Every autumn we get the same call, usually in the third week of December: “I need to put money in my RRSP before the 31st, right?” No. You have until the first 60 days of 2027 for that. Meanwhile the thing that genuinely does expire at midnight on the 31st, the stock sale that would have cancelled out a capital gain, quietly goes unmade.

December 31 is not one wall. It is two lists: items that really do end with the calendar year, and items you can still handle in the new year. This guide sorts both, for an individual filing a personal return and for an owner-managed corporation.

Bottom Line Up Front

Your RRSP contribution for 2026 is not a December 31 deadline. Contributions made in the first 60 days of 2027 are still deductible on your 2026 return (CRA, 2026).

Your FHSA contribution for 2026 is a December 31 deadline. CRA says a contribution made in the following calendar year cannot be deducted on the earlier year’s return (CRA, 2026).

Tax-loss selling needs the trade settled inside 2026, so place it a few business days before the 31st.

If you turn 71 in 2026, your RRSP has to be dealt with by December 31, 2026. Highest-stakes date on the list.

If you are incorporated, December 31 only matters if that is your fiscal year end.

What expires December 31, and what does not
Tax-loss selling and the settlement trap
Donations and medical expenses
Turning 71 this year
TFSA withdrawals: December beats January
RRSP and FHSA: two different deadlines
The December 15 instalment
Your corporate year end is your own
Year-end tax planning for a small corporation

What expires December 31, and what does not

Everything in the first table is gone at midnight on December 31, 2026. Everything in the second is still available in 2027. CRA’s filing and payment dates run on the same annual pattern: April 30 to file and pay, with June 15 to file if you or your spouse are self-employed (CRA, 2026, showing the 2025-return cycle). CRA posts each year’s exact dates in the new year, and a date landing on a weekend moves to the next business day.

Must happen by December 31, 2026

Item	Why the date is hard
Selling a losing investment in a non-registered account	The disposition has to fall in the 2026 calendar year
Charitable donations for your 2026 return	CRA counts gifts made January 1 to December 31
Medical expenses, for a 12-month period ending in 2026	The claim period has to end inside the tax year
Converting your RRSP if you turn 71 in 2026	Your last contribution and your choice of what comes next
A TFSA withdrawal, to get the room back January 1, 2027	Room returns on January 1 of the following year
Your 2026 FHSA contribution	No 60-day grace period

You still have time after December 31, 2026

Item	Actual deadline
RRSP contribution for the 2026 tax year	First 60 days of 2027
Filing your 2026 personal return	April 30, 2027, or June 15 if you or your spouse are self-employed
Paying your 2026 personal balance	April 30, 2027, even if you file in June
T4 slips for 2026 payroll	Last day of February 2027, so March 1, 2027 (February 28 is a Sunday)
Paying a bonus accrued at year end	Within 180 days of the year end
Filing your corporate T2	Six months after your fiscal year end

Print that. The rest is the detail behind those rows.

Tax-loss selling and the settlement trap

Selling a losing non-registered holding before year end turns a paper loss into a usable capital loss. It goes against your capital gains for the year first. Anything left over becomes a net capital loss you can carry back three years or carry forward indefinitely, but only against taxable capital gains, never employment income (CRA, 2025).

Two things trip people up.

The calendar. CRA’s rule is that you report a disposition in the calendar year you sell (CRA, 2025). Your broker works off settlement, and Canadian securities have settled one business day after the trade since the move to a T+1 cycle in May 2024 (Canadian Securities Administrators, 2024). A trade placed on December 31 settles in January.

The superficial loss rule. You cannot sell for the loss and buy the same thing straight back. CRA denies the loss if you, or a person affiliated with you, buy the same or identical property in the window starting 30 calendar days before the sale and ending 30 calendar days after it, and still hold it 30 days after the sale (CRA, 2025). Affiliated includes your spouse and a corporation you control, and repurchasing inside your RRSP or TFSA does not save you. The denied loss usually gets added to the cost base of the replacement property, so it is deferred rather than destroyed.

