By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management
If you live outside Canada and own a rental in Ontario, someone has to send 25 per cent of your rent to the Canada Revenue Agency. For a residential tenancy, that someone is now more often you than it used to be.
The general rule in section 215 of the Income Tax Act does put the duty on whoever pays or credits the rent. A residential tenancy is no longer governed by it. Subsection 215 (1.2) switches that rule off where an individual pays rent for a residential property in which an individual resides. Subsection 215 (1.3) then requires the non-resident owner to remit immediately.
Where a Canadian agent collects the rent on your behalf, the duty falls on that agent instead, under subsection 215 (3). If nobody remits, the person who should have is personally liable for the whole amount, plus a penalty, plus interest.
That is the short answer. The longer answer matters for three reasons. The Canada Revenue Agency has changed its published position on self-managing non-resident owners. The familiar "15th of the month" deadline has no support in the Act. And the relief most owners want, being taxed on profit instead of gross rent, puts the risk back on the agent.
If you own a unit in Cobourg or anywhere else in Eastern Ontario and you are reading this from abroad, those three points are the whole decision.
This post is written for an individual who owns an Ontario rental and lives outside Canada. A corporation or a trust reaches different answers on two points in particular. The filing-due date that fixes the payment deadline is not 30 April. And the optional remittance method runs on a parallel track in section 216 (4.1) rather than section 216 (4).
Everything below was read at source on 2026-10-09. The Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations were both current to 2026-09-21 and last amended on 2026-06-18. Where a rule comes from a Canada Revenue Agency guide rather than from the legislation, this guide says so, because the difference decides what a court would enforce.
Three different people can carry the duty, and which one it is depends on who touches the money. The payer carries it under subsection 215 (1) and a Canadian agent under subsection 215 (3). For a residential tenancy with no agent in the chain, the owner carries it personally under subsection 215 (1.3).
A fourth withholding duty sits outside section 215 altogether, and it is worth knowing before you sell. Under subsection 116 (5) a purchaser who acquires taxable Canadian property from a non-resident must remit 25 per cent of the cost of the property, not 25 per cent of the gain.
The withholding comes off the whole purchase price. It is reduced only where a clearance certificate under subsection 116 (2) fixes a lower limit, or where the purchaser had no reason after reasonable inquiry to believe the vendor was non-resident.
Section 212 (1) sets the charge. It reads: "Every non-resident person shall pay an income tax of 25% on every amount that a person resident in Canada pays or credits, or is deemed by Part I to pay or credit, to the non-resident person as, on account or in lieu of payment of, or in satisfaction of,".
Paragraph (d) then catches "rent, royalty or similar payment". Rent on Canadian real property sits squarely inside it. Paragraph (d) does carry a list of exclusions, and three of them touch rental or hire payments.
Subparagraph (ix) covers a rental payment for the use of tangible property outside Canada. Subparagraph (x) is a general arm's length carve-out for amounts deductible against a business the payer carries on in a country other than Canada. Subparagraph (xi) covers certain arm's length payments for aircraft, their fittings, spare parts and air navigation equipment. The useful point is not that there is only one. It is that none of the three reaches rent on an Ontario house or apartment.
Section 215 (1) then puts the collection duty on the payer. When a person "pays, credits or provides" an amount on which Part XIII tax is payable, that person "shall, notwithstanding any agreement or law to the contrary, deduct or withhold from it the amount of the tax and forthwith remit that amount to the Receiver General on behalf of the non-resident person".
Read those words again: notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary. A clause in a management agreement or a lease saying somebody else will handle it does not move the duty.
That is the general rule, and since 2026 it no longer governs a residential tenancy. Subsection 215 (1.2) carves one out.
Subsection (1) "does not apply in respect of an amount paid or credited by an individual (other than a trust that is not a graduated rate estate) to a non-resident person as rent for the use of a residential property (as defined in subsection 67.7(1)) in which an individual resides". It goes on to cover a payment made no more than 36 months after that individual's death.
Subsection 215 (1.3) then says where the duty goes instead: "If subsection (1.2) applies and subsection (3) does not apply, the non-resident person must immediately remit to the Receiver General the income tax payable under this Part in respect of the amount and submit with the remittance a statement in prescribed form."
Read the two together. Where an individual tenant pays rent on a home and no Canadian agent stands in the chain, the owner abroad remits personally. The word Parliament chose is "immediately".
