7 last-minute tax deductions Canadians often forget about (2026).

Filing your taxes can feel like a race against the clock – especially if you’re trying to maximize your return before the deadline. The good news? There are several commonly overlooked tax deductions that could help reduce your taxable income and potentially increase your refund. 

From medical expenses to moving costs, these deductions can add up quickly if you know where to look. Here are seven last-minute tax deductions Canadians often forget to claim – and how to make sure you don’t miss them.
 

At-a-glance: deduction comparison table:

Table of contents:
•    Medical expenses are often most overlooked.
•    Claiming home office expenses.
•    Moving expenses and the 40km rule.
•    Canada Caregiver Credit explained.
•    Transferring Tuition Tax Credits to eligible recipients.
•    Investment interest is a deduction.
•    First-Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit.
 

1. What medical expenses can I claim?
Medical expenses are one of the most commonly missed deductions – and one of the most valuable.

 
The Canada Revenue Agency allows you to claim eligible medical expenses for yourself, your spouse, your children under 18, or your dependants, which include children or grandchildren over 18, parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nieces or nephews if they meet eligibility criteria. 
 

Eligible expenses may include:

• Prescription medications (not over-the-counter medications).
• Insulin, needles, and syringes to treat diabetes.
• Certain medical devices or treatments, like hearing aids, contact lenses, and even service animal costs.
• Gluten-free products for those with celiac disease.
• Tutoring for children with disabilities.
• Health insurance premiums.

Many people often overlook the amount they pay on top of what their insurance covers. If your insurance covers 80% of a medication or treatment, for example, then you can claim the remaining 20% as a deductible. 

Home renovations to help with accessibility or greater mobility is also considered a medical expense if you meet certain criteria. 

You can also claim the cost of travelling for medical appointments. If you travelled more than 40km but less than 80km one way to get services, you can claim the cost of public transportation. If you travelled more than 80km one way, you can also claim the cost of accommodations, meals, and parking. 

How much can you claim of your medical expenses? The amount you can claim for medical expenses is the total expenses you paid, minus either 3% of your net income, or $2,834 – whichever is less. Because of this calculation, it’s often more advantageous to combine both spouses’ medical expenses and claim them on the same tax return.
 

You can also claim the corresponding provincial tax credit. 
 

2. Claiming home office expenses.
If you’re an employee that works from home, you may be eligible to claim home office expenses, but there are a few things you need to have in order to do so. 

Firstly, your employer must fill out and sign a T2200 declaration of conditions of employment form, which shows that your employer approves of you working from home and doesn’t reimburse you for your home office expenses. Your employer will then tell the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) some of the expenses that your employment contract requires you to pay for, such as:

• Renting an office away from your place of business, OR
• Using part of your home to conduct work.
  • If so, you’ll have to have worked more than 50% of the time from the workspace in your home for a period of at least 4 consecutive weeks in the year to qualify as an expense.  
  • If you don’t meet the above criteria, you may qualify if you use a space in your home exclusively to meet in person with clients and or suppliers on a regular basis.
• Paying a substitute or assistant.
• Paying for supplies that you use for your work.
• Paying for a cell phone.
• Travelling for work.
• Tradesperson or apprentice tools.

They’ll also have to tell the CRA what, if anything, they reimbursed you for and for how much. That might include the distinction between them providing you with a company car, but not reimbursing you for gas.

 
Once your employer has outlined all of the types of expenses you’re allowed to claim, you can fill out a T777 statement of employment expenses, which shows the CRA what expenses you’ve paid to earn your employment income. 

This can include:

• Accounting and legal fees
• Advertising or promotion
• Vehicle expenses
  • You’ll need to confirm how many kilometres you drove in the tax year for your employment, how much you paid in gas, maintenance, insurance, registration, leasing costs, and other expenses to calculate your employment use portion that you can claim.
• Parking
• Tradesperson tools (you can claim a maximum of $1,000)
• Food, beverage, and entertainment expenses (you can claim half of what you spent)
• Musical instruments
• Office supplies
• Phone bills
• Workspace in the home expenses
  • This can include the cost of electricity, heat, water, internet, cleaning supplies, light bulbs, home insurance or property taxes for commission employees, and others. 

Claiming a workspace in your home requires some extra math. You need to calculate the percentage of space the workspace in your home takes up. For example, if it’s 12% of your home, and you work 40 hours per week (out of 168 hours in a full week, because you aren’t using the space exclusively to earn your employment income), then your employment-use amount is 40 hours ÷ 168 hours x 12% = 2.9%. 

On T777, you’ll enter all the eligible expenses and multiply by 2.9% to get the total amount. 

Pro tip: keep detailed records and receipts, as the CRA might ask for documentation proof, and they can do this up to 6 years later. 
 

3. Moving expenses and the 40km rule.
If you moved to a new home to work or run a business out of a new location, or if you moved to be a full-time post-secondary student, you may be able to deduct eligible moving expenses.

The key requirement: your new home must be at least 40 kilometres closer to your new workplace or school, by the shortest public route.

For those employed or self-employed who moved, you can deduct eligible moving expenses from the employment or self-employment income you earned at your new work location. It can’t be deducted from other income like investment or employment insurance benefits.

Students can only deduct moving expenses from the parts of their scholarships, fellowships, bursaries, certain prizes or research grants that are required to be included in income. 

