GST/HST Quick Method: Rates and Is It Worth It?

Short answer: the Quick Method lets a small business pay GST/HST as a fixed percentage of its tax-included sales, instead of tracking the tax on every expense. You still charge customers the normal 5%, 13%, 14% or 15%. You remit a lower rate, such as 1.8% for a reseller in Alberta or BC, or 4.4% in Ontario, and get a 1% credit on your first $30,000 of sales. You can use it if your annual taxable sales are $400,000 or less. It usually saves money and time for sellers whose customers are in their own province, and usually costs money for sellers who export a lot.

This guide is for registered Canadian online sellers on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Etsy and Amazon deciding how to file. For how returns work in general, see how to file a GST/HST return.

Is the Quick Method right for you?

Your situation	Quick Method?	Why
Reseller, most customers in your own province, modest costs	Usually yes	The fixed rate plus 1% credit tends to beat your real input tax credits
Service, design or digital business with low costs	Usually yes	Few expenses means few input tax credits to lose
Most sales go to the US or abroad	Usually no	Exports are left out, but you lose the credits that would give you a refund
Heavy costs: lots of inventory, ads and shipping relative to sales	Often no	Your real input tax credits are probably higher than the rate assumes
You ship to many provinces at different rates	Maybe. Run the numbers	Different remittance rates apply to sales in other provinces
Annual taxable sales over $400,000	Not eligible	Use the regular method
Accountant, bookkeeper, lawyer, financial consultant or actuary	Not eligible	Excluded by the CRA

How the Quick Method works

Under the regular method, you remit:

GST/HST you charged − GST/HST you paid on business costs (input tax credits)

Under the Quick Method, you remit:

Tax-included sales × your remittance rate − 1% of the first $30,000 of those sales

Three things to remember:

1. You still charge customers the full rate. A customer in Toronto pays 13% HST either way.
2. You use tax-included sales. If you sold $10,000 of goods in Ontario, you multiply $11,300 by the rate, not $10,000.
3. No input tax credits on operating costs. Inventory, packaging, fees and shipping are built into the rate. You can still claim credits on capital property like equipment, computers and vehicles.

Quick Method remittance rates (2026)

These rates apply to sales made in the same province as your permanent establishment:

Where your business is	GST/HST you charge	Goods for resale	Services and other
Alberta, BC, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Quebec, territories	5% GST	1.8%	3.6%
Ontario	13% HST	4.4%	8.8%
Nova Scotia (since April 1, 2025)	14% HST	4.7%	9.4%
New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI	15% HST	5.0%	10.0%

Nova Scotia’s rates changed when its HST dropped from 15% to 14% on April 1, 2025. If your fiscal year straddled that date, you used the old rates for sales before it.

Goods for resale or services?

You can use the lower goods for resale rate only if the cost of goods you bought to resell, including GST/HST, was at least 40% of your tax-included taxable sales in the previous fiscal year. A boutique that buys finished products wholesale and resells them usually qualifies. Service, design, digital and many maker businesses use the services rate.

Sales in other provinces

Your remittance rate depends on where each sale is made. If you’re based in Ontario and ship to customers in Alberta (5% GST) or Nova Scotia (14% HST), different rates apply to those sales. An Ontario reseller, for example, remits nothing on its 5% GST sales and gets a small credit instead. The CRA’s guide RC4058, Quick Method of Accounting for GST/HST lists every combination. If 90% or more of your eligible sales fall in one group of provinces, you can generally use that group’s rate for everything.

Exports and other zero-rated sales

Zero-rated sales, like goods shipped to US customers, are left out of the calculation. You charge 0% and remit 0% on them. But you also can’t claim the GST/HST on the costs behind them, which is why the Quick Method usually loses for exporters.

The 1% credit

Every fiscal year, you take a credit of 1% of the first $30,000 of eligible tax-included sales. That’s up to $300 a year, and for a small seller it often makes up most of the saving.

