T5008: Statement of Securities Transactions
Reviewed by EverStone CPA · August 2026
Quick answer: The T5008 reports proceeds from securities dispositions — it is filed by traders and dealers, not by investors. If you sold investments, you receive one, and the number that needs your attention is the cost base, which the slip may show incompletely or not at all.
What the form is
The T5008 information return reports dispositions of securities — shares, bonds, T-bills and similar property — and the proceeds received. The CRA’s guide (T4091) governs it.
The filer is a trader or dealer in securities — a person registered or licensed to trade in securities or who ordinarily sells securities for others. In practice: your brokerage.
The CRA receives a copy of every slip and matches the proceeds against returns. Unreported dispositions surface quickly; what the matching cannot do is know your true cost base.
Who files it
Filed by brokerages and dealers. Received by anyone who disposed of securities in a non-registered account during the year — including an owner-managed corporation with an investment account, whose dispositions belong on its T2.
Dispositions inside RRSPs, TFSAs and other registered plans do not generate taxable T5008 reporting for the holder.
The form at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Guide | T4091 — T5008 Guide, Return of Securities Transactions |
| Who files | Traders or dealers in securities |
| Who receives | Anyone who disposed of securities in a non-registered account |
| Due | Last day of February following the calendar year |
| What it shows | Proceeds of disposition — cost in box 20 only where the filer knows it |
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 for a recipient, the slip itself plus your own records of what each security actually cost — purchase confirmations, reinvested distributions, prior-year ACB schedules — because box 20 is frequently blank or incomplete, and the CRA matches the proceeds side automatically 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
Box 20 is not gospel. The broker reports the cost it knows about — transfers in from another institution, reinvested distributions and superficial-loss adjustments are routinely missing. Filing straight off the slip overstates or understates the gain, and it is the taxpayer’s number to prove.
Every disposition needs reporting even where the slip did not arrive. The CRA’s copy exists either way, and its matching program works from proceeds — the taxpayer who ignores a small sale meets it again as a reassessment letter.
Corporate investment accounts produce T5008s too, and the gains belong on the corporation’s Schedule 6 — where the capital dividend account consequences of the untaxed half are worth tracking deliberately.
For most business owners the T5008 is a slip you receive, not one you file — and its trap is on the receiving end: the slip reports proceeds, and unless the cost figure is checked against your own records, far too much of a sale can be treated as gain.
How it is filed
Traders and dealers file the T5008 return — slips and summary — by the last day of February following the calendar year. Recipients do not file the slip anywhere; they use it to report dispositions on Schedule 3 of the T1 or Schedule 6 of the T2, with a cost base they have verified themselves.
Whichever route applies, keep the filed copies and the working papers behind them together. A slip is only as defensible as the records that show how its boxes were calculated, and those records are what a review asks for rather than the slip itself.
Common questions
Do I have to file the T5008 I received?+
The cost box is empty. What do I do?+
I sold inside my TFSA. Where does it go?+
When do brokers send T5008s?+
Where this comes from
- CRA — T4091: T5008 guide, return of securities transactions
- CRA — T5008 slip
- 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
- The capital dividend account
- The capital gains inclusion rate
- Foreign exchange gains and losses
- All CRA forms we cover
Other CRA forms
Who does this work
The work on a T5008 is reconstructing adjusted cost base — reinvested distributions, corporate actions, transfers between accounts. That history is cheap to maintain and expensive to rebuild, which is the argument for keeping the schedule current every year.
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.
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