Reading Your T3, T5 and T5008 Without Guessing

You can get three different slips for one ordinary investment account, and each one tells you about something else. Your T5 covers the interest and dividends you were paid. Your T3 breaks a fund's payout into parts that are taxed in different ways, and one of those parts isn't income you owe anything on at all. It changes what you paid for your units. Your T5008 covers what you sold, and its cost box is the number you've got to check for yourself, because your brokerage often doesn't hold your whole purchase history.

Key takeaways

• A T5 comes from whoever paid you interest or dividends. A T3 comes from whatever fund or trust you hold. Your broker sends the T5008, for anything you sold.
• Your T5 and T5008 reach you by the end of February. Your T3 can take until the end of March. File in between and you'll be changing your return later.
• Box 42 on your T3 goes on no line of your return. It lowers what you paid for your units, so your gain gets bigger the day you sell.
• Box 20 on your T5008 is your brokerage's best record of what you paid, not a promise. It can be too high, too low or blank, and only your own records fix it.
• Money inside your registered accounts doesn't produce any of these three slips.

Who gets which slip

Which slips reach you depends on what you own and where you keep it.

You get a T5 when a bank, an insurer or a Canadian corporation pays you interest or dividends outside a registered account.¹⁷ You get a T3 when your money sits in a fund, or in a trust, because the fund's passing its income through to you instead of paying you a dividend of its own. You get a T5008 when you sell or redeem something, and it comes from the broker who handled the trade.²

Registered accounts change the answer. A tax-free savings account, or TFSA, and a registered retirement savings plan, or RRSP, are the two most people hold, and what you earn inside either one gives you none of these three. The same goes for a registered retirement income fund, or RRIF, and a first home savings account, or FHSA. That income isn't yours to report in the year you earn it, so those accounts have slips of their own and you'll only see one when you take money out.³

Maya rents, keeps her savings where they earn interest, and holds a TFSA. Her TFSA doesn't send her anything. Her savings account sends her a T5 if her interest reached $50 for the year, and if it didn't reach $50, she reports it anyway.⁴⁵ Her December statement carries her year's total whether a slip turns up or not. "The Calm Account," where a charger and a dental bill land in the same week.

Joanne is 61 and holds an index fund outside her registered accounts. She gets all three. A T5 for the interest on her cash, a T3 for what her fund passed through, and a T5008 for the units she sold in November. She can't finish her return until the T3 comes, because it carries two of the three numbers she needs. "Counting What's Already There," where she works out the number she actually needs.

When do your slips arrive?

Your T5 and your T5008 have to be in your hands by February's last day.⁶⁷ Your T3 doesn't. A trust gets 90 days after its year end to file, and most of the funds you'd hold use December 31, so a T3 that arrives at the end of March is on time.⁸

The Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, gets its own copy of every slip you get, straight from whoever issued it. Those copies run on the same clock and are processed by about the middle of March, which is why your slip can be sitting on your desk and still be missing from your online account.⁹

You've got until April 30 to file and to pay.¹⁰ Filing early feels good, and there's nothing wrong with your instinct to get it done. Your trust's deadline just isn't the same as yours, and you can't hurry it.

What the boxes on your T5 mean

There's not much for you to do with a T5. Almost every box on it drops straight onto a line of your return.

Interest sits in box 13 and goes on line 12100. Box 14 is other Canadian income and box 15 is income from outside Canada, and both join it on that same line. Those two live in the "other information" area at the foot of the slip, where the payer writes the box number in by hand, and so does box 16, the foreign tax someone already took off box 15 before you saw it. Box 16 feeds your foreign tax credit at line 40500.¹

Dividends don't fit in one box. They take three. For eligible dividends, box 24 is the cash that actually reached your account, box 25 is that same cash plus a gross-up of 38%, and box 26 is the credit that gives most of the extra back.¹¹ You report box 25 on line 12000 and claim box 26 on line 40425, and box 24 itself doesn't go anywhere. Boxes 10, 11 and 12 do the same three jobs for dividends other than eligible ones, the kind you get from a smaller Canadian business, except that box 11 goes on line 12010 as well as line 12000.¹ If you've wondered why your slip claims a bigger dividend than the amount you were paid, you've found the gross-up, and the guide on dividend tax works through what it costs you.

