# An executor's guide to the CRA

> The tax jobs of an executor, step by step: notify the CRA and Service Canada, file the final and optional returns and the estate's T3, then get clearance.

- Web page: https://taxnotes.ca/guides/executors-guide/
- For: Everyone · Topic: Planning
- Last reviewed: 2026-10-11

If you're the executor named in a will, you're usually the deceased person's **legal representative** for the CRA (in Quebec, the registered liquidator of the estate). On the tax side, your job is to report the death, file every return that's needed, pay what's owed out of the estate, and only then hand out what's left. For how the final return treats property and RRSPs, see [wills, estates and the final return](https://taxnotes.ca/guides/wills-and-estates/).

## 1. Report the death

**To the CRA.** Report the date of death as soon as possible, even if the person wasn't getting benefits, to avoid payments that later have to be repaid. Call the CRA's individual tax or benefit enquiries line, or mail Form RC4111, Notify the Canada Revenue Agency of a Death, to the person's tax centre. Have their date of death, social insurance number, full name, date of birth, address and a notice of assessment or other tax document ready. If benefit payments still arrive after the death, you may need to send them back. Canada child benefit payments usually transfer to a surviving spouse or common-law partner who is the child's parent.

**To Service Canada and others.** Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security payments must be cancelled as soon as possible. If the death happened in a province, the provincial vital statistics office tells the Social Insurance Number program; in a territory or outside Canada, you have to tell it yourself. The estate or another eligible person may also be able to apply for the CPP or QPP death benefit, a one-time lump sum.

## 2. Show the CRA you're the representative

Telling the CRA about the death isn't the same as telling it you're in charge. Send:

- a copy of the death certificate or a funeral director's statement of death
- a document naming you, such as a complete copy of the will, a grant of probate or letters of administration (if there's no such document, Form RC552, Register as Representative for a Deceased Person)
- the estate's mailing address, if it's changed

Put the deceased's social insurance number on each document. For online access to their tax records, register for the CRA's Represent a Client service first and put your RepID on each document too. Processing generally takes 28 business days.

## 3. File the final return and any missing returns

A final return is required for everyone who dies. It's due, with any balance owing:

- by **April 30 of the next year** if the death was between January 1 and October 31
- **6 months after the death** if it was between November 1 and December 31

If the person, or their spouse or common-law partner who lived with them, was running a business, the filing deadline is **June 15 of the next year** for a death from January 1 to December 15, or 6 months after a death from December 16 to 31 (unless the business's spending was mainly on tax shelter investments). The balance is still due on the usual payment date.

Also file any earlier returns the person missed. If they died before filing the previous year's return and before its due date, that return is due 6 months after the death. No further instalments are due after the death; only ones that were due and unpaid before it still have to be paid. Form T691 for 2025 says alternative minimum tax doesn't apply to a person who died in 2025, or to the optional returns below.

## 4. Consider the optional returns

Up to three optional returns can take income that would otherwise go on the final return. They're optional, but they can cut the total tax because some credits and deductions can be claimed more than once or split between returns. If you file one, put all the income that qualifies for it on that return.

- **Rights or things.** Amounts the person had earned but not received at death, such as pay for a pay period that ended before the death, OAS or CPP paid after the death for the month of death, dividends declared but not yet paid, and uncashed matured bond coupons. Capital gains don't count. Write "70(2)" at the top right of page 1. It must be filed by the later of one year after the death or 90 days after the notice of assessment for the final return is sent, but any balance owing is due by the final return's payment date.
- **Partner or proprietor.** If the person was a sole proprietor or partner and the business's fiscal year doesn't end December 31: income from the end of that fiscal year to the date of death. Write "150(4)" on it. Same deadlines as the final return.
- **Income from a graduated rate estate.** If the person received income from the graduated rate estate of someone else who died: income from that estate's fiscal year-end to the date of death. Write "104(23)(d)" on it. Same deadlines as the final return.

You may be able to delay paying part of the tax on rights or things and on property treated as sold at death, by giving the CRA security and filing Form T2075. Interest still runs.

