CRA Form NR4, officially titled the Statement of Amounts Paid or Credited to Non-Residents of Canada, is the Canadian tax information slip used to report payments of Canadian-source income to individuals, corporations, trusts, or other entities who are not residents of Canada for tax purposes. The NR4 is Canada’s functional equivalent of the U.S. Form 1042-S and is governed by Part XIII of the Income Tax Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. 1 (5th Supp.)), sections 212 through 218, which impose a withholding tax on certain types of income paid to non-residents.

The NR4 reporting system consists of individual NR4 slips prepared for each non-resident recipient and an NR4 summary that consolidates all slips filed by a single payer. The payer, who is the Canadian resident or entity making the payment, is responsible for withholding Part XIII tax at the source, remitting it to the Receiver General for Canada, and filing NR4 slips with CRA and providing copies to the non-resident recipients. The standard withholding rate under Part XIII is 25% of the gross amount paid or credited, but this rate is frequently reduced by bilateral tax treaties that Canada has entered into with over 90 countries worldwide.

Types of income commonly reported on the NR4 include rental income from Canadian real property (s. 212(1)(d)), royalties and similar payments (s. 212(1)(d)), pension and superannuation payments (s. 212(1)(h)), dividends paid by Canadian corporations (s. 212(2)), interest payments (s. 212(1)(b)), management and administration fees (s. 212(1)(a)), trust income distributions (s. 212(1)(c)), and payments from registered plans such as RRSPs and RRIFs. Each type of income has a designated income code that must be entered on the NR4 slip, and different treaty rates may apply to different income types.

A Canadian payer must prepare and file NR4 slips whenever they pay or credit amounts to a non-resident of Canada that are subject to Part XIII withholding tax. The most common situations requiring NR4 reporting include a Canadian corporation paying dividends to foreign shareholders, a Canadian trust distributing income to non-resident beneficiaries, a Canadian tenant or property manager paying rent to a non-resident landlord for Canadian real property, a Canadian business paying royalties or licensing fees to a non-resident rights holder, and a Canadian financial institution making pension, RRSP, or RRIF payments to a non-resident former Canadian resident.

The filing obligation arises when the amount is either actually paid to the non-resident or credited to their account, whichever occurs first. The payer must withhold Part XIII tax at the time of payment or credit and remit it to the Receiver General by the 15th day of the month following the month in which the payment was made. NR4 slips and the NR4 summary must be filed with CRA by March 31 of the year following the calendar year of payment, and copies must be provided to each non-resident recipient by the same date.

Payers who fail to withhold and remit Part XIII tax are liable for the full amount of tax that should have been withheld, plus interest and potential penalties under ITA s. 227. This liability applies even if the payer was unaware that the recipient was a non-resident. Therefore, Canadian payers should establish procedures to identify non-resident recipients and determine the correct withholding rate, including verifying whether a tax treaty reduces the applicable rate.

A properly completed NR4 slip must include accurate identification of both the Canadian payer and the non-resident recipient. The payer section requires the payer’s legal name and CRA NR account number, which is the specific account number assigned for non-resident withholding tax remittances. The payer’s complete address including province and postal code must also be provided. The recipient section requires the non-resident’s full legal name, complete foreign mailing address, country of tax residence, and foreign tax identification number (such as a U.S. Social Security Number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number).

The income section of the NR4 is the core of the form and must specify the income code corresponding to the type of payment, the gross amount of income paid or credited in Canadian dollars, the amount of Part XIII tax withheld, and any amount of income that is exempt from withholding under an applicable tax treaty. Each income type has a specific CRA-assigned code: for example, rental income is typically code 04, dividends are code 16, interest is code 18, and pension income is code 25. The payer must use the correct code for accurate CRA processing.

If a tax treaty applies to reduce the withholding rate below the statutory 25%, the NR4 must identify the applicable treaty, the specific treaty article providing the reduction, and the reduced treaty rate. The payer should have obtained a completed NR301, NR302, or NR303 form from the recipient to verify treaty eligibility before applying a reduced rate. The NR4 summary consolidates all NR4 slips filed by the payer and reports total gross amounts, total tax withheld, and total remittances for the calendar year. Both the slips and summary must be certified as accurate by an authorized representative of the payer.