Both subsections were added by 2026, c. 3, s. 90. Both sit in the operative text of the Act as consolidated to 2026-09-21, not in the amendments-not-in-force schedule. The definition they borrow is in section 67.7 (1): a residential property is "all or any part of a house, apartment, condominium unit, cottage, mobile home, trailer, houseboat or other property, located in Canada, the use of which is permitted for residential purposes under applicable law".
Section 215 (3) is the provision that catches a property manager. Where an amount on which the tax is payable "was paid or credited to an agent or other person for or on behalf of the person entitled to payment without the tax having been deducted or withheld under subsection 215 (1), the agent or other person shall, notwithstanding any agreement or law to the contrary, deduct or withhold therefrom the amount of the tax and forthwith remit that amount".
The trigger in subsection (3) is receipt, not payment. A manager who collects rent into a trust account for an owner abroad fits the words exactly. Such a manager is a person to whom an amount was "paid or credited for or on behalf of the person entitled to payment". The duty lands on them if the tenant did not already withhold.
Note who is still inside subsection 215 (1). The exemption in subsection (1.2) runs only to an individual, and expressly not to a trust that is not a graduated rate estate. A corporate tenant, or a trust of that kind, keeps the withholding duty on the rent it pays.
One point is often stated the other way round. Section 215 (1) is not limited to residents of Canada. The residence requirement sits in section 212 (1), which describes who pays or credits.
The Canada Revenue Agency does say, in its guide T4144, modified 2026-01-20, that "The agent must be a resident of Canada." The Act imposes no such test on the agent in section 215 (3) or section 216 (4). That is the agency's administrative position. It is reinforced in practice by regulation 202 (1), which casts the NR4 filing duty on "every person resident in Canada".
Because that is what section 212 (1) measures. The charge is 25 per cent "on every amount that a person resident in Canada pays or credits". There is no deduction mechanism anywhere in section 212. The base is the amount handed over, before the mortgage, before the property taxes, before repairs and before the management fee.
The word "gross" is the Canada Revenue Agency's, not Parliament's. T4144 says the payer or agent "must withhold non-resident tax of 25% on the gross rental income paid or credited to you". The Act gets to the same place by a different route, by taxing the payment rather than the profit.
The practical consequence is the one that surprises owners.
On a Cobourg unit renting for $2,000 a month, gross annual rent is $24,000 and the Part XIII tax is $6,000. If the real net income after expenses is $8,000, the tax on that profit under an ordinary Canadian return would be a fraction of $6,000. The default rule overshoots badly, and the two mechanisms described further down, Form NR6 and the section 216 return, exist to correct it.
Note also what T4144 says about finality: "Generally, the non-resident tax withheld is considered your final tax obligation to Canada on the rental income." Do nothing and you have overpaid, permanently, unless you file.
This is the newest piece and the one most likely to catch a self-managing owner. Guide T4061, modified 2026-09-22, carries it under "What's new":
"A non-resident who receives residential rental income must now directly remit Part XIII tax (25% of their gross rental income) to the CRA unless they receive the rental income through a Canadian agent (such as a property manager)."
The same guide repeats it in the body and adds the consequence: "Non-residents who do not remit the required withholding tax on residential rental income can be assessed penalties and interest."
That sentence is not an administrative position, and reading it as one is the mistake to avoid. The guide is restating subsection 215 (1.3), enacted by 2026, c. 3, s. 90. This post separates statute from guidance throughout, so the distinction matters more here than anywhere else in it. The direct-remittance rule would bind you if the guide had never been written.
The practical effect is plain. If you collect rent directly from your tenant into your own account abroad, you remit the 25 per cent yourself, and the Act says immediately. There is no longer comfort in the thought that the duty belongs to somebody in Canada. On those facts there is nobody in Canada.
There is a second, quieter consequence in the same guide. Non-resident landlords without a Canadian agent "do not issue their own NR4 slip. They must send a request in writing for an NR4 proforma", online through the non-resident withholding section of a CRA account or by mail to the Non-Resident Withholding Section at the Sudbury Tax Centre. An owner abroad who has never heard of an NR4 proforma is already behind on a filing obligation they cannot discharge with the ordinary form.
This is the cleanest self-manage-against-hire comparison on this blog, and it is cleaner than the usual one about what a manager does for the fee. Engaging a Canadian agent does not merely make the remittance someone else's job. It changes which paragraph of the agency's guide you are reading.
Here the published practice and the legislation part company, and the gap runs against the person withholding.
