Fishers and Employment Insurance

On this page

• Overview
• Are you a designated employer?
• What is a self-employed fisher?
• What are your responsibilities as a designated employer?
• Calculating the insurable earnings of a fisher
• Deducting and remitting EI premiums
• Filing a T4 information return
• Keeping records
• Examples
• Definitions

Overview

This page will help to determine if you are a designated employer of fishers under the Employment Insurance (Fishing) Regulations. It will also explain your responsibilities as a designated employer, and how to calculate the insurable earnings of a fisher.

If you hire workers as employees in the fishing industry, see Guides T4001, Employers' Guide – Payroll Deductions and Remittances, and T4032, Payroll Deductions Tables.

Are you a designated employer?

You are a designated employer if any of the following conditions applies to you.

Buyer of a catch

You are the designated employer of all the self-employed fishers who make the catch if you buy the catch and both of the following conditions are met:

• it is bought for resale and not for your own use as bait, feed, or food
• it is delivered in Canada to either you or your agent

If you do not operate under these conditions, for example, if the delivery is made to an American buyer in the United States, you are not the designated employer.

Head fisher of a crew

You are the designated employer if you are the head fisher of a crew and:

• the buyer of the catch is not the designated employer
• the gross returns from the sale of the catch are paid to you

You are the designated employer of all other fishers who are members of the crew, but not yourself.

Agent

You are the designated employer if you are an agent acting either for the buyer or for the crew and:

• the buyer of the catch is not the designated employer
• the catch is delivered by a member of the crew
• the gross returns from the sale of the catch are paid to you

If you are a member of the crew, you are the designated employer of all the other fishers who are members of the crew, but not yourself.

Common agent

You are the designated employer if you are a common agent acting for both the buyer and the crew at the same time. If you are a member of the crew, you are the designated employer of all the other fishers who are members of the crew, but not yourself. If you are not a member of the crew, you are the designated employer of all the fishers who are members of the crew.

What is a self-employed fisher?

To be a fisher as defined under the Employment Insurance (Fishing) Regulations, an individual has to be a self-employed person and also has to:

• participate in making a catch
• not be fishing for their own or another person's sport
• meet at least one of the following conditions:
  • own or lease the boat used to make the catch
  • own or lease specialized fishing gear (not including hand tools or clothing) used to make the catch
  • hold a species licence, issued under the authority of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, necessary to make the catch
  • have a right of ownership to all or part of the proceeds from the sale of the catch and be responsible for all or part of the expenses incurred to make the catch

For more information, go to Fishers.

If a worker in the fishing industry does not meet any of the above conditions but you believe that he or she is a self-employed individual, you can request a ruling to have the status determined. If you have a payroll program account and are registered on My Business Account, you can use the "Request a CPP/EI ruling" service.

A designated employer or a worker can request a ruling by sending a letter or a completed Form CPT1, Request for a CPP/EI Ruling – Employee or Self Employed?, to their tax services office.

It is important to determine a person's employment status as it affects your responsibilities and it could affect the processing of the person's file under the Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance Act, and the Income Tax Act.

For more information about the employment status of workers, see Guide RC4110, Employee or Self-employed?.

What are your responsibilities as a designated employer?

If you are a designated employer of self-employed fishers, including self-employed Indian fishers whose earnings are tax-exempt, you are responsible for:

• calculating the insurable earnings of each fisher
• deducting employment insurance (EI) premiums from each fisher and remitting the EI premiums, including the employer portion, to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)
• filing a T4 information return
• keeping records

Calculating the insurable earnings of a fisher

The insurable earnings of a fisher are the amounts paid or payable to the fisher from the sale of a catch. These earnings do not include amounts paid for a catch or part of a catch made by other persons who were not members of the crew.

Calculating the insurable earnings of a fisher depends on the circumstances of the particular fisher. To help illustrate the calculation of earnings, the CRA has categorized the fishers as either Type 1 or Type 2. This labelling is done for the purposes of this page only to help explain the calculation process.

Type 1 fisher – a member of the crew who either:

• owns or leases the boat or specialized fishing gear used to make a catch
• employs other persons under a contract of service to make a catch

Type 2 fisher – any self-employed fisher who is not considered a type 1 fisher. This includes a single fisher who borrows a boat and specialized fishing gear and has no employees. In this situation, you should ask for the details of ownership or leasing from the person who makes the delivery.

Calculations

To calculate the insurable earnings of a type 1 fisher, start with the gross value of a catch, not including the value of any part of a catch the crew did not make. Then subtract:

• 25% of the gross value of the catch
• the amounts paid or payable to other members of the crew according to the share arrangement
• the total amount of wages paid to others employed, as employees, to make a catch

The remaining amount is the insurable earnings of the type 1 fisher.

