What Must Appear on a Canadian Invoice: GST/HST Information Requirements

The 60-second version

• Canadian invoice content is not a matter of style. The Input Tax Credit Information (GST/HST) Regulations set out exactly what your customer needs from you in order to claim their input tax credit [1].
• There are three tiers, and they are driven by the total on the document: under $100, $100 to under $500, and $500 or more [1].
• Your GST/HST registration number is only mandatory from $100 up. The recipient's name, the terms of payment and a description of what was supplied only become mandatory at $500 [1].
• Those thresholds used to be $30 and $150. They were raised, and a great deal of published guidance has not caught up [1].
• Get it wrong and the tax cost lands on your customer, not you - their input tax credit is the one that gets denied [2].

Why your invoice is really your customer's tax document

Most guidance about invoicing is written from the seller's point of view: get paid faster, look professional, chase overdue accounts. The GST/HST rules run the other way. They exist because your invoice is the evidence your customer needs.

Subsection 169(4) of the Excise Tax Act says a registrant may not claim an input tax credit unless, before filing the return in which the credit is claimed, they have obtained sufficient evidence in such form containing such information as will enable the amount of the credit to be determined, including any information that may be prescribed [2]. The prescribing is done by a short regulation with a long name: the Input Tax Credit Information (GST/HST) Regulations [1].

So the practical consequence of a thin invoice is not that you get penalised. It is that your customer's claim can be denied on audit, and they come back to you, sometimes years later, asking for a corrected document. Businesses that invoice other businesses discover this the expensive way.

The three tiers

Section 3 of the regulations sets out what counts as prescribed information, and it scales with the total amount shown on the supporting documentation [1]. Note that the test is the total on the document, not the value of any single line on it.

Under $100

The minimum set is genuinely minimal:

• the name of the supplier or intermediary, or the name under which they do business;
• the date of the invoice, or if no invoice was issued, the date on which the tax was paid or became payable;
• the total amount paid or payable for all the supplies [1].

That is a coffee shop receipt. No registration number required, no description of what was bought, no customer name.

$100 to under $500

Two significant additions arrive at this tier. First, the supplier's GST/HST registration number, assigned under section 241 of the Act. Second, the tax information: either the amount of tax paid or payable, or - where the price is tax-included - a statement to that effect together with the total tax rate that applied [1].

There is also a rule that catches mixed invoices. Where two or more supplies on the same document have a different status - exempt, zero-rated, or taxable and not zero-rated - the document must indicate which ones are taxable and not zero-rated [1]. A grocery order mixing basic groceries with prepared food is the everyday example.

$500 or more

At $500 the document has to look like what most people picture when they hear the word invoice. Everything from the lower tiers, plus:

• the recipient's name, the name under which the recipient does business, or the name of the recipient's duly authorized agent or representative;
• the terms of payment;
• a description of the supply sufficient to identify it [1].

"Sufficient to identify it" is doing real work in that sentence. "Consulting services - $4,200" is thin. "Consulting services, March 2026, migration of accounts payable workflow - $4,200" identifies the supply.

The numbers most sources still get wrong

If you search for Canadian invoice requirements, you will overwhelmingly be told the tiers are under $30, $30 to $149.99, and $150 or more. Those were the amounts for many years, and they are wrong now.

The consolidated regulation on the Justice Laws Website shows the thresholds as $100 and $500, with section 3 carrying amendment notes including 2024, c. 15, s. 142 [1]. The consolidation we checked was current to a 2026 date, which is a stronger foundation than a blog post of unknown vintage.

Two practical points follow. If you are the supplier, the safe move is to include the fuller set of information regardless of amount - nothing in the rules stops you from putting your registration number and a proper description on a $40 invoice, and it removes the question entirely. If you are the customer and an old receipt is missing your name or a description, check which threshold actually applied when the document was issued before you assume the claim is dead.

Because thresholds do move, treat any dollar figure you read about Canadian tax - including this one - as something to confirm against the consolidated statute or regulation on the day you rely on it.

You also have to tell the customer about the tax

Separately from the input tax credit rules, section 223 of the Act requires a registrant making a taxable supply to indicate to the recipient the tax payable, either by showing the amount of tax separately or by indicating that the amount charged includes GST/HST [3]. You get to choose which. What you do not get to do is stay silent about it.

This is why "prices include HST" on a quote is perfectly acceptable, and why an invoice showing a single number with no mention of tax at all is not.

Which rate goes on the invoice

The rate is not set by where your business is. It is set by the place of supply rules, which generally look to where the supply is made - and for many supplies that means the customer's province [6]. A New Brunswick supplier billing an Ontario client is frequently charging 13 percent, not 15.

Getting this wrong is expensive in a specific way: if you undercharge, CRA still wants the correct amount remitted, and you are left trying to collect the difference from a customer who has already paid and considers the matter closed.

Fixing an invoice you have already issued

Do not quietly edit and resend. Where the consideration or tax charged is later reduced, section 232 of the Act provides the mechanism, and a credit note or debit note containing prescribed information is how the adjustment is documented [4].

Keeping the original and issuing a numbered credit note against it also preserves the audit trail, which matters more than the tidiness of your invoice sequence. An unexplained gap in invoice numbers is a question you will have to answer; a credit note answers it in advance.

A practical invoice checklist

For a business-to-business invoice of any size, include all of the following and you are covered at every tier:

• your business name and GST/HST registration number;
• the invoice date and a unique invoice number;
• the customer's name;
• a description of each supply sufficient to identify it;
• the amount for each supply and the total;
• the GST/HST shown separately, or a clear statement that the total includes it, with the rate applied;
• an indication of which items are taxable where the invoice mixes statuses;
• the terms of payment.

Every one of those exists because someone, somewhere, had a claim denied for the want of it.