Two more boxes are easy to miss. Box 18 is capital gains dividends, which come from a mutual fund corporation rather than from a fund trust, and they go on line 17400 of Schedule 3.¹ Box 27 names the currency, and a blank box means you're in Canadian dollars.¹¹

Your T3 splits one payment into several kinds of income

Your fund doesn't pay you one thing. It collects dividends, interest, foreign income and gains from everything it owns, keeps the character of each, and passes them to you in separate boxes. That's why one monthly deposit can show up in March as five numbers that don't add up to anything you'd recognize.

Boxes 49, 50 and 51 are eligible dividends, in the same three-view shape your T5 uses. Box 49 is what you actually got, box 50 is box 49 multiplied by 1.38, and box 51 is 15.0198% of box 50.¹² You report box 50 on line 12000, and you claim box 51 on line 40425.

Boxes 23, 32 and 39 do the same for dividends other than eligible ones. Box 32 goes on lines 12010 and 12000, and box 39 on line 40425.¹³

Box 21 is capital gains, and it holds your whole gain rather than the taxable part of it.¹² Take box 30 off it, and you carry the difference to line 17600 of Schedule 3, where the taxable share gets worked out.¹³ An asterisk beside box 21 means part of that gain came from foreign property, and the footnote area names the country and the amount.¹²

Box 26 is other income, and it's where your fund's interest ends up. There's no T3 equivalent of T5 box 13. Rent, business income and a few one-off payments land in box 26 too, so take box 31 off and put the difference on line 13000.¹³

Boxes 25 and 34 cover money earned outside Canada, and the tax another country already took from it. You put box 25 on line 12100, and both boxes feed Form T2209, where you claim credit for tax another country kept.¹³

Once you can see which of your boxes holds which kind of income, you can price the difference. Run your own numbers if you want to see, in dollars and in your own province, what interest costs you next to a dividend or a gain.

Box 42 never reaches your tax return

Box 42 is the cost-base adjustment box, and it's the only number on your T3 that changes nothing about your tax this year.¹³

Your fund gave you back part of your own capital rather than income it earned, so there's nothing to tax yet. Instead it changes what you paid for your units. A positive box 42 comes off your cost base. A number your fund printed in brackets goes on.¹²

The bill arrives later. Box 42 amounts you never wrote down turn into capital gain on the day you sell, and they add up across every year you hold the fund. The guide on return of capital covers why a fund pays it in the first place.

Ten years into a fund with no record of box 42, nobody can hand you your cost base from the outside. Your old T3s each carry the number, one year at a time, and your brokerage can reissue a slip you've lost.

Why does your T5008 show a cost you never paid?

Box 20 isn't a record of your purchase. It's your brokerage's book value, and it may or may not be your adjusted cost base. You make the adjustments yourself.²

That isn't sloppiness on the brokerage's part. Box 20 is meant to be everything you paid, including your purchase commissions, adjusted for the distributions you reinvested, the capital you got back and any reorganizations along the way, and a brokerage that has held your units since you bought them usually gets you there.¹⁴ It goes wrong where the record has a gap. You've moved your account from one institution to another, you've bought at a dozen different prices over a decade, your distributions have been buying you more units automatically, or your fund's been paying box 42 all along. The guide on adjusted cost base goes through rebuilding the number when one of those has happened to you.

Box 21 doesn't have that problem. It's the gross proceeds, with no expenses taken off.¹⁴ So a $60 commission on the sale is nowhere on your slip. You claim it in the outlays and expenses column of Schedule 3 instead.

Two more things make your slip look wrong when it isn't. Brokers can total several trades in identical securities onto one line, dated 1231 for December 31, so your slip count won't match the number of trades you made.¹⁴ And box 15 tells you what you sold, using a short code. MFT means units in a fund trust, SHS means shares, BON means bonds.¹⁴

Joanne bought her units in 2016 for $4,900 including the commission. She moved her account to a different brokerage in 2022, and the new one recorded what her units were worth on the day they landed, $5,800. Across the years her T3s reported $340 in box 42, which comes off what she paid. She sold in November for $6,300 and paid $60 to do it.

