values what you own on the day you arrive. Foreign pensions, employer plans and accounts opened abroad each land differently, and the reporting thresholds are tested against the whole portfolio rather than each account.
Read how this one runsNever Filed a US Return — and Only Just Found Out
Born in the United States, left as an infant, and told by a bank that the returns were owed all along. The work is sequencing: establish which years are actually open, choose the catch-up route on the facts rather than filing quietly, and claim the exclusions and credits that were never taken.
Read how this one runsAll case studies — every published engagement in one place.
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