2023 TurboTax® Canada Tips

How Does Receiving Employment Insurance (EI) Benefits Affect Your Taxes?

TurboTax Canada
November 22, 2019 | 3 Min Read

EI Benefits are Taxable Income

Whether it’s due to the arrival of a baby, seasonal work changes, or layoffs, many Canadians will at some time in their life claim Employment Insurance (EI). EI payments are taxable income, and as such, they affect your taxes just like any other type of income, and in some cases, you may have to repay these benefits.

Record number of Canadians received EI benefits in October 2020

In October 2020, a record number (seasonally adjusted) 1.4 million Canadians received regular Employment Insurance benefits, more than three times that in February (446,000).

Repayment of Employment Benefits

For example:

Exceptions to EI Repayment Requirements

In some cases, you may earn above the threshold and still not be required to repay any of your benefits. Most significantly, if you have not earned any EI income during the 10 previous years, you do not have to repay any of your benefits. For example, if you report EI payments for the 2020 tax year and have not reported EI payments for any of the 10 previous years, you do not have to repay any of your EI payments, regardless of how high your income.

However, if you reported EI payments in any year between 2009 and 2019, as well as 2020, you are required to repay a portion of your benefits if your net income exceeds the threshold.

Note on Special Benefits

The EI repayment requirement only applies to regular benefits, including regular fishing benefits.

It does not affect special benefits such as those for:

If you receive only special benefits, you do not have to worry about repaying benefits if your net income surpasses the threshold. Similarly, special benefits received in the previous decade do not trigger the repayment requirement.

If you receive both special benefits and regular EI benefits in the same year, you may be required to repay a portion of your regular benefits.

For example, if you received both unemployment and maternity benefits in 2019, your net income for that year was over $66,375 and you received regular EI benefits in one of the 10 previous years, you would be required to repay a portion of your benefits. However, you would only be required to repay regular benefits rather than special maternity benefits.

Child Care Expenses Deduction and Unemployment

You may write off the cost of childcare expenses on your taxes, and this does not change even if you are unemployed. There is no expectation to withdraw your children from care simply because you are not working. In fact, one of the provisions of receiving EI is that you are seeking work and ready to start, conditions that may be hard to meet if your children are withdrawn from care.

Which TurboTax Is Best for You?

Figuring out all these specifics can be stressful. But doing your income taxes doesn’t need to be, when you use TurboTax Online.

However, if you do feel a bit overwhelmed, consider TurboTax Live Assist & Review and get unlimited help and advice from a real person as you do your taxes. Plus, there’s a final review before you file. Or, choose TurboTax Live Full Service and have one of our tax experts do you return from start to finish.