Worked example, 2026 tax year. In May 2026 you sold a stock and realized a $14,000 capital gain. In December you still hold a position sitting $9,000 under water, and you sell it on December 22. Your net capital gain for 2026 drops from $14,000 to $5,000. With no gain at all this year, that $9,000 would instead become a net capital loss you could apply against taxable capital gains reported in 2023, 2024 or 2025. What you cannot do is buy the same stock back on January 5. The tax actually saved depends on your marginal rate and the inclusion rate for the year.

Donations and medical expenses

Charitable donations are a hard December 31 item. CRA counts the donations you made between January 1 and December 31 of the tax year (CRA, 2021). A cheque dated December 31 that clears in January is a 2027 gift. Check the receipt itself before you file it: CRA lists what a donation receipt has to show and what makes one invalid (CRA, 2026). Keep it with the rest of your tax records for at least six years (CRA, 2026). You do not have to claim it that year, though. You can generally claim up to 75% of your net income and carry unclaimed amounts forward five years (CRA, 2026), which is why a large gift is often worth parking for a higher-income year.

Medical expenses run on a different clock. You do not claim a calendar year of receipts. You claim any 12-month period ending in the tax year (CRA, 2025). The window has to end inside 2026, but it need not start on January 1. A period running July 2025 to June 2026 is fair game.

Only the amount above a threshold counts. For 2025 that was the lesser of 3% of your net income or $2,834, indexed annually, so check the 2026 figure before you file. The December decision is whether a procedure or a pair of glasses gets paid before or after the 31st. Total your pharmacy and dental statements by month now, using our personal tax document checklist for everything else.

Turning 71 this year

If you turn 71 at any point in 2026, December 31, 2026 is the last day you can contribute to your own RRSP (CRA, 2026). The 60-day extension does not help, because after December 31 you no longer have an RRSP to contribute to.

The plan itself also has to change. CRA frames it as choosing one of three options at any age up to the end of the year you turn 71: transfer the funds to a registered retirement income fund (RRIF), buy an annuity, or withdraw the money (CRA, 2026). That third option puts the whole balance into one year’s income, which is almost never what anyone wants.

Two moves are worth considering first. A final contribution in the year you turn 71, if you have unused room and earned income, is a deduction you can never get again. And if your spouse is younger, spousal contributions can continue past your 71st birthday, because that deadline runs off the annuitant’s age.

Start the paperwork in October, not late December. This one is not fixable afterwards. If you are also sorting out contribution room, see our note on RRSP over-contributions and the T3012A.

TFSA withdrawals: December beats January

This one takes ten minutes and costs nothing. When you withdraw from a TFSA, you get that amount back as new contribution room on January 1 of the following year (CRA, 2026).

Now attach dates. Withdraw $20,000 on December 30, 2026 and the room returns two days later, on January 1, 2027. Withdraw the same $20,000 on January 2, 2027 and it does not come back until January 1, 2028. Same transaction, a full year of difference, decided by which side of midnight it landed on. If you know you need TFSA money in the first half of next year, take it out in December. The annual limit is $7,000 for both 2025 and 2026 and it is indexed, so confirm the 2027 figure in the new year (CRA, 2026).

One caution. This works only if you leave the money out until January 1. Recontributing in the same calendar year you withdrew is the classic route to an excess TFSA amount and a monthly penalty tax.

RRSP and FHSA: two different deadlines

The confusion between these two is expensive in one direction only.

The RRSP gives you extra time. Contributions made in the first 60 days of the following year are still deductible on the earlier year’s return. CRA’s posted date for the last cycle was March 2, 2026 for the 2025 tax year (CRA, 2026). For the 2026 tax year the 60-day count lands on March 1, 2027, which is a Monday, so no weekend shift applies. CRA had not yet posted that date as of September 2026, so confirm it on CRA’s RRSP important dates page closer to the time.

The RRSP dollar limit is $33,810 for 2026 and $35,390 for 2027, indexed annually (CRA, 2026). Your own limit is usually lower, so work from your notice of assessment rather than the headline figure. Go over by more than $2,000 and you pay 1% per month on the excess (CRA, 2026).

