Place of supply: the destination sets the rate
The place-of-supply rules for goods are blunt: the sale is taxed where the goods are delivered or made available to the buyer. A Mississauga warehouse shipping nationwide is therefore collecting five different federal-provincial rates in a single afternoon, and checkout software only gets it right if someone configured it and checks it against what actually gets remitted.
| Where the order ships | What you charge |
|---|---|
| Ontario | 13% HST |
| New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI | 15% HST |
| Nova Scotia | 14% HST (reduced from 15% in April 2025) |
| Alberta and the territories | 5% GST |
| BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba | 5% GST; each province runs its own PST with separate remote-seller registration rules |
| Quebec | 5% GST; Quebec administers its own QST with a separate registration test |
The provincial layer is the common blind spot. BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba PST and Quebec QST are separate systems with their own registration triggers for out-of-province sellers. We watch where your sales are growing and flag when a provincial registration question is worth settling, before a province settles it for you.
What Amazon collects, and what you still report
Since July 2021, Canada's marketplace rules can make the platform the deemed supplier, but mainly for vendors who are not GST/HST-registered. A registered Ontario seller on Amazon.ca is still the one making the sale for GST/HST purposes: Amazon calculates and collects the tax at checkout, passes it through in the settlement, and you report and remit it on your own return. Assuming Amazon handled it is one of the most expensive misunderstandings in this niche.
The provincial picture runs the other way. BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba now put PST collection on the marketplace itself for marketplace sales, so a single order can involve tax the platform remits and tax you remit. Our filing work starts from the platform tax reports and ties each column to the correct return, yours or theirs, with Corporate Tax Filing covering the T2 that sits on top.
US and export sales: zero-rated, not invisible
Goods you ship to a customer outside Canada are generally zero-rated exports: you charge 0% GST/HST, you keep full input tax credits, and you keep proof of export on file in case the CRA asks. Zero-rated does not mean exempt, and it does not mean off the return; those sales are still reported, and they still count toward the $30,000 registration threshold.
Selling into the US also raises flags on the American side, from state sales-tax nexus rules to questions that come with storing inventory in US fulfillment centres. Those are worth professional attention from a US specialist; our work is the Canadian side of the file, done properly, with the flags raised early instead of after a notice arrives.
Registration, filing frequency and getting refunds faster
Registration becomes mandatory once worldwide taxable sales, zero-rated included, pass $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. Many sellers should register before that: voluntary registration recovers the 5% GST paid at the border on every imported shipment plus the tax on fees and software, which is real money for an inventory business. A micro seller weighing exactly this question can put it to a CPA through CPA Quick Support at $99 a month.
Filing frequency is a lever, not a default. Annual filing applies under $1.5 million in taxable supplies, but a seller with heavy import GST or a large zero-rated export mix often sits in a refund position, and electing quarterly or monthly filing turns those refunds into working capital instead of a once-a-year cheque. On the income side, the corporation files a T2 with active profit taxed at roughly 12.2% on the first $500,000 in Ontario, and if a CRA letter ever questions a return, CRA Audit & Review Support answers it with the reconciliations already built.
Source: CRA — GST/HST for businesses.
