$500 is the number this entire guide hangs on. Under the reporting fees for service requirement, total payments exceeding $500 in a calendar year must be reported to the CRA in the prescribed form — usually the T4A slip, in box 048 (s1). Reporting fees for service is the legislated requirement to report fees paid to other businesses for services (s1). Put plainly for the most common case: pay an individual or unincorporated contractor $500 or more for services and the amount is reported in box 048 of a T4A (s2).
The deadline at the other end is equally fixed. Slips must be issued to recipients by the last day of February of the following calendar year (s1), and T4, T4A and T5 slips must be filed with the CRA and given to recipients by the last day of February following the calendar year (s2). February, however, is far too late to start. The slips only report payments that have already happened, identities that have already been collected, and totals that have already been reconciled. All three of those jobs belong to December and January.
December: the payment cutoff and the contractor list
December's job is to decide which year each payment belongs to, while there is still a choice. A contractor payment made in December lands in this calendar year's totals; the same payment made in January lands in next year's. Neither answer is automatically right — paying early to close a year cleanly, or paying on normal terms in January, are both defensible. What is not defensible is discovering in February that a handful of December payments were never assigned to a year at all, because nobody set a cutoff.
Set the cutoff in writing: the last date on which contractor payments will be processed for this calendar year, the person who approves exceptions, and where exception payments get recorded. Then build the contractor list from the payment records, not from memory — every individual or unincorporated contractor paid for services during the year, with the running total beside each name. The list is the working document January reconciles and February files from.
December is also when missing social insurance numbers get chased, while contractors are still answering email about holiday schedules. The CRA requires reasonable efforts to obtain a recipient's SIN before filing, and filing without one can incur $100 per slip (s4). A polite December request, documented, is both cheaper and better evidence of reasonable efforts than a panicked February one.
The December-to-February procedure
- Set and publish the December payment cutoff. Fix the last processing date for this calendar year's contractor payments, name the exception approver, and record every exception payment against the year it belongs to.
- Build the contractor list from payment records. Every individual or unincorporated contractor paid for services in the year, with a running total per contractor. Memory-built lists miss the small, one-off engagements that push a total over the reporting line.
- Collect missing SINs in December and log the effort. Request any missing social insurance number while the working relationship is warm, and keep a dated record of each request — reasonable efforts to obtain a SIN are a filing requirement, and filing without one can incur $100 per slip (s4).
- Reconcile every contractor against the $500 line in January. Total payments exceeding $500 in the calendar year are reported, usually on a T4A in box 048 (s1). Sort the list into reportable and below-threshold, and investigate any contractor whose invoices and payments disagree before a slip is drafted.
- Separate the exceptions before drafting slips. Payments to a corporation are generally not reported on a T4A, except in construction, where the T5018 applies (s2). Pull corporate payees and construction payments out of the T4A pile and route them correctly, instead of forcing every payee onto the same slip.
- Draft the slips, then prove the summary. The T4A Summary totals must perfectly match the sum of the individual slips (s4). Add the slips independently, compare with the summary, and fix the slip or the summary — never adjust one silently to meet the other.
- File and deliver by the actual deadline date. Slips are due by the last day of February (s1, s2), moved to the next business day when that day falls on a weekend or recognised holiday (s3). For the 2026 calendar year, plan on Monday, March 1, 2027 (s3).
What success looks like: the contractor list, the payment records and the slip totals tell the same story per contractor; every reportable contractor over the $500 line has a slip; the summary equals the slips to the dollar; and every missing SIN has a dated reasonable-efforts record behind it.
February: slips, summary, and the actual deadline date
The general rule — last day of February — needs one refinement that changes the plan this cycle. When the last day of February falls on a weekend or a recognised holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day (s3). The pattern is already visible in the worked dates: for the 2025 calendar year the deadline was Monday, March 2, 2026, and for 2026 the date to plan on is Monday, March 1, 2027 (s3).
File late and the exposure is bounded but real. Late-slip penalties are capped at 100 days late, with a $100 minimum under the relieving policy for small filers (s3). That cap is a reason not to panic over a small slip-up. It is not a filing strategy: a return filed 100 days late has still spent 100 days wrong, with recipients filing their own returns from missing or incorrect slips in the meantime.
If an error surfaces after filing, amend rather than ignore. An amended slip that matches corrected records is a short explanation. A known error left in place while the summary no longer matches the underlying payments is the kind of discrepancy that invites questions neither side wants.
The trucking rule is not the general rule
One carve-out must not be blurred into the general guidance. Starting with the 2025 tax year, trucking businesses that fail to report fees for service can face penalties and disallowance of claimed expenses (s1). That reinstatement is aimed at the trucking sector, including fees paid in circumstances the general corporate-payee boundary would otherwise leave out. A trucking business should therefore not reason from the general rule that payments to corporations sit outside T4A reporting (s2). A non-trucking business should not import the trucking penalties into its own risk picture either. Same $500 reporting line, different consequences depending on the sector — check which side of that line your business files from.
FAQ
Which payments go in box 048? Fees for services where total payments to a recipient exceed $500 in a calendar year are reported to the CRA in the prescribed form, usually the T4A slip in box 048 (s1). The common case is an individual or unincorporated contractor paid $500 or more for services (s2).
When exactly are T4A slips for 2026 due? The rule is the last day of February of the following year (s1, s2), moved to the next business day when that date falls on a weekend or recognised holiday (s3). For the 2026 year, plan on Monday, March 1, 2027 (s3).
Do payments to a corporation go on a T4A? Generally, no — payments to a corporation are generally not reported on a T4A, except in construction, where the T5018 applies (s2). Trucking businesses face a separate reporting regime from the 2025 tax year, with penalties and expense disallowance for unreported fees for service (s1), so sector matters.
What if a contractor will not provide a SIN? Make and document reasonable efforts to obtain it before filing, as the CRA requires; filing without a SIN can incur $100 per slip (s4). A dated December request is the strongest simple evidence that the effort was real.
— Sterling Cole, Money Writer — Earning Desk