Invoice Generator for Canada

At the federal level, the Canada Revenue Agency administers GST and, in participating provinces, the harmonised HST that combines the federal and provincial components into a single rate. Outside those provinces you may also need to deal with a separate provincial sales tax — PST in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and QST in Quebec, which Revenu Québec administers.

The practical consequence is that the same piece of work can carry a different tax treatment depending on where your customer is. Place-of-supply rules published by the CRA decide which province applies, and they differ for goods, services and intangibles.

The CRA also specifies the information your customer needs in order to claim an input tax credit, and that requirement steps up in tiers as the value of the sale increases. Meeting the top tier on every invoice is the simplest way to avoid ever falling short.

Use a unique number on every invoice and keep the run sequential. Canadian filings often involve both federal and provincial reporting, and clean numbering is what lets you tie one set of figures to the other.

A straightforward sequence — 1001, 1002, 1003 — is enough for most businesses. Suppliers selling across provinces sometimes add a province code, such as ON-1042 or QC-1043, which makes tax reconciliation visibly simpler at year end.

Do not reuse or delete numbers. Cancel with a credit note that references the original invoice so both documents remain in the sequence and in your records.

Show both the invoice date and the due date. Where the tax treatment depends on when the supply took place, the date on the invoice is also part of your tax record, not just a payment detail.

Net 30 is the most common commercial default in Canada. Trades, freelancers and small suppliers often use shorter terms, and public sector buyers usually work to their own published schedule.

The federal GST applies across Canada. In participating provinces it is combined with the provincial component into a single harmonised HST, so you charge one rate rather than two separate taxes. In other provinces you charge GST and, depending on the province, a separate PST or QST as well. Alberta and the territories apply GST only.

Because rates and combinations differ by province and can change, look them up on the CRA site for the province of supply rather than relying on a figure quoted elsewhere. What matters on the invoice is that the tax shown matches the place of supply and that each component is identifiable.

Registration is tied to the CRA's small supplier rules. Once you exceed the threshold you must register; below it you can register voluntarily, which is common among businesses that want to recover input tax credits on their own costs.

Canadian invoices are issued in Canadian dollars, written as $1,250.00 or CAD 1,250.00. Use the CAD prefix whenever the reader might be American, because a bare dollar sign is read as USD by most US finance teams.

French-language invoices for Quebec customers conventionally place the symbol after the amount, as 1 250,00 $, with a comma as the decimal separator and a space for thousands. If you issue bilingual documents, be consistent within each version.

Billing a US customer in USD is common for Canadian exporters. State the currency explicitly, keep your GST/HST treatment separate from the currency question, and remember that a conversion spread applies when the payment lands in a CAD account.

The CRA publishes usable guidance, and a single-province service business will usually manage fine with it. An accountant pays for itself the moment you sell across provincial lines, because place-of-supply rules and multiple registrations are where costly errors accumulate quietly.

Quebec deserves specific attention: QST is administered separately, and both the tax and the language requirements differ from the rest of the country.