The first home savings account (FHSA) gives you nothing extra. CRA states plainly that contributions made in the following calendar year cannot be deducted on the earlier year’s return (CRA, 2026). Your 2026 FHSA money has to be in the account by December 31. Annual participation room is $8,000 against a $40,000 lifetime limit, and unused room carries forward (CRA, 2025). Our FHSA and Home Buyers’ Plan comparison covers which fits a first-home purchase.

The December 15 instalment

If CRA has asked you to pay by instalments, the quarterly due dates for individuals are March 15, June 15, September 15 and December 15 (CRA, 2026). December 15 is the one that vanishes into the holidays.

When a due date falls on a weekend or a public holiday CRA recognizes, payment on the next business day counts as on time. December 15, 2026 is a Tuesday, so there is no grace. Farmers and fishers are on a different schedule: one payment, due December 31. Miss one and CRA charges instalment interest.

Your corporate year end is your own

Before acting on anything below, check what your fiscal year end actually is. CRA’s rule is short: the tax year of a corporation is its fiscal period, and you file the T2 within six months of the end of each tax year (CRA, 2026). If your year end is June 30, none of the corporate items below are December 31 deadlines for you. They are June 30 deadlines.

The tax itself is due before the return. CRA’s business deadline summary puts the balance at two months after year end for most corporations, and three months for a Canadian-controlled private corporation claiming the small business deduction (CRA, 2026). That ordering catches new owners every year.

One deadline does not move with your year end. T4 slips run on the calendar, so 2026 payroll slips are due by the last day of February 2027 whenever your fiscal year closes. February 28, 2027 is a Sunday, and CRA treats a return filed on the next business day as on time, which makes the practical date March 1, 2027 (CRA, 2026).

Year-end tax planning for a small corporation

Five things are worth reviewing in the quarter before your year end.

Salary or dividends

This is not a decision you can make in April looking backwards. Salary needs a payroll account, source deductions remitted through the year, and a T4 by the last day of February. Dividends need a T5 and a documented directors’ resolution. Salary creates RRSP room and CPP contributions. Dividends create neither. Decide before your year end, because a salary settled on in June cannot be run retroactively through a payroll account that was never opened. If the structure itself is still unsettled, that is a conversation about incorporation and business setup.

Bonus accruals and the 180-day rule

A corporation can accrue a bonus at year end, deduct it that year, and pay it out in the next one. The catch is the payment window. CRA’s position is that remuneration not paid within 180 days from the end of the tax year in which the expense was incurred is treated under subsection 78(4) as not incurred in that year, so it is not deductible then (CRA, 2026; see also the archived CRA bulletin on unpaid amounts).

The “179 days” you sometimes hear is not a competing rule. Both the statute and CRA say 180. Subsection 78(4) applies where the amount is unpaid on the day that is 180 days after the end of the taxation year (Income Tax Act, s. 78(4)), and CRA’s bulletin on unpaid amounts states that payments made on the 180th day meet the deadline. So 179 is a margin some advisers keep, not a shorter legal limit. For a December 31, 2026 year end, day 180 is June 29, 2027. Calendar the payment the week the bonus is declared and leave more margin than a single day.

Capital purchases and what you actually write off

Buying equipment in the last week before year end does not buy a full year of depreciation. The half-year rule means that in the year you acquire a property you can usually claim capital cost allowance (CCA) on half of your net additions. It also has to be available for use, which CRA generally treats as the date you first use it to earn income (CRA, 2025). A machine still crated on your year-end date is not available for use.

These rules have changed more than once, so work from the current CRA position. CRA states the two measures below in the conditional (“would be reinstated”, “would apply”), which is how it describes announced measures, so confirm the legislation has passed before you plan a large purchase around either. Three points matter for a 2026 purchase.

The accelerated investment incentive and immediate expensing measures for certain CCA classes are reinstated for qualifying property acquired on or after January 1, 2025 that becomes available for use before 2030, with a four-year phase-out after 2029 (CRA, 2026).
Immediate expensing, a 100% first-year deduction, applies to new additions to CCA classes 44, 46 and 50 acquired after April 15, 2024 and available for use before 2027 (CRA, 2026). Class 50 is computer equipment and systems software, which is why this one reaches nearly every small corporation. That window closes at the end of 2026.
The separate $1.5 million immediate expensing regime, the one that let an eligible person or partnership write off the full cost of designated immediate expensing property up to $1.5 million a year, required the property to be available for use before 2025 (CRA, 2025). It is not available for anything you buy now. If someone tells you a 2026 purchase qualifies for it, they are working from an expired rule.