So her slip shows box 20 at $5,800 and box 21 at $6,300, which reads like a $500 gain. Her real cost base is $4,560, and her gain is $1,680 once her selling cost comes off. She adds half of it to her income.¹⁵ Box 20 overstates what she paid by $1,240, so taking the slip at face value would leave her $1,240 short. Every figure here is illustrative.

Joint accounts, Quebec, and other things that move the numbers

A joint account gives you one slip with two names on it, and you each report the share that reflects what you each put in.⁵⁹

Living in Quebec adds a provincial Relevé beside each federal slip, and your broker may combine your T5008 with the RL-18. On that version the transactions sit further into the document than you'd expect, and the ones you need aren't on the first page.¹⁴

A US-dollar account shows you a currency code, in box 27 of your T5 and box 13 of your T5008. You convert foreign amounts using the Bank of Canada exchange rate in effect on the day the income arose, and you never net foreign tax off the income you report.⁵

A compound guaranteed investment certificate, or GIC, doesn't pay you anything until it matures, and you still report the interest for each complete investment year as you earn it.⁵

A year under $50 from one payer means nobody has to prepare you a T5, and it doesn't shrink what you owe.⁴ Your statement is the record in that case.

A missing slip usually comes down to one of two things. The issuer got your name or your social insurance number slightly wrong, or nobody's processed it yet. The CRA can't hand you a slip it was never sent, so the call that fixes this goes to your bank or your broker, and it's usually a short one.⁹¹⁷

None of your slips tells you whether your trading counts as income or as capital. Your T5008 says the transactions "may be on account of income or capital" and leaves you there.² If you trade often enough that the question is real for you, that's a question for an accountant rather than a box.

What to do when a slip arrives after you have filed

Finding a slip after you've filed feels worse than it is. Changing a return is ordinary, and you'll usually have an answer in about two weeks.¹⁶

1. Wait for your notice of assessment. You can't ask for a change until your original return has been assessed.¹⁶
2. Ask for a change, not a second return. Filing again doesn't replace what you sent. You make your change through your CRA account, or through the same certified software you filed with.¹⁶
3. Chase your issuer, not the CRA. If your slip never arrived at all, the CRA has nothing to give you, because it's only holding what your issuer sent it.¹⁷

Two of the three you can mostly trust

Most people with one fund and a savings account land on trusting their T5 and their T3 and checking only their T5008. The payer already did the arithmetic on the first two. The third rests on a number the payer never had.

If you've moved between institutions, or you've been reinvesting your distributions for a decade, the usual answer is to rebuild your cost base once and keep it somewhere you can find next year. That's an evening's work once, instead of the same evening every time you sell.

Nobody outside your own records can tell you which of these you're in.

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Common questions

Do I have to report interest if I never got a T5?+

Yes. If your total from one payer is under $50 for the year, nobody's required to send you a slip, but you still report it. Your December statement or your online account has the figure you're looking for.

Why is the dividend on my slip bigger than the one that reached my account?+

Because your slip's reporting the grossed-up amount as well as your cash. Box 24 on your T5 is what you were actually paid, box 25 is that plus 38%, and box 26 is the credit that hands most of the difference back to you.

My T3 arrived after I filed. What do I do now?+

Wait for your notice of assessment, then ask for a change through your CRA account or your tax software. Don't file a second return. You'll usually have an answer in about two weeks.

Do I get slips for my TFSA or my RRSP?+

Not for the investment income you earn inside them. Those accounts have slips of their own, and you'll only see one when money comes out, such as a T4RSP when you take money out of an RRSP.

The cost in box 20 of my T5008 is blank. Is the slip wrong?+

No. Box 20 is your brokerage's book value, and it's allowed to be incomplete or missing. You'd work your adjusted cost base out yourself, from your own purchase records and the box 42 amounts on your past T3s.