To calculate the insurable earnings of a type 2 fisher, use the amount paid or payable to the fisher from the proceeds of a catch based on the sharing arrangement agreed to prior to embarking on the fishing trip. Do not include any amount paid for a catch or any part of a catch made by other persons who were not members of the fisher's crew.

Deducting and remitting EI premiums

When you pay self-employed fishers, you have to deduct EI premiums from the first $60,300 of insurable earnings for 2022. There is no minimum amount of insurable earnings. You start deducting EI premiums on the first dollar of insurable earnings, and you only stop when you have deducted the maximum of $952.74 for 2022 (the maximum for workers in Quebec is $723.60 for 2022). At that point, the worker can continue to earn income without having any additional EI premiums deducted by the designated employer.

You have to remit the premiums you deduct, plus the employer portion, to the CRA on a regular basis. The due date of your remittance depends on the date the CRA considers you to have paid your employee or employees.

• If you are the employer and the head fisher or the agent of a crew, the CRA considers that you paid your employees on the last day of the week in which you received the proceeds from the sale of the catch
• If you are the employer and the buyer who settles accounts with a fisher at intervals of more than seven days, the CRA considers that you paid your employees on the day the account is settled
• If you are the employer and the common agent, the CRA considers that you paid your employees on the last day of the week in which the catch is delivered

For information on how to deduct and remit EI premiums, see Guide T4001, Employers' Guide – Payroll Deductions and Remittances. For information on how to calculate the amounts you have to deduct from the remuneration of your employees, see Guide T4032, Payroll Deductions Tables.

Earnings of a fisher may be subject to employee and employers premiums for the Québec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP). For information, see the Publication TP-1015.G-V, Guide for Employers – Source Deductions and Contributions.

Filing a T4 information return

You have to file a T4 information return if:

• you are a designated employer and make EI premium deductions for a self-employed fisher or self-employed Indian fisher
• a fisher gives you a completed Form TD3F, Fisher's Election to Have Tax Deducted at Source, in a calendar year

A T4 information return includes the T4 slips and the related T4 summary. You have to give each of the fishers and crew members their T4 slips each year on or before the last day of February following the calendar year to which the information return applies. For more information on how to fill out T4 slips and summary, see Guide RC4120, Employers' Guide – Filing the T4 Slip and Summary.

Keeping records

You have to keep records to support the following:

• the earnings of the fishers
• the EI premiums you have to remit
• the dates on which the EI premiums are payable

Your records should include:

• the name, address, and social insurance number of each crew member and the member's share of proceeds from the sale of a catch
• the amount and date of each fisher's insurable earnings for the period
• the amount and date the EI premiums are payable

Your records have to accurately reflect all transactions and contain supporting documents to prove your claims. Do not send your records with your T4 information return, but keep them in case the CRA asks to see them. If the CRA determines that your records do not support the insurable earnings you report, it may estimate the insurable earnings. Your premiums payable in 2022 would be calculated as 5% of the estimate.

You have to keep your records for six years. If you want to destroy them before the six-year period is over, you have to get permission from your tax services office. To do this, either use Form T137, Request for Destruction of Records, or prepare your own written request. For more information, go to Keeping records.

Examples

The following are examples that explain the various types of earnings of a fisher and how to calculate insurable earnings. For information on calculating EI premiums, see Guide T4001, Employers' Guide – Payroll Deductions and Remittances.

Definitions

Buyer – A person who buys a catch to resell it raw or after processing it. A buyer does not buy a catch to use it for food, feed, or bait.

Catch – Any natural product or by-product of the sea, or any other body of water, that a crew catches or takes. A catch includes fresh fish, cured fish, Irish moss, kelp, and whales. However, it does not include fish scales or seals.

If only part of a catch is delivered to a buyer, the part delivered is the catch. If more than one catch or part of a catch is delivered to a buyer at one time, the catches or parts delivered are the catch.

Crew – A single fisher or a group of fishers who make a catch together.

Cured fish – Fish and fish products identified as follows:

• salted groundfish, smoked and pickled herring, pickled mackerel, pickled turbot, pickled and salted alewives, pickled trout, and other pickled fish products
• cod oil and cod livers

Designated employer – A person who is considered to be the employer of self-employed fishers.

Fisher – A self-employed individual who fishes. This means a person who does the following:

• makes a catch
• builds a fishing vessel for personal use or for the use of a crew of which the person is a member in making a catch
• works to make or handle a catch

A fisher does not include a person who works as an employee or who fishes for sport.

Fishing gear – Any specialized equipment that a crew uses only to make a catch. It does not include hand tools or clothing.

Fresh fish – Fish that is not cured fish.