Tax Tip - Businesses, are you ready for your CRA mail to go online?

OTTAWA, ON, May 7, 2025 /CNW/ - Starting May 12, 2025, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will transition to online mail as the default method of delivering most business correspondence. This means you'll start receiving most of your business notices and other correspondence through CRA's secure online portal, My Business Account, instead of by mail.

This change applies to:

• All new business number and program account registrations
• All existing businesses registered for My Business Account and
• All businesses who have given online access to a representative to view and/or modify information on their behalf via Represent a Client

This change is part of the CRA's ongoing efforts to improve service delivery by making it faster, easier, and more secure for businesses to manage their tax obligations online. Going digital means businesses will need to sign in to My Business Account to receive important pieces of correspondence, such as notices of assessment. For more information go to Online mail for business.

Note: Some business correspondence cannot be delivered through online mail and will continue to be delivered through paper mail (for example, cheques if direct deposit is not set up for the business).

How to prepare for this change – make sure your email address is in your account and up to date

To prepare for the switch to online mail, the CRA recommends signing into My Business Account and making sure your email address is up to date. This allows the CRA to notify you when important changes are made on your account and when you have mail to view in My Business Account. Without an up-to-date email address, you may miss important notifications about updates and correspondence.

Owners of new businesses should register for a CRA account and provide a valid email address after they register for their business number and program accounts so they do not miss notifications about updates and correspondence.

Important dates

The CRA will use a phased approach to transition to online mail as the default method of delivering most business correspondence.

Phase 1: New business and program account registrations

Effective May 12, 2025, new business and program account registrations will receive most of their business correspondence online in the My Business Account portal of their CRA account. This includes new corporations registered through the federal or provincial incorporating authorities.

If you are not registered for a CRA account, go to Register for a CRA account - Canada.ca.

Phase 2: Existing businesses

Effective June 16, 2025, existing businesses will be changed to CRA online mail as the default method of receiving most business correspondence.

Business correspondence

Business correspondence refers to notices, letters, forms, statements, and other documents that the CRA sends to communicate important information about your business tax account or returns.

Businesses registering for a new business number or program account will need to register for My Business Account to access their business correspondence.

With the change to online mail, your business correspondence will be considered as received on the date that it is posted to your My Business Account. To access, view, print, or download your business correspondence, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Sign into My Business Account (if you are an authorized representative sign into Represent a Client)

Step 2: From the navigation menu on the left, go to Correspondence and select "Mail"

Step 3: Select and review your mail

Exceptions

Existing businesses not registered for My Business Account through the business owner or that do not have an authorized representative (via Represent a Client); Charities; Non-resident businesses that do not have an owner or director that is a Canadian resident, and do not have access to My Business Account through a representative will continue to receive their CRA correspondence by paper mail.

For more information, go to Online mail for business - Canada.ca 

Benefits of going digital

Our digital services make handling your business tax matters faster and easier. You and your authorized representatives can file, pay, and access detailed information about your tax accounts. Switching to online mail ensures a more efficient, secure, and eco-friendly approach to handling your businesses tax obligations. By using the CRA's digital services, businesses can:

• enable quicker communication with the CRA, making it easier to get updates and support
• receive earlier confirmation for tax information
• manage business taxes quickly and easily from a computer or mobile device
• help reduce paper use, contributing to a cleaner and greener future by cutting down on waste

To learn more about our digital services, check out our tax tip: Looking for the fastest and easiest way to view and manage your business taxes online? Use our digital services!

Improvements to My Business Account's digital mail feature

My Business Account is a secure online portal that gives you access to a range of tools to help manage your business' tax affairs. You can register using a CRA user ID and password or through a sign-in partner. To make managing your business tax correspondence even easier, the CRA has enhanced the "Mail" service in My Business Account with the following new features:

• Improved message filtering and sorting, allowing you to quickly find and organize important correspondence
• A new "Access services" button for easy navigation to other communication services
• A new "Reply" feature for audit enquiries, simplifying the process of responding to the CRA
• A new "Switch business account" button for managing multiple business accounts
• A new "Proceed to pay" button for direct access to the payment process
• A new "Submit document" button for easily submitting required documents

To stay updated on new improvements to My Business Account please visit: About My Business Account - What's new

Requesting paper mail

If you would like to receive your correspondence by paper mail, you'll need to make a request to activate paper mail. The request can only be made by an individual with signing authority such as an owner or director or legal representative.

You must keep your mailing address up-to-date to ensure you receive all correspondence. Any undeliverable mail will result in a change back to online mail. To keep receiving paper mail you'll need to make a request to activate paper mail every two years.

Starting  May 12, 2025, paper mail can only be requested in one of two ways:

Note:  If you have submitted an RC681 Request to activate paper mail for my business to activate paper mail during this transition period (between May 12 and June 16, 2025), you may still receive correspondence online in My Business Account until the CRA processes your request . As such, the CRA recommends that you monitor your CRA account for new online mail or register to receive email notifications from the CRA to be notified when you have new mail to view in My Business Account.

Contacts

Media Relations
Canada Revenue Agency
613-948-8366
cra-arc.media@cra-arc.gc.ca

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SOURCE Canada Revenue Agency