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E-commerce guide · 2026
GST/HST for Shopify and Amazon sellers in Canada.
Three questions decide almost everything: whether you have to register, whether you or the marketplace collects, and which province's rate applies. The answers are not intuitive, and two of them catch sellers who thought they were safely under the line.
Question one
Do you have to register?
The threshold is $30,000, and it is measured on your worldwide taxable supplies — yours and those of anyone associated with you — not on your Canadian sales. There are only three things left out of the calculation: goodwill on the sale of a business, financial services, and sales of capital property.
There are two tests, and they work differently:
- Over four consecutive calendar quarters. You stop being a small supplier at the end of the month following the quarter in which you crossed $30,000. You start charging from that date.
- Inside a single calendar quarter. You stop being a small supplier immediately, and you have to charge GST/HST on the sale that took you over. Not on the next one.
Either way you have 29 days from the effective date to register.
The part that catches US-focused sellers
Exports to customers outside Canada are zero-rated, not exempt. A zero-rated supply is still a taxable supply — it is simply taxed at 0%. It is not on the list of exclusions, so it counts toward the $30,000.
So a Canadian seller shipping $400,000 a year to US customers and $2,000 to Canadians is well over the threshold and has to register, even though it collects no GST/HST from anyone. Registering is also the only way to claim back the GST/HST on the software, the freight, the packaging and the tax paid at the border — which for an exporter is usually a refund, not a bill.
Registering voluntarily
Below $30,000 you can register anyway. The effective date is normally the day you ask, or up to 30 days earlier. For a seller with real costs and mostly export sales, it is often the right move on day one.
2026 rates by destination
| Where you ship | Rate |
|---|---|
| Ontario | 13% HST |
| Nova Scotia | 14% HST |
| New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI | 15% HST |
| Alberta, BC, Manitoba, NWT, Nunavut, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Yukon | 5% GST |
| Outside Canada | 0% (zero-rated) |
Nova Scotia dropped from 15% to 14% on April 1, 2025. If your store still charges 15% there, it has been wrong for over a year.
Not covered by your GST/HST number
BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have their own provincial sales taxes, and Quebec has QST, all administered outside the GST/HST system. Selling into them can create separate registrations your platform will not handle for you.
Question two
You or the marketplace?
Since July 1, 2021 a distribution platform operator can be deemed to have made the sale instead of you. The test in the legislation is simpler than the commentary around it.
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Is it a marketplace, or your own store?
A platform operator is someone other than you who controls or sets the essential elements of the transaction, or who collects the money from the customer and passes it to you. Amazon, Etsy and eBay are marketplaces. Your own Shopify store is not — Shopify supplies you the software; you are the seller, you set the terms and the sale is yours.
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Are the goods delivered in Canada?
The rule applies to goods that, under the agreement, are to be delivered or made available to the buyer in Canada. Goods shipped from outside Canada by mail or courier are outside it, as are exempt and zero-rated supplies.
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Are you registered?
This is the switch. Where the seller is not registered, the platform is deemed to make the supply and collects the tax. Where you are registered, you charge and collect on your own sales — so give the platform your GST/HST number and keep it current.
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Keep the two streams apart in your books
Tax the marketplace collected is not yours to report, and it is not yours to claim. Tax you collected on your own store is. Mixing them is the fastest way to a return that cannot be reconciled to anything.
A note on where the commentary is wrong
The rule is often described as applying only to non-resident vendors, and only where a fulfilment warehouse is involved. The legislation says neither: it turns on an unregistered vendor and goods delivered in Canada. A Canadian small supplier selling through Amazon is generally caught by it. If you are close to the threshold, count your gross marketplace sales and take advice before assuming they fall outside your own registration test.
Question three
Which province's rate?
The one you ship to. Where you send the goods to an address in a province — by mail, by courier, or through a carrier you retain on the customer's behalf — the sale is deemed made in that province and nowhere else.
So an Ontario seller shipping to Charlottetown charges 15%, not 13%. An Alberta seller shipping to Halifax charges 14%, not 5%. The province you sit in decides nothing.
The exception runs the other way: if the customer arranges the carrier and collects from you, the original delivery location governs. Simply telling a customer's courier that a parcel is ready is not the same as retaining a carrier for them.
Set it once, check it every year
Most platforms handle destination rates if they are configured to. The failures we see are flat rates left over from set-up, Nova Scotia still at 15%, and digital products taxed as though they were goods.
What the platforms tell the CRA
Since the 2024 calendar year, marketplaces have had to report their sellers to the CRA each January: name, address, tax number, consideration by quarter and the fees they charged you.
Sellers below 30 sales and roughly $2,800 for the year are excluded. Everyone else should assume the CRA already has their gross numbers before the return is filed.
Quick answers
What sellers ask about GST/HST.
Do export sales count toward the $30,000 GST/HST threshold?
Yes. Exports are zero-rated, which means taxable at 0%, not exempt. They count toward the $30,000 of worldwide taxable supplies. A seller shipping almost everything to the United States still has to register once it passes the threshold.
If Amazon collects the GST/HST, do I still have to register?
Registration depends on your own threshold, not on who collects. Once you are registered you collect on your own sales and the marketplace stops collecting for you. If you are near $30,000, count your gross marketplace sales rather than assuming they do not count.
What GST/HST rate do I charge on an order shipped to another province?
The destination province's rate: 13% Ontario, 14% Nova Scotia, 15% New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and PEI, and 5% GST in the rest. Where you are located does not change it.
When exactly does registration take effect?
If you passed $30,000 over four consecutive quarters, at the end of the month after that quarter. If you passed it inside one quarter, immediately — and you charge tax on the sale that took you over. You have 29 days from that date to register.
Can I claim back the GST I paid at the border on inventory?
If you are registered and you are the importer of record, yes, as an input tax credit. If a broker or a delivered-duty-paid arrangement makes someone else the importer of record, the recovery goes with them — worth settling before the first shipment.
Sources: Excise Tax Act sections 148, 211.1 and 211.23; CRA guidance on when to register and charge GST/HST, the digital economy measures and place of supply (Memorandum 3-3-3); CRA reporting rules for digital platform operators. General information, not advice for your business. See also US sales tax for Canadian sellers and bookkeeping for Shopify and Amazon payouts.
Not sure whether you should be registered?
Call 647-870-8498 or email info@ghayurtax.com. It is a ten-minute question with a clear answer.