## 5. File the estate's T3 return

After the death, the estate is a trust. Income it earns that isn't paid out to beneficiaries, such as investment income or a gain on property sold after the death, goes on a T3 Trust Income Tax and Information Return each year until everything is distributed. You may not need one if the estate is distributed right after the death or earned no income before it was distributed; give each beneficiary a statement of their share instead.

Most estates qualify as a **graduated rate estate** for up to 36 months, so their income is taxed at the same graduated rates as an individual's. On the first T3 return, you choose the end of its first tax year: any date up to one year after the death. Each T3 return, any balance owing and the beneficiaries' T3 slips are due 90 days after the trust's tax year-end, or after the final distribution if the trust has ended.

## 6. Report death benefits correctly

The CPP or QPP death benefit never goes on the final return. If it's the estate's only income and no T3 return is otherwise needed, the beneficiary reports it. If the estate has other income, the estate reports it on the T3; if it's paid or made payable to a beneficiary in the year the estate receives it, the estate can deduct it and issue the beneficiary a T3 slip. If someone else received it directly, they report it. A death benefit from the person's employer is different: up to $10,000 in total is tax-free, and the rest is taxed to whoever receives it.

## 7. Get a clearance certificate, then distribute

A clearance certificate confirms the estate has paid, or secured, all income tax, GST/HST, interest and penalties owed. If you distribute property without one and tax turns out to be owing, you're personally liable, up to the value of what you handed out.

Apply with Form TX19, Asking for a Clearance Certificate (and Form GST352 if the person had a GST/HST number), only after all returns are filed and assessed, everything owed (including CPP contributions, EI premiums, interest and penalties) is paid or secured, and the CRA has your documents as legal representative. Don't send it with the returns, as that delays the assessments. Include the will and any probate documents, a list of everything the person owned at death (including jointly held property and RRSPs and RRIFs with named beneficiaries) with its cost and value, what's been distributed and what's planned, and details of beneficiaries receiving anything other than cash. [Wills, estates and the final return](https://taxnotes.ca/guides/wills-and-estates/) has the CRA's processing times.

If the person lived in Quebec, you may also have returns to file and duties with Revenu Québec.

## Sources

1. [Doing taxes for someone who died](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/life-events/doing-taxes-someone-died.html) (canada.ca)
2. [Notify the CRA of a date of death](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/life-events/doing-taxes-someone-died/notify-death-date.html) (canada.ca)
3. [What to do when someone dies: Notify of a death](https://www.canada.ca/en/services/life-events/death/notify.html) (canada.ca)
4. [Represent someone who died](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/life-events/doing-taxes-someone-died/represent-deceased.html) (canada.ca)
5. [What returns you need to file (someone who died)](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/life-events/doing-taxes-someone-died/prepare-returns/what-to-file.html) (canada.ca)
6. [Filing and payment due dates (someone who died)](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/life-events/doing-taxes-someone-died/prepare-returns/filing-deadlines.html) (canada.ca)
7. [Death benefits (someone who died)](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/life-events/doing-taxes-someone-died/prepare-returns/report-income/death-benefits.html) (canada.ca)
8. [T3 Trust Guide – 2025](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/t4013/t3-trust-guide.html) (canada.ca)
9. [Apply for a clearance certificate](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/life-events/doing-taxes-someone-died/clearance-certificate.html) (canada.ca)
10. [Form T691, Alternative Minimum Tax (2025)](https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/t691/t691-25e.pdf) (canada.ca)

Tax figures in this guide come from the TaxNotes.ca rates tables (https://taxnotes.ca/rates/), which cite the Canada Revenue Agency and, for Quebec, Revenu Québec.

Last reviewed: October 11, 2026

How to cite: "An executor's guide to the CRA", TaxNotes.ca, last reviewed 2026-10-11, https://taxnotes.ca/guides/executors-guide/. For a figure or rule, also cite the official source listed above.

Licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Free to share and adapt with attribution: https://taxnotes.ca/reproducing-our-content/