T4 Slip Guide: How Canadian Employers Issue Year-End Tax Slips
T4 is the Canadian equivalent of a US W-2. Complete 2026 guide for Canadian small business.
April 24, 2026 1 min readby TinSuite Team
canadian tax canadian-t4-slip payroll
The T4 (Statement of Remuneration Paid) reports employment income and deductions for each employee. Required for every person who received employment income in the year.
Essential details
- Deadline: Distribute by last day of February following the tax year
- File with CRA electronically if 50+ slips; paper allowed if fewer
- Include: gross pay (Box 14), CPP (Box 16), EI (Box 18), income tax (Box 22)
- Pension adjustment (Box 52) if employee was in a registered plan
- Summary (T4 Summary) totals all T4s and reconciles to what was remitted during the year
How to file correctly
1. Collect the data from your payroll records — don't reconstruct at year-end
2. Use official CRA forms — free downloads from canada.ca
3. File electronically when required (50+ slips)
4. Distribute copies to recipients by the deadline
5. Keep records for 6 years — CRA audit window
Common mistakes
- Missing the distribution deadline (last day of February for most slips)
- Using wrong box for income type
- Forgetting to remit source deductions monthly (PD7A)
- Not reconciling year-end to the T4 Summary
- Quebec employees: not filing the separate RL-1 slip
How TinSuite handles this
- Auto-generates T4, T4A, T5, RL-1 slips from your payroll data
- CPP, EI, and income tax calculated automatically
- Quebec-specific forms (QPP, QPIP) supported natively
- PD7A remittance reminders and calculations
- Bilingual EN/FR-CA interface
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