The CRA is about to file taxes for a million people — here's who's included

Canada is one of the few rich countries where you can miss out on government money simply by not filling in a form. That's finally starting to change: beginning with the 2026 tax year (filed in spring 2027), the CRA will pre-fill returns and — with your consent — automatically file them for about one million lower-income Canadians. The plan scales to roughly 5.5 million people by the 2028 tax year.

Why this exists

Nearly every major benefit in Canada is gated on a filed tax return: the Canada Child Benefit, the new Groceries and Essentials Benefit, the Canada Workers Benefit, the GIS, the Canada Disability Benefit. Don't file, and the payments stop — even if you owe zero tax and qualify for all of them.

An estimated 10–12% of Canadians don't file in a given year, and they're disproportionately the people those benefits are aimed at. Researchers put the forgone benefits in the billions of dollars a year. Budget 2025 committed $71 million over five years to close that gap with automatic filing.

Who's in the first wave

The CRA is starting narrow. The first million spots target people who are:

• Lower income, typically owing no tax
• In simple tax situations — few income sources, little year-to-year change (think: one T4 or fixed benefit income, no self-employment, no rental income)
• Non-filers or at risk of not filing, flagged from CRA's own data

For this group, the CRA already has everything it needs — T4s, T5s, and benefit slips are all reported to it directly. The new system assembles the return, shows it to you in My Account to review and correct, and files it once you consent.

The CRA has quietly rehearsed this for years: SimpleFile invitations already let hundreds of thousands of lower-income Canadians file by phone in minutes. Automatic filing is that idea with the last step removed.

What it won't do

If you're self-employed, have capital gains, claim deductions the CRA can't see (moving expenses, child care receipts), or your situation changed mid-year, you're not in the first wave — and even later waves will still need your input for anything the CRA doesn't already know. Automatic filing is a floor, not a replacement for paying attention.

Why you shouldn't wait for it

The first automatic returns don't happen until spring 2027, and only for a million people. Every benefit year between now and then still runs on the old rule: no return, no money. If someone in your family — a lower-income parent, a senior, an adult child on disability supports — hasn't filed their 2025 return, filing it now can restart the GIS, the CCB, and the Groceries and Essentials Benefit, often with retroactive payments. A quick look at the income percentile tool shows how much of the benefit system is aimed at the bottom half of the income distribution — which is exactly who tends not to file.

The takeaway

Automatic filing is one of the quietest but most consequential changes to Canada's benefit system in years: it turns benefits people qualify for into benefits people receive. But it arrives in waves, starting small in 2027. Until your wave arrives, the old advice stands — file every year, even at zero income. Especially at zero income.

Details: CRA automatic tax filing, Canada.ca and Budget 2025 coverage, Global News, 2026.