Both T4144 and T4061 give the same date. T4061 says you must remit "on or before the 15th day of the month following the month the amount was paid or credited to the non-resident", and adds that a remittance counts as received on the date it reaches a Canadian financial institution or the agency.
The Act says something else. Section 215 (1) and section 215 (3) both say "forthwith remit". Neither gives a month's grace, and neither mentions the fifteenth day.
The fifteenth day does appear in the legislation, but not for this tax. Section 227 (8.3) sets when interest starts on a failure to withhold, and it splits into limbs.
Paragraph (a) covers amounts required by subsection 153 (1), which is payroll. It runs interest "from the fifteenth day of the month immediately following the month in which the amount was required to be deducted or withheld". Paragraph (b) covers section 215. It runs interest "from the day on which the amount was required to be deducted or withheld to the day of payment of the amount to the Receiver General".
Regulation 108 (1) carries the same fifteenth-day rule, and it too is tied expressly to subsection 153 (1).
A search of the consolidated Income Tax Regulations on 2026-10-09 returned no occurrence of "fifteenth day" at all. It returned 15 occurrences of "15th day". Most sit in the payroll provisions. Three do not: regulation 211 (2) on ownership certificates, and two information-return filing dates in the section 201 series. The finding that matters survives the correction, because not one of the 15 sets a remittance date for section 215.
What follows is narrow but worth knowing. The agency's fifteenth-day date is an administrative remittance date and it is the date you should work to. It is not an interest-free window. Miss a remittance and interest is computed from the day the rent was paid or credited, not from the fifteenth of the following month. If your business or activity ceases mid-year, T4061 shortens the window further, to no later than seven days after the day it ceases.
One general timing rule does come from legislation, and it is narrower than the guides make it look. Section 26 of the federal Interpretation Act, current to 2026-09-21, provides that where a time limit "expires or falls on a holiday, the thing may be done on the day next following that is not a holiday".
The work is done by the definition. Section 35 (1) defines "holiday" as Sunday, New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas Day and a list of other statutory days. Saturday is not among them.
So the guides go further than section 26 rather than restating it. They roll a deadline falling on a Saturday as well as one falling on a Sunday or a recognised public holiday. That extra day is an agency concession, not the statute. A deadline that lands on a Saturday is worth meeting on the Friday.
Form NR6 is the route to withholding on something closer to profit during the year rather than waiting for a refund. Its full title is "Undertaking to File an Income Tax Return by a Non-Resident Receiving Rent from Real or Immovable Property or Receiving a Timber Royalty". The current version on the agency's forms page is 23e.
The statute behind it is section 216 (4), and it is worth reading closely because almost every plain-English description of it is loose in the same two ways.
First, two different people act on one form. The non-resident "files with the Minister an undertaking in prescribed form to file within six months after the end of a taxation year a return of income under Part I for the year". Separately, the person who would otherwise have to remit under subsection 215 (3), that is the agent, "may elect under this section not to remit under that subsection".
Second, the statutory measure is not "net". Where the election is made, the agent shall, "when any amount is available out of the rent or royalty received for remittance to the non-resident person", deduct "25% of the amount available" and remit it.
"Net rental income" is the agency's gloss in T4144. There it describes the base as "the amount of rental income available after the rental expenses have been paid". The two land in much the same place, but only the agency's version uses the word.
Third, the conditions everyone quotes are administrative, not statutory. Section 216 (4) sets no deadline for lodging the undertaking and requires no approval from anybody. Both come from the guides.
T4144 says to send Form NR6 "on or before January 1 of each year or before the first rental payment is due". It adds that the agent "must continue to withhold non-resident tax on the gross rental income until the CRA approves your Form NR6 in writing".
T4061 adds two rules T4144 does not. Although the form is accepted throughout the year, "the effective date for withholding on the net rental income amount will be the first day of the month in which the CRA receives the form". And even with an NR6 in place, the NR4 slip still reports the gross amount, using exemption code "H".
Now the part that decides whether an agent will agree to it. Section 216 (4) (b) deals with what happens if the non-resident does not file the return in accordance with the undertaking, or does not pay the tax in time. The elector, meaning the agent, must then pay the full amount it would otherwise have been required to remit in the year. From that figure it subtracts whatever it has already remitted that year under paragraph 216 (4) (a).
That subtraction is easy to lose, and losing it doubles the number. The official consolidation drops a noun from the phrase, so paragraph (b) reads incompletely in the printed text. It is often quoted as though the agent owed the gross figure over again.
