Should I File Form NR73 When I Leave Canada?

Nothing we could locate in the CRA’s own material requires it. Every CRA description of Form NR73 we could locate is conditional or permissive: complete it if you need help working out your residency status, complete it if you want the CRA’s opinion on that status, and the folio says departers “should consider” it. What the form gives back is an opinion built entirely on the facts you put on it, and the CRA says that opinion doesn’t bind it. Two fact patterns still make filing the right move, and there’s one thing the form can’t do for you at all, which is give you certainty.

Is Form NR73 mandatory when you leave Canada?

No CRA statement we could locate makes it mandatory. The CRA’s form page says to complete it if you need help determining your residency status. The CRA’s residency page says to complete it if you want the CRA’s opinion on that status. Folio S5-F1-C1, paragraph 1.54 says departers “should consider” it, under a heading about how to obtain a determination. Conditional or permissive wording every time, with no obligation attached to any of it.

“Complete this form if you have left or are planning to leave Canada temporarily or permanently and need help determining your residency status for income tax purposes.” (CRA, Form NR73 E (24), page 1)

The mandatory “shall” language in the Act attaches somewhere else. A return of income in prescribed form has to be filed for a taxation year “without notice or demand for the return” (Income Tax Act section 150(1)). No comparable language attaches to NR73 anywhere in the CRA material above.

One line on the form reads like the opposite of all this, so read it slowly. The instructions say you don’t have to complete the form if you usually live in Canada and are leaving Canada for a weekend or short trip (Form NR73 E (24), page 1). That’s a carve-out for short trips. It doesn’t flip into a requirement for everybody else, and the three descriptions above carry no trip-length qualifier at all.

What does Form NR73 actually do?

What you get back, in most cases, is the CRA’s opinion on your residency status. The certification block you sign on page 8 says the CRA uses what you enter to give an opinion, and Folio 1.55 adds the hedge: in most cases the CRA will be able to provide one from the completed form. It doesn’t decide your status for you. Residence turns on all the relevant facts of your case (Folio 1.8), and the date you become a non-resident is a question of fact too, answerable only after reviewing the facts and circumstances of your case (Folio 1.22). The form asks for those facts.

“The CRA uses the information that you enter on this form to give an opinion on your residency status. If your situation changes, contact the CRA.” (CRA, Form NR73 E (24), page 8, Certification)

That date has a general answer the folio does not leave out, and neither should this page. The CRA will generally take the date of non-residence to be the date you sever all residential ties, which usually coincides with the latest of the date you leave, the date your spouse or common-law partner and dependants leave, and the date you become a resident of the country you are moving to. Paragraph 1.23 then carves out the person who was resident in another country before entering Canada and is leaving to re-establish residence there, who generally becomes a non-resident on the day of leaving (Folio 1.22 and 1.23). If a spouse staying behind is your situation, that one is worked properly next door: what your departure date actually is when your spouse stays in Canada. Either way these are facts about your life, and the form asks after them rather than setting them.

That’s why the order of the residency tests matters more here than the paperwork does. The statutory concept the Act reaches for is “ordinarily resident” (ITA section 250(3)), and what that gets measured against is all the relevant facts of your case, per Folio 1.8 above. Filling in a form doesn’t change what your facts are. If that’s the part you’re stuck on, here’s the order the residency tests actually run in, and which one your facts land on.

Is the CRA’s answer on Form NR73 binding?

Not on the CRA. Folio paragraph 1.55 says the opinion is based entirely on the facts the taxpayer provides on the form, that it “is not binding on the CRA”, and that it may be subject to a more detailed review later, with supporting documentation required at that time. Where certainty is what you actually need, the CRA’s own guidance points at a different process in the very next paragraph.

“In most cases, the CRA will be able to provide an opinion regarding a taxpayer’s residence status from the information recorded on the completed form. This opinion is based entirely on the facts provided by the taxpayer to the CRA in Form NR73 or NR74, as applicable. Therefore, it is critical that the taxpayer provide all of the details concerning his or her residential ties with Canada and abroad. This opinion is not binding on the CRA and may be subject to a more detailed review at a later date and supporting documentation may be required at that time.” (Folio S5-F1-C1, paragraph 1.55)

Where certainty is required about the tax consequences of a proposed departure, the Income Tax Rulings Directorate “may, in appropriate circumstances, be prepared to issue” a binding advance income tax ruling on residency status, and “generally, such a ruling will only be available where all of the facts of the situation can be ascertained in advance of the proposed departure” (Folio 1.56). That’s a different route from NR73, and it’s the one the CRA names for the reader who needs an answer they can lean on. Read the soft words in it, though. The Rulings Directorate may issue one, in appropriate circumstances, so a ruling is not yours on request. And the window keys to the proposed departure, which makes this a route to raise before you go rather than after you’ve gone.

There’s a phrase on the CRA’s residency page that reads harder than “opinion”, and you’ll meet it if you go looking. Across the outcome branches of its residency decision tool, the page says “For an official residency determination, complete Form NR73” (CRA, Determining your residency status). Set that beside the certification block on the form and paragraph 1.55 of the folio, both of which call the output an opinion. “Official” describes the channel you went through. It doesn’t describe the legal force of what comes back.

What does the form actually ask you?

Eight pages of your life, and most of it is ties. It asks why you’re leaving, where you’ve gone, who travelled with you and who stayed, then runs long tick-lists of what you’ll keep in Canada and what you’ll have in the other country. It also asks whether you intend to return to Canada to live, and what your long-term goals are (Form NR73 E (24), pages 5 and 6). Those last two are the ones people answer casually, and the opinion you get back is built on whatever you wrote.

