How to pay GST/HST instalments online—and keep proof

Start with the right account, administrator, and quarter

A payment method cannot fix a payment sent to the wrong account or period. Before leaving your private records, confirm that the business is an annual filer, that an instalment is actually required, the applicable GST/HST or QST account, the fiscal quarter, the amount, and the live due date.

The Thirty North calculator can organize the ordinary annual-filer tests and four candidate dates. It does not connect to CRA or Revenu Québec, read an account balance, allocate a payment, or transmit money. Keep business numbers, payment codes, bank details, and account screenshots out of the website.

A Québec business should use the current Revenu Québec instructions for the GST and QST files it administers. Do not assume that a CRA payment path, a QST path, and a personal income-tax instalment are interchangeable merely because each uses the word instalment.

Choose one current CRA payment route

CRA says an instalment can be paid through a bank or credit union's online banking site or mobile app without an RC160 remittance voucher. Bank payee labels and account-entry screens can vary, so follow the current CRA and financial-institution instructions instead of copying a payee name from an unofficial example.

CRA also lists My Payment, which uses a bank access card from a participating Canadian bank or credit union, and pre-authorized debit from a Canadian chequing account scheduled through the CRA account. These are different authorization paths; use the one whose account, timing, and confirmation you can verify.

For a voucher route, CRA identifies Form RC160, Remittance Voucher – Interim Payments, as personalized and printed. The due date still applies if the form does not arrive on time. CRA's all-payment-options page should be checked when the ordinary online routes do not fit.

Use the published Québec GST and QST path when it applies

Revenu Québec's GST and QST instalment page lists electronic payment through a financial institution. If separate GST or QST returns are filed, it says to use the payment code shown on the remittance slip. It also lists payment at a participating financial institution or ATM and mail with the FPZ-558-V remittance slip, cheque or money order.

The same page says a GST or QST remittance of C$10,000 or more must be made electronically unless special circumstances make that impossible. It also notes that the GST and QST C$3,000 tests operate separately, so one tax file can require instalments while the other does not.

Use the live Revenu Québec account and current forms to confirm the code, destination, and payment status. Do not infer a QST payment route from a federal calculator result or combine two taxes into one amount unless the official process for the actual account calls for it.

Allow for processing and preserve proof of receipt

CRA says GST/HST instalments are due within one month after each fiscal quarter. If a due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or CRA-recognized public holiday, the payment can be considered on time under the stated next-business-day rule. Confirm the live account and holiday because a planning calendar does not identify every recognized holiday.

Revenu Québec says receipt is based on when the payment reaches one of its offices or when the financial institution processes it for remittance. That makes processing time part of the control: scheduling on the displayed due date is not the same evidence as seeing the payment processed and allocated correctly.

Retain a dated confirmation or receipt, amount, destination tax file, fiscal quarter or due date, payment route, and a later account-statement check. Store those records privately; Thirty North does not need the business number, bank account, payment code, or confirmation number.

• Schedule with enough lead time for the selected institution and route.
• Capture the confirmation immediately without emailing bank or account screenshots unnecessarily.
• Verify the processed amount and tax account in the live agency account.
• Investigate a missing, duplicate, rejected, or misallocated payment instead of sending another payment blindly.

Reconcile every instalment at year-end

CRA instructs an annual filer to report the instalment payments made during the fiscal year on line 110 of the GST/HST return. If instalments are less than the final net tax, the difference is generally payable; if they exceed net tax, the difference can generally be claimed as a refund.

Revenu Québec likewise describes the annual return as the comparison between instalments and the actual GST and QST net amounts remittable. Keep a separate ledger by tax file, payment date, amount, quarter, reference, and verified account posting so the year-end total can be reproduced.

A payment receipt proves that a payment was initiated or processed; it does not by itself prove the final return amount, classification, input tax credits, interest, or allocation. Reconcile the payment ledger to the filed return and account statement before closing the year.