The parallel provision for a trust at section 216 (4.1) (b) prints the same measure cleanly: "the amount by which the full amount that the elector would otherwise have been required to remit in the year in respect of the rent or royalty exceeds the amounts that the elector has remitted in the year under paragraph (a)". What the agent owes is a shortfall.
T4144 works the arithmetic in its own example. An approved NR6 produced withholding of 25 per cent of $5,000 of net rent, and the owner then failed to file. "The CRA will issue a non-resident tax assessment to your agent", and "your agent will have to pay an additional $3,750 plus interest on your account". That is the difference against 25 per cent of $20,000 of gross rent.
Read that as an owner. The relief you are asking for is a relief your manager funds if you do not keep your side of the undertaking. A manager who declines to file an NR6 for a new client, or who asks for security first, is not being difficult. They are reading section 216 (4) (b).
Section 216 (1) is the provision that lets a non-resident be taxed on rental profit instead of gross rent. It is universally called an election. The agency itself writes that "Choosing to send the CRA this return is called electing under section 216 of the Income Tax Act".
The statute never uses the word. It says the person "may, within two years (or, if that person has filed an undertaking described in subsection (4) in respect of the year, within six months) after the end of the year, file a return of income under Part I for that year in prescribed form".
Both deadlines are in that one sentence. Two years is the default. Six months applies where an undertaking under subsection (4) has been filed. The six-month rule is statutory, not an agency concession, which matters if you ever need to argue about it.
On filing, the non-resident becomes liable to tax under Part I "in lieu of paying tax under this Part". The Act treats them as though they were resident in Canada, with Canadian rental income as their only income. No deductions are allowed in computing taxable income, and none under sections 118 to 118.9. The form is T1159.
Four dates, then, and they are not the same date:
One warning belongs with those dates, and the consequence is permanent. T4144 puts it without qualification: "If you do not send the CRA your Section 216 return by the due date, your election will be invalid." Miss the date and you have not merely filed late. You have lost the right to be taxed on profit for that year, and 25 per cent of the gross rent stands as your final liability.
T4144 is also explicit that an approved NR6 converts the option into an obligation: "If you sent Form NR6 and the CRA approved it, you must file a Section 216 return for that year. You have to file a return even if you have no tax payable or are not expecting a refund." A net rental loss does not excuse the filing either.
If you own more than one Canadian rental and you file under section 216, all of them go on one return.
Four separate consequences, landing on three different people. This is the part owners underestimate, because the exposure is not limited to the tax itself.
The tax, out of the withholder's own pocket. Section 215 (6) provides that where a person has failed to deduct or withhold, "that person is liable to pay as tax under this Part on behalf of the non-resident person the whole of the amount that should have been deducted or withheld".
The same subsection gives a right to recover it from the non-resident, by set-off against later payments or otherwise.
The guide is blunter than the Act here. T4061 puts it without the softening: "you are liable for this amount even if you cannot recover the amounts."
A penalty for failing to deduct. Section 227 (8) sets 10 per cent of the amount that should have been withheld. It rises to 20 per cent in one case only. That is where a penalty under the subsection was already payable in the same calendar year and the further failure was made "knowingly or under circumstances amounting to gross negligence".
A separate, graduated penalty for remitting late. Section 227 (9) is often described as a flat 10 per cent. It is not, and its first limb is not about lateness at all. Subparagraph (a) (i) charges 3 per cent where the Receiver General receives the amount "on or before the day it was due, but that amount is not paid in the manner required".
That is the likeliest trap for an owner wiring from abroad. T4061 counts a remittance only once it reaches a Canadian financial institution or the agency. So money sent in good time by the wrong route can be both on time and caught by subparagraph (a) (i).
The rest of the scale turns on days. It is 3 per cent where the amount arrives no more than three days late. Then 5 per cent at more than three and no more than five days, and 7 per cent at more than five and no more than seven days.
Beyond the seventh day, or where nothing is remitted at all, it is 10 per cent. The 20 per cent repeat rate applies here too. Failing to deduct and failing to remit are two different failures with two different scales.
Interest, and which provision applies turns on which failure happened. Where nothing was withheld at all, section 227 (8.3) (b) runs interest at the prescribed rate from the day the amount was required to be withheld. Where an amount was withheld and then remitted late, the provision is section 227 (9.2). That one runs interest from the day the person was required to remit to the day of remittance.
