Online mail for business
Starting spring 2025, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will transition to online mail as the default method of delivering most business correspondence. This means you’ll start receiving most of your business notices and other correspondence through CRA’s secure online portal, My Business Account, instead of in the mail.
This change applies to all the following businesses:
- All new business number and CRA program account registrations
- All existing businesses registered for My Business Account and
- All businesses who have given access to a representative to access these services on their behalf via Represent a Client
This change is part of the CRA's ongoing commitment to improve service delivery by making it:
- Faster – enable quicker communication with the CRA and receive important business correspondence faster than paper mail
- Convenient – access and manage your business taxes quickly and easily from your computer or mobile device 21 hours a day, 7 days a week (see Hours of service)
- Secure – The CRA uses sophisticated security techniques to protect our site and your privacy
- Eco-friendly – help reduce paper use, contributing to a cleaner and greener future by cutting down on waste
Where to view your business correspondence online
Business correspondence refers to notices, letters, forms, statements, and other documents that are sent by the CRA to communicate important information about your business tax account or returns.
With the change to online mail, your business correspondence will be considered as received on the date that it is posted to your My Business Account. You will need to sign in to My Business Account to access, view, print, or download your business correspondence. Follow the steps below to access your business correspondence:
Step 1: Sign in to My Business Account
If you are an authorized representative, sign in to Represent a Client
Step 2: From the navigation menu on the left, select "Mail" found under Correspondence
Step 3: Select and review your mail
How to prepare for this change
Accessing My Business Account
To prepare for the change to online mail, the CRA recommends signing in to your My Business Account to ensure you have access to all your business numbers and the ability to view your business correspondence.
If you are not registered for My Business Account and would like to take advantage of the benefits of the CRA’s digital services, go to Register for My Business Account.
For more information on the CRA’s digital services, go to Digital services.
Email notifications
Make sure your email address is in your account and is up-to-date.
Email notifications from the CRA let you know when important changes are made on your account and when you have mail to view in My Business Account. You sign up to receive email notifications when an email address is added in your account. Without an updated email address, you may miss important notifications about the receipt of correspondence and confirmation of changes made to your account.
Once you sign in to My Business Account, check your notification preferences to make sure your email address is up-to-date. To confirm, add or change your email address, complete the following steps:
Step 1: Sign in to My Business Account
If you are an authorized representative, sign in to Represent a Client
Step 2: From the navigation menu on the left, select "Profile"
Step 3: In the "Notification preferences" section, select "Manage notification preferences"
Step 4: Review accounts registered to receive email notification and the email address attached to accounts for accuracy
Step 5: Select the applicable change option available on the page and complete the steps
For more information see Email notifications from the CRA – Businesses
New business number and CRA program account registrations
Businesses registering for a new business number or a CRA program account will need to register for My Business Account and provide a valid email address if they haven’t already done so to receive notifications and access account updates and correspondence.
Register for My Business Account
Exceptions
Existing businesses not registered for My Business Account
Existing businesses not registered for My Business Account through the business owner or an authorized representative will continue to receive their CRA correspondence by paper mail.
Charities
Charities will continue to receive their CRA correspondence by paper mail unless they sign up to receive their CRA mail online.
Non-resident businesses
Non-resident businesses that do not have access to My Business Account through their representative or an owner that is a Canadian resident will not be transitioned to online mail and will continue to receive their correspondence by paper mail.
If the representative or the owner of a non-resident business has access to My Business Account, the default delivery method will transition to online mail.
Requesting paper mail
If you would like to receive your business correspondence by paper mail, you’ll need to make a request to activate paper mail.
You must keep your mailing address up-to-date to ensure you receive all correspondence. Any undeliverable mail will result in a change back to online mail. To keep receiving paper mail you’ll need to make a request to activate paper mail every two years.
Starting May 2025, paper mail can be requested in one of two ways:
- Fill out and mail form RC681 – Request to Activate Paper Mail for Business to the CRA
- My Business Account
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