The books, the receipts and the shareholder loan

Three housekeeping jobs, all cheaper in November than in March. Close the books before the year ends. Chase missing receipts while you can still remember what the charge was. Then look hard at the shareholder loan account, because money drawn out of the company and never recorded as salary or dividends is a problem waiting for your accountant. A loan received because of your shareholdings also carries a deemed interest benefit, calculated at CRA’s prescribed rate for each quarter the loan is outstanding and reported on a T4A slip under code 117 (CRA, 2026). If the books are the obstacle, that is what bookkeeping support is for.

The timing rule is the part to calendar. A shareholder loan is normally added to your personal income, but subsection 15(2) does not apply to a loan “repaid within one year after the end of the taxation year of the lender or creditor in which the loan was made”, provided the repayment “was not part of a series of loans or other transactions and repayments” (Income Tax Act, s. 15(2.6)). For a December 31, 2026 year end, a loan drawn in 2026 has to be repaid by December 31, 2027. Borrowing it back in January is exactly the series of loans and repayments the rule is aimed at.

Paying family members for real work

You can deduct salary paid to a spouse, common-law partner or child, but CRA sets conditions: you have to actually pay it, the work has to be necessary for earning business income, and the amount has to be reasonable, meaning what you would have paid someone else for the same work (CRA, 2026). CRA also expects documentation: a cancelled cheque, or a signed receipt if you paid cash. Reasonableness is where these arrangements fall apart on review. A teenager who genuinely does eight hours a week of bookkeeping and social media is one thing. A salary with no hours behind it is another.

Not sure which of these apply to you? Ruby Tax has been filing personal and corporate returns from North York for over ten years, and you talk to the person doing the work, not an account manager. Book a free quote or call 647-990-7258 before the December rush.

Common Questions

If I donate on December 30 but cannot use the credit this year, is it wasted?

No. The gift has to be made by December 31 to belong to that tax year, but you do not have to claim it that year. Unclaimed amounts carry forward five years, which is often the better play if your 2026 income is unusually low.

Can I sell a stock at a loss and have my spouse buy it back?

No. The superficial loss rule applies to purchases by you or a person affiliated with you, and a spouse is affiliated. So is a corporation you control, and so are your own RRSP and TFSA. Buy something similar but not identical, or wait out the 30 days.

It is already December 28. Is anything left worth doing?

Yes, in this order: make the charitable donation and get the receipt dated, take a TFSA withdrawal if you will need cash in the first half of 2027, and fund the FHSA if you have room. Tax-loss selling is probably too late to settle. Your RRSP contribution is not urgent at all.

A year-end tax planning checklist you can run in an afternoon

Work the first table from the top down. Sell the losers with enough runway to settle, make the donations, total the medical receipts, move TFSA money if you will need it, fund the FHSA, and check the December 15 instalment. If you turned 71 this year, do the RRSP conversion first.

Then stop. The RRSP contribution, the T4 slips, the accrued bonus and the T2 are all 2027 problems, and treating them as December emergencies is how the real deadlines get missed. If you are incorporated, run the same exercise against your own fiscal year end and check your corporate filing deadlines while there is still time to act.

About the author. Raj is the principal of Ruby Tax, a CRA e-file certified tax and accounting practice at 250 Consumers Road in North York. He has spent over ten years preparing personal and corporate returns for clients across Canada, from first-time filers to incorporated businesses and franchise operators. Year-end planning calls are a standing part of his autumn.

This article is general information, not tax advice for your situation. Tax rules change and the right answer depends on your facts. Confirm anything here against current CRA guidance or talk to us before you act on it.

Published: September 14, 2026. Last updated: September 14, 2026.

Year-End Tax Moves to Make Before December 31

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