The distinction is not academic for a self-managing owner. An owner remitting its own tax under subsection 215 (1.3) never withholds from itself, so section 227 (8.3) does not reach that owner at all.
Section 227 (8.1) then reaches the owner, by one narrow road. Where a person failed to withhold under section 215 in respect of an amount paid to a non-resident, the non-resident is "jointly and severally, or solidarily, liable with the particular person to pay any interest payable by the particular person pursuant to subsection (8.3) in respect thereof".
Those four words do a great deal of work, and they run in the owner's favour. The joint liability attaches to the interest only, and only to interest arising under subsection (8.3), which is interest on a failure to deduct or withhold. Where a manager withheld and merely remitted late, the interest arises under subsection (9.2) instead, so section 227 (8.1) does not reach the owner for it at all.
Nor does it make the owner jointly liable for the section 227 (8) penalty. And it is not the route by which the owner is liable for the tax.
The owner's own exposure to the tax comes from section 212 (1) directly. Section 227 (10.1) (c) then lets the Minister assess "any amount payable under Part XII.5 or XIII by any non-resident person" at any time.
"At any time" is doing real work in that sentence. There is no comfortable point at which an unremitted year becomes safe.
A defect found late is not beyond cure, and three routes exist. The Minister may cancel or waive penalties and interest under the taxpayer-relief provisions. The Voluntary Disclosures Program can relieve penalties and part of the interest where a taxpayer comes forward before the agency makes contact. And T4144 records that "The CRA can extend the due date for filing your return in certain circumstances."
The order of operations decides whether any of that stays available. A disclosure is generally accepted only while it is still voluntary, and filing the outstanding return first can be the step that makes it involuntary. Take advice on disclosure before you file, not after.
The NR4 information return is a separate obligation from remitting, and it is missed more often because nothing goes out the door when it is due.
The deadline is in regulation 202 (7): an information return under that section "shall be filed on or before March 31 and shall be in respect of the preceding calendar year". Where the income is that of an estate or trust, regulation 202 (8) substitutes 90 days from the end of the trust's taxation year. T4061 states the same March date and confirms that it rolls to the next business day where it falls on a Saturday, Sunday or recognised public holiday.
Regulation 202 (1) puts the filing duty on "every person resident in Canada" who pays or credits a non-resident an amount including "rent, royalty or a similar payment referred to in paragraph 212 (1) (d) of the Act". Regulation 202 (3) then extends it to "every person who is paid or credited with an amount referred to in subsection (1), (2) or (2.1) for or on behalf of a non-resident person". That is the agent limb again.
On the penalty, the usual description is reassuring and it describes the wrong instrument. T4061 sets it as "$100 or the amount calculated according to the chart below, whichever is more", and the chart's first row covers 1 to 5 slips, reads "Penalty not based on number of days" and carries a flat $100.
But the guide says in terms what that chart is. The agency "has an administrative policy that reduces the penalty that it assesses so it is fair and reasonable for small businesses".
The statute is harsher. Section 162 (7.01) makes a person who fails to file prescribed information returns liable to "the greater of $100 and", where the number of those returns is less than 51, "$10 multiplied by the number of days, not exceeding 100, during which the failure continues". For a one-unit owner the statutory exposure is up to $1,000, not $100.
This is the one place in this post where the guide is more generous than the Act, which is exactly the distinction the post promises to draw. Read the $100 as a concession the agency currently applies, not as your ceiling. The $7,500 sometimes quoted as an owner's ceiling is not reachable at all below 10,001 slips, because the $75 daily rate sits in the last limb of section 162 (7.01).
Either way it is a reason to file late rather than not at all. It is not a reason to be relaxed, because the remittance penalties above are where the real money is.
Nor is the NR4 the only return a non-resident owner can be behind on, so do not read the $100 as the whole filing exposure. The Underused Housing Tax return fell due on 30 April of the following calendar year, and the minimum late-filing penalty for an individual is $1,000.
Royal assent to Bill C-15 on 2026-03-26 ended the obligation for 2025 and later years. It still applies to 2022, 2023 and 2024, and an unfiled back year does not lapse on its own. Note the test there is not residence. Excluded owners are generally Canadian owners, so a Canadian citizen living abroad is usually outside it while a foreign national owner is not.
This matters because the two statutes label the same person for different reasons, and owners sometimes assume that handing over management hands over everything.