Eligible expenses may include:

• Transportation and storage costs (packing, hauling, movers, in-transit storage, insurance).
• Travel costs (vehicle expenses, meals, accommodations, but not travel costs for house-hunting trips before moving).
• Temporary living expenses (up to 15 days).
• Cost of cancelling your lease for your old home.
• Incidental costs related to the move (change of address, updating licences, utility hook-ups, and disconnections).
• Cost to maintain the old home when vacant.
• Cost of selling the old home and buying the new home (but not any expenses to make selling your home more profitable like major improvements).

Not all household members need to move at the same time. You can claim expenses even if there were separate move dates. 

You'll claim this on the T1-M: Moving expenses deduction form. The most important element will be to save all your receipts! We recommend saving your physical receipts and taking photos of them as well so you have back-up – just in case. 

You can learn more about moving expenses in this blog: Moving expenses in Canada (2026): What you can claim, what you can't, and how your move affects your taxes.
 

4. Tax credits available to support caring for people with disabilities.

If your spouse or common-law partner or dependant suffered an impairment in physical or mental function during the year, you may be eligible for the non-refundable Canada Caregiver Credit to help with the cost of caring for the person with an impairment. 

If you’re claiming the credit, the CRA might ask for a signed doctor’s note showing when the impairment began and how long it’s expected to last. If they’ve already approved a T2201: Disability tax certificate for the person you’re claiming the amount for, you won’t need that signed statement. 
 

How much can you claim?

Additionally: There are other tax credits and benefits available for individuals with disabilities and impairments like the Disability Tax Credit and claimable home accessibility expenses if you’re making renovations to your home to accommodate a person with a disability. 

5. Claiming tuition tax credits.
If you’re a student, you’re eligible for a tax credit on your tuition amount. Using Schedule 11, you can calculate your eligible tuition tax credit which allows you to claim all amounts that are more than $100 as long as you received a tax certificate (such as a T2202, TL11A or TL11C) from your school. 

But here’s the thing, the tuition tax credit is non-refundable, meaning it can be used to reduce your taxes to $0. Depending on your income while you’re a student, you may not need all your tuition tax credits to reduce your taxable income – but that doesn’t mean the benefit is lost. 

If you don’t need to claim all or a portion of your tax credit, you can transfer the unused credit to a family member (like a spouse, common-law partner, parent, or grandparent) to help them reduce their taxes owed or carry forward the unused credit amount to claim it in a future year. 

The maximum amount that can be transferred is $5,000 less any amount you used on your own return. You can only transfer a tuition amount on the tax return for the year they were paid.
 

6. Paying interest on loans used to invest.
When you borrow money, you’ll need to repay that loan overtime, often with interest to the lender added. But if you borrowed this money to make investments, you may be able to deduct the interest you paid as an expense on your tax return. 

The CRA allows you to claim interest expenses if:

• The money you borrowed was used to invest/earn investment income (including dividends) NOT including income from an RRSP, TFSA or if the income is considered a capital gain.
• The interest was paid on a policy loan if the loan was used to generate income from a business or property. You’ll need to verify this amount with the insurer using form T2210.
   

7. Claiming a tax credit on your first home.
If you bought your first home in 2025 (or are planning to in 2026) you may qualify for the First-Time Home Buyers’ Tax Credit (Home buyer’s amount) which is meant to help offset the cost of purchasing a first home. 

To qualify, you must purchase a qualifying home in Canada that you moved into no later than one year after you bought it. You must also intend to use the home as a principal place of residence no later than one year after its acquisition.

With this credit you can claim a 14.5% tax credit on the amount of $10,000 put toward the home’s downpayment, which will give you a $1,500 credit. You can also split this credit with a spouse or common law partner as long as the amount claimed doesn’t exceed the maximum.

If you or your spouse qualify for the disability amount, you can claim this credit even if you aren’t a first-time buyer as long as the home you’re moving into is better suited to the needs of the disability and that individual uses this home as their principal residence. 

A qualifying home is defined as: 

• Single-family houses
• Semi-detached houses
• Townhouses
• Mobile homes
• Condominium units and
• Apartments in duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, or apartment buildings

Remember: This credit can only be claimed in the tax year you bought your home. If you forgot to claim it, you can adjust your return with H&R Block’s ReFile feature or ask the CRA to adjust your return. 

Not ready to purchase your first home? Start your savings with a tax-friendly First Home Savings Account.

The First Home Savings Account (FHSA) is a tax-friendly way to start saving for that new home purchase. Once the account is open, you can contribute $8,000 annually (up to a lifetime maximum of $40,000) and watch your money grow tax-free until you’re ready to put a downpayment on your new digs. 

FHSA contributions are also tax-deductible (Line 20805), just like a RRSP, meaning that saving for your first place will help reduce your taxable income in the year(s) you contribute – a win-win!

 

Frequently asked questions.

Don’t leave money on the table.
With so many deductions available, it’s easy to miss something – especially when filing at the last minute. Taking the time to review your eligibility for these commonly overlooked deductions could make a meaningful difference in your return.

An expert at H&R Block Canada can help ensure you’re claiming every deduction you’re entitled to and that your return is filed accurately.

We’re here to help you make sure you don’t leave a dollar on the table.