Let Revenue Canada Help Pay for Your Move
You can deduct eligible moving expenses from employment or self-employment income you earn at your new location if you move and establish a new home to be employed or carry on a business.
Your new home must be at least 40 kilometers (by the shortest usual public route) closer to the new place of work or educational institution. You must establish your new home as the place where you ordinarily reside. For example, you have established a new home if you have sold or rented (or advertised for sale or rent) your old home.
– Expenses you can deduct
You must first determine if you qualify to deduct moving expenses.
You can deduct reasonable amounts that you paid for moving yourself, your family, and your household effects. Not all members of your household have to travel together or at the same time.
Eligible moving expenses include:
* travelling expenses, including vehicle expenses, meals, and accommodation, to move you and members of your household to your new residence (you can choose to claim vehicle and meal expenses using the simplified method – see Meal and vehicle rates used to calculate travel expense);
* transportation and storage costs (such as packing, hauling, in-transit storage, and insurance) for household effects, including items such as boats and trailers;
* costs for up to 15 days for meals and temporary accommodation near either residence for you and the members of your household (you can choose to claim meal expenses using the simplified method – see Meal and vehicle rates used to calculate travel expense); and
* the cost of cancelling a lease for your old residence, except any rental payment for the period during which you occupied the residence.
When your old residence is sold as a result of your move, eligible moving expenses also include:
* legal fees for the purchase of the new residence, as well as any taxes paid (other than GST/HST or property taxes) for the transfer or registration of title to the new residence, if you or your spouse or common-law partner sold the old residence, and
* the cost of selling your old residence, including advertising, notarial or legal fees, real estate commission, and mortgage penalty when the mortgage is paid off before maturity.
If you moved after 1997, and your moving expenses were paid in a year after the year of your move, you now may be able to claim them on your return for the year you paid them against employment or self-employment income earned at the new location. You may carry forward any unused amounts and deduct them only against such income earned at the new location in the following years.
This may apply if your old residence did not sell until after the year of your move. If this is the case, you will have to submit Form T1-M, Moving Expenses Deduction, with the receipts and explain the delay in selling your home.
If this affects how you would have filed your return for a previous year, you can ask us to change it. See How to change your tax and benefit return.
Incidental costs related to the move
You can claim the cost of changing your address on legal documents, replacing driving licences and non-commercial vehicle permits (excluding insurance), and utility hook-ups and disconnections.
Costs to maintain your old residence when vacant
You can claim, to a maximum of $5,000, the cost for interest, property taxes, insurance premiums, and heat and utilities expenses you paid to maintain your old residence when it was vacant after you moved, and during a period when reasonable efforts were made to sell the home.
The costs must have been incurred when your old residence was not ordinarily occupied by you or by any other person who ordinarily resided with you at the old residence immediately before the move. You cannot deduct these costs during a period when the old residence was rented.