Tax season officially ended on April 30, which was the general deadline for most Canadians to file their 2025 personal tax returns. (Those with self-employment income, and their spouse or partner, have until June 15 to file.) For the most part, it was smooth sailing, and the 2026 filing season didn’t pose any extraordinary hiccups or technical glitches, as we have seen in prior years.
Here are some filing statistics based on this year’s tax season, why you should still file if you have yet to do so, and what to do if you need to change the return you just filed.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) filing stats show that 29.7 million tax returns were filed as of May 10, 95 per cent of them online. The CRA issued nearly 17 million refunds, totalling more than $39 billion, with an average refund of $2,282. More than 14 million individuals (including me) used the Auto-fill my return service to fill in parts of their 2025 tax return.
During this year’s official filing season, which ran Feb. 23 to April 30, the CRA’s contact centres received more than 6.5 million calls, or about 120,000 calls per day. Despite this high volume, the agency answered an average of more than 75 per cent of unique callers, reaching a peak of 83 per cent. Service levels were regularly reported online so that Canadians knew how long they would have to wait when calling.
The use of digital services continued to grow in 2026, with about 23 million users currently registered for a CRA account, enabling them to do things like to track their tax return status, view notices, access live agent support. The CRA also added new account recovery features, making it easier for Canadians who were locked out to regain access to their CRA account online. The CRA’s generative AI chatbot held more than 445,000 chat sessions, allowing users to get answers to more than 657,000 tax-related questions.
This past season, more than 480,000 tax returns were filed through the Community Volunteer Income Tax Program (to March 31), which continues to serve communities across Canada with renewed grant funding for eligible organizations over the next three years. Lower-income Canadians with a simple tax situation were able to use SimpleFile services (digitally or by phone) to file their 2025 returns, with more than 73,000 tax returns filed this way.
If you’re one of the Canadians who hasn’t yet filed a return yet for 2025, consider doing so even if you had minimal or zero income and thus owe no tax, to be able to access valuable benefit and credit payments. If you don’t file, you could face delays in receiving benefit payments which begin in July, even if you’re otherwise eligible. These benefits include the newly renamed Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB, formerly the GST/HST credit), with up to $1,890 available for a family of four this year, and up to $950 for a single individual. The first quarterly payment is scheduled for July 3. But, if you haven’t filed yet, or filed late, you won’t get your first CGEB payment until after your 2025 tax return is assessed.
Note that the previously announced one-time GST/HST top-up payment is scheduled to go out on June 5 for individuals who were entitled to receive the former GST/HST credit payment in January 2026. This top-up payment will appear as a GST/HST credit on your bank statement if you have signed up to receive direct deposits. This is because the top-up payment will be issued before the new CGEB officially begins.
The CRA also recently reminded taxpayers that it’s not too late to catch up on previous tax years’ tax filings. In many cases, taxpayers may be able to receive retroactive payments for benefits and credits going back up to 10 years, depending on the program and their eligibility.
To find out how much in benefits you may receive, look out for your electronic Notices of Determination, which can be viewed in the CRA My Account online. They will tell you which benefits and credits you qualify for and how much you will receive from July 2026 to June 2027.
Finally, if you’ve filed your return, but realize that you forgot to claim a deduction or report income, or made an error, it’s easy to fix it. In fact, you can request changes to your tax return without filing an amended return. Since last tax season, the CRA has introduced several improvements to make requesting changes to your tax return faster and easier.
Making changes to your tax return is simple and can be done in a couple of ways. The fastest is to submit your request online. To do so, in your CRA account, use the “Change my return” service, or in certified tax software, use the “ReFILE” service. The slower method is to submit your request by mail by completing Form T1-ADJ, T1 Adjustment Request, and send it with any supporting documents to your tax centre.
For online requests to change your tax return, you only need to provide supporting documents if the CRA contacts you after you submit your request. At that time, the CRA will give you a case number as you can’t submit or attach any documents until you have been given a case number.
When documents are required, you can submit them online through your CRA account using the case number provided. In some cases, you may receive your case number within 24 hours, but sometimes it can take longer. More than half of online change requests are processed without needing any supporting documents.
Most requests submitted online are processed within two weeks. As a result of ongoing efforts by the CRA, mailed requests are now being handled within the eight-week service standard, which is a huge improvement from the peak of 30 weeks in 2025. That said, online filing is still much faster.
Once you submit a change request, you can check out the CRA’s “Check processing times” tool, which is regularly updated so you can see how long requests may take, whether submitted online or by mail. You can also find updates on the status of your specific request without having to call the CRA by using the “Progress tracker” in your CRA account, which displays the anticipated processing time and expected completion date.