• “I will keep memberships in Canadian social, recreational, or religious organizations.”
• “I will have a telephone listing or service in Canada.”
• “I will keep a mailing address, post office box, or safety deposit box in Canada.”

The form’s personal-information notice tells you the purposes the CRA collects it for:

“Personal information (including the SIN) is collected and used to administer or enforce the Income Tax Act and related programs and activities including administering tax, benefits, audit, compliance, and collection.” (CRA, Form NR73 E (24), page 8)

What actually bites when you fill it in is paragraph 1.55’s point. The opinion rests entirely on the facts you provide, which is why the folio calls it critical to give all the details of your ties here and abroad, and the CRA can ask for supporting documents on a later review (Folio 1.55). A thin form produces a thin opinion.

When is filing Form NR73 the right call?

When your facts genuinely point two ways. The CRA’s own residency decision tool reaches two answers that tell you to complete Form NR73 for its opinion, each at the end of a specific path through its questions: one on whether you’d be a deemed non-resident, the other on whether you’d be a factual resident or a deemed non-resident under the treaty and tie-breaker rules (CRA, Determining your residency status). The table sets out which answers get you to each. Either way, what comes back is an opinion that isn’t binding on the CRA.

Your situation	Does filing NR73 help?	What it still doesn’t buy you	What to do instead
Clean break: home sold, spouse and dependants travelled with you, new home established abroad	Little to add. The opinion would be built on facts that already point one way	Still an opinion that isn’t binding on the CRA, open to a more detailed review later (Folio 1.55). Your departure date stays a question of fact either way (Folio 1.22)	Departure date on page 1 of the return, Form T1161 if the total fair market value of all the property you owned when you left came to more than $25,000, and, if you still have Canadian accounts or amounts being paid to you from Canada, tell those payers and your financial institutions (CRA, Leaving Canada)
You kept significant ties, you answered “More than a total of 183 days and planning to return to Canada (no time limit)”, and you’re treaty-resident in the other country	Yes. On exactly those three answers the CRA’s own tool says to complete Form NR73 for its opinion on whether you’d be a deemed non-resident (CRA, Determining your residency status)	Still an opinion that isn’t binding on the CRA, open to a more detailed review later (Folio 1.55)	Get the order of the residency tests right first; the form asks for your facts rather than weighing them
You’re leaving permanently, you kept significant ties in Canada, you’ll establish significant ties outside it, and the factual-resident versus deemed-non-resident question is genuinely live	Yes. That’s the branch where the same tool says to complete Form NR73 for the CRA’s opinion on whether you’d be a factual resident or a deemed non-resident, “based off the treaty and tie-breaker rules” (CRA, Determining your residency status)	Still an opinion that isn’t binding on the CRA, and it rests entirely on what you write, so a thin form produces a thin opinion (Folio 1.55)	Complete it properly, with all the details of your ties here and abroad
A large departure-tax number turns on the date and you want certainty before you leave	Not for this	Still an opinion that isn’t binding on the CRA, open to a more detailed review later (Folio 1.55), which is the opposite of certainty	The advance income tax ruling route, a different process from NR73. The Rulings Directorate may, in appropriate circumstances, issue a binding ruling, and generally only where all the facts can be ascertained in advance of the proposed departure, so raise it before you go (Folio 1.56)
The disagreement is between Canada and a treaty country over which one you’re resident of	Only on the Canadian side. It’s a domestic CRA opinion on your status	Any resolution with the treaty partner	Competent Authority Services, where Folio 1.57 sends residency issues with treaty countries
You’re leaving for a weekend or a short trip and your life stays in Canada	There’s nothing here to determine	n/a	The form’s own instructions say you don’t have to complete it (Form NR73 E (24), page 1)

The 183-day line quoted in that table is one of the decision tool’s own answer options, not a threshold this page is setting. The question it sits under is “How long are you expecting to live outside Canada?”, so the 183 days there counts expected time away rather than days spent in Canada, and it is not the Act’s sojourning rule (CRA, Determining your residency status).

If you skip NR73, what do you actually have to file when you leave Canada?

The things with real triggers. Put your date of departure on page 1 of your return, in the Residence Information area. Complete Form T1161 if the total fair market value of the property you owned when you left Canada was more than $25,000. If you still have Canadian bank accounts or amounts being paid to you from Canada, the CRA says you’re required to notify those payers and your financial institutions that you’re no longer a resident. And if no return turns out to be due, tell the CRA your departure date anyway (CRA, Leaving Canada (emigrants)).

“Note: If it is determined that you are a non-resident of Canada, you are expected to pay or post acceptable security for departure tax and advise Canadian financial institutions that make payments to you that you may be subject to non-resident withholding taxes on certain income (for example, dividends).” (CRA, Form NR73 E (24), page 6)

That’s the form’s own account of what follows a non-residence determination, and both items are actions rather than filings.

The departure forms that do have a filing trigger, T1161 and T1243, fire on a number and a date. NR73 has no trigger of that kind anywhere in the material above, which is the contrast worth holding onto.

The rest of the departure job is a list, and it’s covered properly next door: the full leaving-Canada checklist, in the order the jobs actually happen.

What should I do next?

Work out which line of the table is yours before you touch the form. If your facts already point one way, the departure return is the job and filing NR73 is your call. If you kept significant ties and another country claims you, or if the factual-resident question is genuinely open, the CRA’s own tool points at the form. If a large number turns on your departure date, ask about the advance ruling route, and ask before you go: the Rulings Directorate may issue one in appropriate circumstances, and generally only where all the facts can be ascertained in advance of the proposed departure.

• The inbound twin, Form NR74, for arriving in Canada rather than leaving it

This guide is general information, not tax advice for your specific situation. Which points apply, and how, depends on your facts.