The GST/HST credit refunds some of the sales tax paid by people with lower incomes. It is now called the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit. It is tax-free and paid every three months. It is one of the benefits tested on family income.
The amounts (July 2026 to June 2027)
- $445 for you, $445 for your spouse, and $445 for the child of a single parent.[1]
- $234 for each other child under 19.[2]
- A single supplement of $234. A single parent gets all of it. A person with no spouse and no child gets the smaller of $234 and 2% of their income over $11,564, so the credit builds up as earnings rise.[3][4][5]
The total is reduced by 5% of adjusted family net income over $46,432.[6][7] Adjusted family net income is both spouses' net incomes added together; see the Canada Child Benefit for how it is defined and what the engine leaves out.[8]
For one adult with no spouse or children, for example, the full $445 plus the $234 supplement is reached at an income of about $23,300, and the credit is reduced to nil at about $60,000.
When it is paid
Four payments a year, in July, October, January and April. The July and October payments are based on the previous year's return and the January and April payments on the one before that, so the payments from July 2026 to April 2027 all use 2025 income.[9]
Who can get it
A person can get the credit for a payment month if, before that month, they are 19 or older, or they have a spouse or common-law partner, or they are a parent living with their child.[10] Someone born on 1 January who reaches that age that day misses the January payment and is first paid in April.
The engine applies the same test to the provincial credits it pays: a person who is younger than that, with no partner and no child, is paid no income-tested benefit that month.[11] Most provincial credits use the federal test. Two start at 18 instead, the Ontario energy and property tax credit and Quebec's solidarity tax credit, so for an 18-year-old living alone those start up to a year late in the plan.
What the engine does
The engine calculates the annual amount and pays a quarter of it each quarter into household cash, for a plan that names a recipient and carries the household. The payments are not income.
In a plan
Every plan asks for it, with or without children: the first person receives it, and for the years before the plan has one of its own, family net income is taken as today's pay. For a single person on a modest income the credit is small, but it is not nil. A related Ontario credit paid with it is described in Ontario's credits for lower incomes.