T1135: Foreign Income Verification Statement
Reviewed by EverStone CPA · August 2026
Quick answer: Form T1135 must be filed by Canadian residents who owned specified foreign property with a total cost above $100,000 at any time in the year. It is due the same day as your income tax return, and the penalty for missing it runs $25 a day to a maximum of $2,500.
What the form is
T1135 is the reporting form behind section 233.3 of the Income Tax Act. It does not create tax by itself — it tells the CRA what specified foreign property you hold, and the income from that property is taxed through your return as usual.
The $100,000 threshold is measured on cost, not market value, in Canadian dollars, and it is tested at every point in the year — crossing it for a single day creates the filing requirement for that year.
There are two tiers. If the total cost stayed between $100,000 and $250,000 throughout the year, a simplified reporting method (Part A) lets you tick categories rather than list each property. At $250,000 or more, the detailed method applies.
Who files it
Canadian resident individuals, corporations and certain trusts and partnerships holding specified foreign property costing more than $100,000 in total. That includes foreign stocks held through a Canadian brokerage account — where the property is listed matters, not where the account is.
Personal-use property is excluded. A vacation home used only personally does not count toward the threshold; a foreign rental property does.
The form at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Legislation | Section 233.3 |
| Who files | Canadian residents — individuals, corporations, certain trusts and partnerships — over the $100,000 cost threshold |
| Due | The same date as your income tax return (partnerships: the partnership information return) |
| Simplified method | Available where total cost stayed under $250,000 throughout the year |
| Late penalty | $25 a day for up to 100 days — minimum $100, maximum $2,500 |
What to have ready before you file
Most of the delay on these is not the form, it is assembling what the form asks for. Have a list of every specified foreign property held at any time in the year, the cost amount of each in Canadian dollars, the income each produced, and — if total cost stayed under $250,000 all year — the country codes needed for the simplified Part A method to hand before starting.
Gathering it first also surfaces the problems early — a missing account number, a balance nobody has actually calculated, a date that does not line up — while there is still time to fix them rather than after a filing has been rejected.
What catches people out
The threshold is cost, not value. A portfolio bought for $95,000 that grows to $130,000 has not crossed the line; one bought for $105,000 that falls to $60,000 has. People check the wrong number in both directions.
Foreign securities inside a Canadian discount brokerage still count. The account being at a Canadian institution is exactly the situation people assume is exempt, and it is not — the exemption is for property inside RRSPs, TFSAs and other registered plans.
Filing the tax return on time does not protect you. The T1135 has its own penalty, and the CRA assesses it even where every dollar of foreign income was fully reported on the return itself.
The penalty for not filing a required T1135 is $25 a day for up to 100 days — a minimum of $100 and a maximum of $2,500 — and where the failure is made knowingly or through gross negligence it rises to $500 a month for up to 24 months.
How it is filed
It is filed with your income tax return — individuals, corporations and trusts file it for the same deadline as the return itself, and partnerships for the same date as the partnership information return. It can be filed electronically, and missing it while filing the return on time still triggers the penalty.
Whichever route applies, keep the filed return and the working papers behind it together. A return is only as defensible as the file that shows how the figures in it were arrived at, and that file is what a review asks for rather than the return itself.
Common questions
Do I count my RRSP or TFSA investments?+
Is it $100,000 per property or in total?+
What if I forgot to file it for past years?+
Does my corporation have to file one too?+
Where this comes from
- CRA — Foreign Income Verification Statement
- CRA — Table of penalties (foreign reporting)
- CRA — Penalty for accepting a late, amended or revoked election
General information current as of August 2026, not advice for your situation. Filing deadlines are unforgiving — confirm yours before you file. Please speak with a CPA about your circumstances.
Related reading
- Foreign exchange gains and losses
- Every CRA deadline in one place
- What CRA letters actually mean
- All CRA forms we cover
Other CRA forms
Who does this work
The T1135 travels with the return, so the practical fix is having whoever prepares the return also track the foreign property schedule year to year — the cost amounts carry forward, and rebuilding them after the fact is the expensive version.
If that is where you are, the service page for personal and corporate tax returns sets out what the engagement covers and how it is quoted.
These deadlines are date-driven and unforgiving. Email us before the deadline rather than after — we quote the work in writing first.
Email us about T1135