Worked example 1: an Ontario reseller

Lakeview Home Goods is a Toronto boutique that buys finished home decor wholesale and resells it on Shopify. All its customers are in Ontario. Last year:

	Amount
Sales before HST	$150,000
HST charged at 13%	$19,500
Tax-included sales	$169,500
Inventory bought, including $9,750 HST	$84,750
Other costs (fees, ads, packaging, shipping), with $1,950 HST	$16,950

Inventory including tax is 50% of tax-included sales, over the 40% test, so Lakeview can use the 4.4% goods rate.

	Regular method	Quick Method
HST charged / tax-included sales × rate	$19,500	$169,500 × 4.4% = $7,458
Input tax credits	− $11,700	Not claimed
1% credit on first $30,000		− $300
Remitted to the CRA	$7,800	$7,158

The Quick Method saves Lakeview $642 a year, and its bookkeeper no longer has to track the HST on every receipt.

Worked example 2: a BC illustrator

Inkwell Prints is a Vancouver illustrator selling commissions and digital downloads, all to customers in BC and Alberta. It uses the 3.6% services rate.

	Regular method	Quick Method
Sales before GST: $60,000	GST charged: $3,000	Tax-included: $63,000 × 3.6% = $2,268
Input tax credits on $8,000 of costs	− $400	Not claimed
1% credit		− $300
Remitted	$2,600	$1,968

The Quick Method saves Inkwell $632. Its costs are low, so it isn’t giving up much in input tax credits.

The same illustrator, selling mostly to the US

Now say 90% of Inkwell’s $60,000 comes from US clients (zero-rated) and only $6,000 from Canadians:

	Regular method	Quick Method
GST charged on $6,000	$300	Tax-included $6,300 × 3.6% = $226.80
Input tax credits on $8,000 of costs	− $400	Not claimed
1% credit (on $6,300)		− $63.00
Result	$100 refund	$163.80 to pay

The regular method wins. Export-heavy sellers should usually stay on it. See selling to US customers.

Who can use the Quick Method

You can elect the Quick Method if:

• your annual worldwide taxable sales, including GST/HST, zero-rated sales and the sales of associated businesses, are $400,000 or less. The CRA looks at your last four fiscal quarters
• you have a permanent establishment in Canada
• your business isn’t one of the excluded types: accountants, bookkeepers, lawyers, financial consultants, actuaries, tax preparers, and some financial institutions

New registrants can generally elect if they expect to stay under $400,000. If your sales grow past the limit, check RC4058 for when you have to stop using it.

How to elect

1. Run the numbers with last year’s figures, as in the examples above.
2. Elect with Form GST74, Election and Application to Use the Quick Method of Accounting, or in My Business Account. You can’t elect through the GST/HST NETFILE form.
3. File on time. If you file annually, elect by the first day of the second fiscal quarter of the year you want to start (April 1 if your fiscal year starts on January 1). If you file monthly or quarterly, elect by the due date of the return for the first period you use it. New registrants have until the due date of their first return.
4. Update your bookkeeping. Track tax-included sales by province, and capital purchases separately.

Once you’ve elected, you generally have to stay on the Quick Method for at least a year before you can revoke it.

Edge cases

• Quebec: QST has its own quick method with its own rates, administered by Revenu Québec.
• Capital purchases: claim input tax credits on equipment and vehicles as normal, on line 106.
• The Quick Method isn’t income tax. The GST/HST you keep (the difference between what you charged and what you remitted) counts as business income on your income tax return.
• PST, RST and QST aren’t affected. If you’re registered for BC PST or another provincial tax, you file those returns as normal.

Official sources

• Quick Method of accounting, Canada Revenue Agency
• RC4058, Quick Method of Accounting for GST/HST, Canada Revenue Agency
• GST/HST rates by province, Canada Revenue Agency

Not sure which method saves you more?

Tell us where you sell and roughly how much goes to each province and to the US. We'll compare the Quick Method and the regular method on your real numbers. Then our Canadian accountant partners file your GST/HST returns either way.

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