Canadian sales tax basics for an online store: GST, HST, PST and QST

01The rates by province

Rates as published by the Canada Revenue Agency and accessed on 2026-09-24. They change: Nova Scotia's HST moved to 14 percent on April 1, 2025. Verify every rate with the CRA and the relevant province before configuring a store, and re-check whenever a budget is announced.

02How a store applies tax by destination

For goods shipped to a customer, the general principle in Canada is that the tax follows the destination: an Ontario store shipping to a customer in British Columbia charges the taxes that apply in British Columbia, not Ontario's HST. The CRA's place-of-supply rules set the detail, and they differ for services, digital products and some categories of goods.

In practice a store needs the customer's shipping address before it can show a final total, which is why Canadian checkouts calculate tax at the address step. A single flat rate applied to every order is wrong for a store that ships nationally, and so is charging only your home province's rate.

03Registration: when and where

Charging tax follows registering for it. The CRA sets thresholds and rules for GST/HST registration, and Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan each have their own registration rules for their provincial taxes, including rules for sellers located outside the province who ship in. Do not charge a tax you are not registered to collect, and do not skip a tax you are required to collect.

• Check the CRA's GST/HST registration rules for your sales volume and business type.
• Check each PST, RST or QST province's rules for out-of-province sellers.
• Keep registration numbers in the store's tax settings and on invoices where required.
• Ask an accountant before your first sale into a new province, not after.

04Configuring tax in the store

Redenn's ecommerce builds (from CA$1,499) include a storefront with catalogue, checkout, taxes and shipping for Canadian sales. Configuration is where the rules above become settings: tax zones by province, the correct combination of federal and provincial tax per zone, product categories that are taxed differently, and invoices that show the tax lines and registration numbers.

• One tax zone per province and territory, each with the right taxes and rates.
• Tax calculated from the shipping address and shown before payment.
• Product-level overrides for categories with different treatment, set on an accountant's advice.
• Shipping charges taxed according to the applicable rules.
• Invoices and receipts that show tax by line and your registration numbers.
• A review date in the calendar for rate changes.

05Shipping, digital goods and services

Physical goods are the simplest case. Shipping charges, digital products, subscriptions and services each have their own place-of-supply rules, and some depend on where the customer is rather than where anything is delivered. Cross-border sales into the United States or elsewhere bring another set of rules entirely. None of these should be configured from a guide; they should be configured from an accountant's instructions.

06Common mistakes

Each of these has cost a store money, either in penalties or in refunds to customers.

• Charging Ontario HST to every Canadian customer because the business is in Ontario.
• Charging tax without being registered, or in a province where the store is not registered.
• Forgetting Manitoba's RST, or applying PST to a Quebec order instead of QST.
• Using a rate table from a blog post that has not been updated since the last change.
• Showing prices as tax-included without saying so, then surprising customers at checkout.
• Not keeping records of the tax charged per province for filing.

07Not tax advice

This guide summarizes rates published by the Canada Revenue Agency as of 2026-09-24 and general principles for online sales. It is general information, not tax advice. Rates change, thresholds apply and product categories are treated differently; verify everything with the CRA, the relevant provincial authority and an accountant before you sell.