Registering a TFSA

To register an account as a TFSA, financial institutions must submit the account information to the CRA before the month of March following the year the account was opened. The account is registered as a TFSA when the identification information submitted matches the information on the CRA database.

When an account is not registered as a TFSA it is considered to be a non-registered account. As a result, the regular tax and reporting requirements specific to the type of non-registered account will apply from the time the account was opened. For example, investment earnings and capital gains are taxable and must be reported. Also, contributions to, and withdrawals from, a non-registered account will not affect an individual's unused TFSA room.

New accounts

When an individual record is a new account and the record has been rejected, the account cannot be registered as a TFSA. For a complete list of reasons why an individual record may be rejected, see Error codes and descriptive messages for TFSA rejected individual records.

Date modified:

2016-02-05