The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 defines "landlord" in subsection 2 (1). The consolidation read on 2026-10-09 runs from 2026-09-21 to an e-Laws currency date of 2026-10-06. The definition includes:
"(a) the owner of a rental unit or any other person who permits occupancy of a rental unit, other than a tenant who occupies a rental unit in a residential complex and who permits another person to also occupy the unit or any part of the unit, (b) the heirs, assigns, personal representatives and successors in title of a person referred to in clause (a), and (c) a person, other than a tenant occupying a rental unit in a residential complex, who is entitled to possession of the residential complex and who attempts to enforce any of the rights of a landlord under a tenancy agreement or this Act, including the right to collect rent"
Three things follow for an owner abroad.
Clause (a) turns on permitting occupancy, not on collecting rent. A manager who signs leases and lets tenants into possession is a "person who permits occupancy of a rental unit". That makes them a landlord for Ontario purposes on the ordinary reading of clause (a).
Clause (c) does name rent collection, but it is conjunctive. The person must also be "entitled to possession of the residential complex".
That second limb does real work. A manager who merely collects rent under a management agreement, with no entitlement to possession, does not come within clause (c). So a bare rent-collector can be the Part XIII agent without being the Ontario landlord. Section 215 (3) turns only on receiving the money on behalf of the person entitled to it.
And the definition opens with "includes", not "means". It is inclusive rather than exhaustive. Hiring a manager does not transfer landlord status away from you, it adds a second person who holds it. Whether that person can stand up for you at a hearing is a separate question with a separate answer. It is covered in who is allowed to represent you at the Landlord and Tenant Board.
In this order, because each step depends on the one above it.
None of those steps is difficult. Every one is a dated obligation that an owner eight time zones away forgets and a manager diarises. That is the real argument for a Canadian agent in the chain, quite apart from the tenancy work. If you own a single-family rental in Northumberland County and you have been managing it from abroad, the withholding question is usually the one that has been quietly accruing.
This guide explains how the provisions work. It is not tax advice, and the interaction between Part XIII, a tax treaty and your own residence position can change the answer. Take the statutory references here to an accountant who handles non-resident filings.
Does a tax treaty reduce the 25 per cent on rental income? Treaties can reduce Part XIII rates on some kinds of income, but rent on real property is commonly left at the domestic rate, and the reduction is never automatic. Section 212 (1) sets 25 per cent as the starting point, and any relief has to be established under the particular treaty. Confirm your own position with an accountant rather than assuming a lower rate applies.
Can my tenant be made to withhold the tax? Generally no. Subsection 215 (1.2) switches off the duty in subsection 215 (1) where an individual pays rent for a residential property in which an individual resides. An individual tenant renting a home does not withhold. The carve-out is narrow. A corporate tenant stays inside subsection 215 (1), as does a trust that is not a graduated rate estate. Where no Canadian agent is in the chain, subsection 215 (1.3) puts the remittance on the owner.
If I file an NR6, do I still have to file a section 216 return? Yes. Guide T4144 is explicit that where the agency approved your Form NR6 you must file for that year, “even if you have no tax payable or are not expecting a refund”, and a net rental loss does not excuse it. Section 216 (4) (b) is the reason it is enforced: your agent pays the shortfall if you do not file.
Is the “15th of the month” a legal deadline? It is the Canada Revenue Agency’s published remittance date in T4144 and T4061, and you should work to it. It is not in the Income Tax Act, which says “forthwith” in section 215 (1). Nor does it postpone interest. Where an amount was withheld and remitted late, section 227 (9.2) runs interest from the day it fell due. Where nothing was withheld, section 227 (8.3) (b) runs it from the day it should have been.
Does hiring a property manager make them the landlord instead of me? No. The definition of “landlord” in subsection 2 (1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 opens with “includes”, so it is inclusive rather than exhaustive. A manager who permits occupancy becomes a landlord under clause (a) as well, and you remain one.
If you own an Ontario rental from outside Canada and you are not certain who has been remitting, that is worth an hour of attention now. It compounds into a year of interest if it waits. KEILTY Realty Management manages residential rentals across Eastern Ontario for a flat monthly rate, and we are used to working alongside an owner's accountant on the withholding and reporting side. Tell us about the property and A.J. Keilty will call you within 20 minutes in business hours.
This article explains Ontario residential tenancy law and Canadian non-resident withholding rules as of 2026-10-09. Legislation, regulations and Canada Revenue Agency guidance change. It is general information, not legal or tax advice, and it does not create a solicitor-client or advisor-client relationship. Confirm your own position with a lawyer or an accountant before acting.
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