Sources

1. CRAT5 Statement of Investment Income, slip information for individuals. Which line each T5 box goes on: box 13 to line 12100, box 25 to line 12000, box 26 to line 40425, box 11 to lines 12010 and 12000, box 18 to line 17400 of Schedule 3, boxes 14 and 15 to line 12100, box 16 to the foreign tax credit at line 40500. Accessed 2026-09-03.
2. CRAT5008 Statement of Securities Transactions, slip information for individuals. The amount in box 20 may or may not reflect your adjusted cost base, and you are required to make the adjustments; the transactions may be on account of income or capital. Accessed 2026-09-03.
3. CRATax slips: most slips arrive by the end of February, T3 slips by the end of March, and the list of slips issued for registered plans, including the T4RSP, T4RIF and T4FHSA. Accessed 2026-09-03.
4. CRAWhen do you have to prepare a T5 slip. A payer does not have to prepare one for amounts paid to one recipient when the total for the year is less than $50. Accessed 2026-09-03.
5. CRALine 12100, interest and other investment income. Report the income whether or not a slip arrives; report interest on a compound GIC for each complete investment year; report your share of a joint account based on what you contributed; convert foreign amounts at the Bank of Canada rate and do not subtract foreign tax from the income. Accessed 2026-09-03.
6. CRADistributing the T5 slip. Recipients must have their copy by the last day of February following the calendar year. Accessed 2026-09-03.
7. CRAT5008 filing methods and due date. The return is due on or before the last day of February following the calendar year, and recipients' copies go out on or before the same day. Accessed 2026-09-03.
8. CRAFiling a trust's T3 return, when to file. The return is due no later than 90 days after the trust's tax year end, and most trusts use a December 31 year end. Accessed 2026-09-03.
9. CRAAuto-fill My Return. The CRA should receive most third-party tax information by the end of February and have it processed by mid-March; a slip missing from My Account was either issued with an error in the name or social insurance number, or has not yet been received or processed; a T5 in more than one name is split by each holder's contribution. Accessed 2026-09-03.
10. CRAFiling due dates for the 2025 tax return. For most people the return and any balance owing are due April 30, 2026. Re-dated each filing season. Accessed 2026-09-03.
11. CRACompleting the T5 slip. Box definitions: box 13 interest from Canadian sources, box 18 capital gains dividends, boxes 24, 25 and 26 for eligible dividends with the 38% gross-up, box 27 foreign currency left blank for Canadian dollars. Accessed 2026-09-03.
12. CRAHow to complete the T3 slip. Box 49 actual and box 50 taxable eligible dividends at 1.38 times box 49, box 51 at 15.0198% of box 50; box 21 is the beneficiary's share of capital gains multiplied by two; box 42 is subtracted from the adjusted cost base when positive and added when shown in brackets. Accessed 2026-09-03.
13. CRAT3 Statement of Trust Income Allocations and Designations, slip information for individuals. Boxes 32 and 50 to line 12000, boxes 39 and 51 to line 40425, box 21 less box 30 to line 17600 of Schedule 3, box 26 less box 31 to line 13000, boxes 25 and 34 to Form T2209; box 42 represents a distribution or return of capital and adjusts the cost base. Accessed 2026-09-03.
14. CRAT5008 slip. What box 20 is meant to contain and the note that it may not match the investor's adjusted cost base; box 21 holds gross proceeds with no expenses deducted, which an individual claims as outlays and expenses on Schedule 3; identical securities may be aggregated onto one slip dated 1231; the box 15 type codes; the combined T5008 and RL-18 for Quebec residents. Accessed 2026-09-03.
15. CRAGuide T4037, Capital Gains – 2025. "The inclusion rate for 2025 is 50%", so half of a capital gain is the taxable half. Accessed 2026-09-03.
16. CRAChanging a tax return. Wait for the notice of assessment before requesting a change, do not file a second return, and online requests are processed in about two weeks. Accessed 2026-09-03.
17. CRATax slips at tax time (news release, February 3, 2026). T5 slips are issued by financial institutions for interest and dividends earned in non-registered accounts; the CRA does not issue slips and cannot post one until the issuer sends it, so a slip that has not arrived is chased with the issuer rather than the CRA. Accessed 2026-09-03.

Educational, not financial advice. Figures verified against primary sources on the date shown.

Once your cost base is right, the capital gains guide works out what your gain costs you, and the guide on investment income covers why interest, dividends and gains are taxed so differently. Or browse the taxes hub.