Pre-authorized debit agreement

What is pre-authorized debit?

Pre-authorized debit (PAD) is an online self-service payment option. Through this one time option, you agree to authorize the Canada Revenue Agency to withdraw a pre-determined payment amount directly from your bank account on a specific date to pay your taxes. Go to Pay by pre-authorized debit to get more information or register for My Business Account to be able to create or modify a number of PADs for any of your business accounts on a regular basis.

Creating this PAD agreement

Creating this one-time PAD agreement is simple and has been populated with some of the information from your return:

• All that is required is the date you want the payment to be withdrawn, and the banking details: (branch number, institution, and bank account), from which the payment is to be debited.
• Next you will review and accept the Agreement details, important information about pre-authorized debit, and the Terms and conditions.

Goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) (RT)

In this one-time pre-authorized debit application only a Balance due payment is permitted:

Balance due

• Make a payment on the remainder of tax that you owe, when the payment is required on an (interim) Balance due after you have filed a return, but it has not yet been processed by the CRA. For more information on paying your balance due, go to Pay my GST/HST .

Agreement details page

When entering the agreement details to create a pre-authorized debit (PAD) agreement:

• All fields must be completed correctly.
• All field errors will be highlighted and remain on the page until they are corrected.
• After all fields are completed correctly, select the Continue button to advance to the confirmation page.
• The Cancel button will allow you to cancel this PAD and bring you to the CRA Welcome Page.  All the information will be lost.

Period-end – This field helps us apply the payment to the proper tax period. Review the pre-populated date in the period-end field and ensure it applied to the period in which you intend to make your payment for.

First payment date – The first payment date must be between five business days and one year from the current date.

Frequency – One time: Withdrawn on the date indicated

Amount – Review the pre-populated amount and ensure that it reflects the amount you wish to pay on your GST/HST account.

• Value must be greater than $2.
• Entry must be numeric (for example, 123). No alpha (abc) or characters ($)
• Cents must be entered with a decimal, followed by two numbers.
• Value cannot be greater than $24,999,999.99.

Banking information – You must enter the following banking information accurately and in numeric format (for example, 123456789):

• your five-digit bank branch number
• your three-digit financial institution number
• your bank account number

You can find this information on your bank's cheques (see the blank cheque coding example provided). You can also get the information from your financial institution.

Review and confirm information page

To complete the review and confirm information page, you must first:

• Review your pre-authorized debit (PAD) agreement details, to make sure all information is correct; and
• Read and understand the Terms and conditions and Important information about pre-authorized debit. Select the Authorization box and then select the Confirm button to create the PAD agreement.

If the information is incorrect or you want to change your selection, click on the Change information link which will return you to the agreement details page.

If you do not want to continue, select the Cancel button which will delete all of the information entered and bring you to the CRA Welcome page. You will not be able to return to create a PAD agreement through this one time portal. 

Pre-authorized debit agreement confirmation page

This page will show the pre-authorized debit (PAD) agreement confirmation. The confirmation contains all the details of your PAD agreement, the terms and conditions for your PAD agreement, and important information about your PAD agreement.

The Print or Save button will allow you to keep a record of this transaction for your files. 

This confirmation will be available in your Pre-authorized debit agreement history within 48 hours through My Business Account only, and it will remain online for a minimum of one year after the PAD agreement is cancelled or expires. You will also be able to print and save the notification from there.

Five-business-day rule for pre-authorized debit agreements

Whether you're creating or managing a PAD agreement with the Canada Revenue Agency, all agreements have to follow the five-business-day rule. The five-business-day rule is based on the amount of time needed to process each payment within a PAD agreement.

When creating a PAD agreement, the first payment date you can enter must be five business days later. That date will be calculated by the system and shown when you enter the details for your PAD agreement. There are no exceptions to this rule. If pre-authorized debit is not the best option for you, you can view the other ways to Make a payment to the Canada Revenue Agency.