How to actually pay CRA instalments (and the account mix-up that causes phantom interest)
Online banking, pre-authorized debit, My Payment, cheque — every way to send the CRA a quarterly instalment, what counts as 'on time', and the wrong-account mistake that makes paid instalments look unpaid.
Deciding what to pay is the hard part of instalments. Actually paying should be easy — and mostly is — but a few mechanical details trip people up every quarter, and one of them generates interest charges on money you already sent.
The ways to pay
Online banking — the workhorse. Add the CRA as a payee in your bank's bill-pay, the same as a utility. Look for the payee that says tax instalment — most banks list several CRA payees and the wording varies ("CRA (revenue) – tax instalment" or similar). Your account number is your SIN. Payments this way are dated the day your bank processes them.
Pre-authorized debit — set and forget. Inside CRA My Account, set up a PAD for each instalment date and amount. Do it at least five business days before the due date. Best option if you're on the no-calculation amounts, since those are known months in advance.
My Payment. The CRA's own card portal — works with Interac Debit and Visa/Debit Mastercard. No credit cards directly.
Credit card, via a third party. Providers like PaySimply take credit cards and forward the payment — for a fee of roughly 2.5%. At that price it only makes sense for points chasers doing the math deliberately.
Cheque. Payable to the Receiver General, with the INNS3 remittance voucher from your reminder package (or printed from My Account). Mailed payments count on the day the CRA receives them — not the postmark — so mail early.
What "on time" means
The due dates are March 15, June 15, September 15, December 15 (next business day when they land on a weekend or holiday). Instalment interest — at 7%, compounded daily, as of Q3 2026 — starts the day after, on any shortfall. Electronic payments made on the due date are on time; a cheque that arrives on the 17th is not.
The wrong-account mistake
CRA payees come in flavours: current-year tax owing, amount owing (balances from past returns), and tax instalments. Pay your instalment to the wrong one and the money arrives — but sits against the wrong account. Your instalment account shows a miss, and interest starts accruing on a payment you actually made.
It's fixable — the CRA can reallocate payments, and a call usually sorts it — but the cleaner move is checking My Account → Accounts and payments a week after each payment to confirm it landed as an instalment for the right tax year.
Paid but misfiled looks identical to unpaid until someone checks. Be the someone.
At tax time
Every instalment you paid in 2026 gets claimed on your return — line 47600, "Tax paid by instalments." My Account shows the total the CRA has on file (they also send an INNS1/INNS2 summary); reconcile it against your own records before filing. Instalments are prepayments, not extra tax: if they exceed your final bill, the difference comes back as a refund.
Not sure the payments were even required? The obligation follows a two-part test, and the amounts have three calculation options — worth confirming before the December payment. Your take-home pay breakdown is the quick way to sanity-check the tax your income actually generates, and the instalment calculator settles whether the payments were required at all — and prices the interest if one was missed.
The takeaway
Use online banking or a PAD, aim the payment at the instalment payee, pay by the 15th, and verify in My Account a week later. The CRA's 7% daily-compounding interest doesn't distinguish between "never paid" and "paid to the wrong account" — but five minutes of checking does.