T4, T4A, or RL-1? How to tell which slip to issue

Which payroll slips should you use at year-end?

For Canadian small businesses managing payroll, asking which slip to use at year-end is a common question. The good news: There are straightforward answers for when to issue a T4, T4A, or RL-1 slip. 

They all have the same primary function: reporting taxable income and documenting payroll taxes. What makes them different is who gets them and where you send them. 

Here’s a simple explanation of how to make sense of it all.

What are year-end payroll forms? 

This bulleted overview, which can also serve as a checklist, helps you understand what each form does and when to use them. 

The three main year-end payroll forms you need to know are:

• T4 slip: Statement of Remuneration Paid
• T4A slip: Statement of Pension, Retirement, Annuity, and Other Income 
• RL-1 slip: Statement of Employment and Other Income

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What are T4s, T4As and RL-1s used for?

T4s, T4As and RL-1s report taxable income and benefits, including: 

• How much you paid someone, breaking down all the taxable amounts.  
• How much you took out for federal and provincial/territorial income taxes.
• How much the employee and/or employer contributed to payroll taxes, like Employment Insurance (EI) and Canada Pension Plan (CPP)/Québec Pension Plan (QPP). 

How these slips impact your payroll, your people, and your business

Your employees and service providers rely on you to provide these forms so they can file their personal income taxes. You also submit copies and summary reports to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and Revenu Québec (RQ) to show that your business has kept up with payroll tax obligations.

Who gets a T4, T4A, or RL-1?

The individual you paid, and either the CRA or RQ, gets these year-end slips. 

• T4s are sent to employees who you paid more than $500 and the CRA. 
• T4As are sent to contractors/service providers (non-employees) who you paid more than $500 and the CRA. 
• RL-1s are a provincial-level tax document issued for anyone you paid in Québec and RQ. (There’s no $500 limit for RL-1s.)   

While the blend of federal and provincial payroll taxes makes things interesting, here’s a bit of additional context to help you better understand the employer’s year-end responsibilities. 

• T4s and T4As are used to report at a federal level, while RL-1s report at a provincial level. 
• While Québec is the only province or territory with its own year-end tax slip, employers must also issue T4s for every province or territory in which employees were paid. 
• Since, in most cases, you don’t include income tax or payroll taxes for contractors, you don’t have to issue T4As for individual provinces or territories. 
• In Québec, taxable contractor income is also captured by the RL-1. 
• For all of these slips, if you have more than five slips to send to the CRA or RQ, electronic submissions are preferred. 

When are they due?

T4s, T4As, and RL-1s are due to individuals and the CRA/RQ by the last business day of February following the calendar year. For example, 2025 year-end forms should be filed and distributed by February 27, 2026.

Late filings delay individual tax returns. They also erode trust and trigger penalties from the CRA and RQ that increase with each day, and form, overdue.

Skip year-end slip-ups and scrambles

The average small business spends 25x more hours on payroll than larger firms with full HR departments and payroll specialists. But you can level the playing field. Huumans Payroll automates payroll taxes and year-end T4, T4A, and RL-1 creation and submissions. From your first payroll of the year to the last, it calculates contributions and deductions, keeping accurate running totals. Then when year-end comes, you’re ready. Ready for a change? Get started with free payroll for up to 5 employees for the first year. 

Resources

The following links can help you learn more about year-end payroll slips in Canada. 

From the Huumans blog

• What’s a T4 slip? What small businesses should know
• What’s a T4A slip and who needs one
• What’s an RL-1 slip and how to file it in Québec

From the CRA and RQ

• CRA: T4 slip — Statement of Remuneration Paid
• CRA: T4A slip — Statement of Pension, Retirement, Annuity, and Other Income
• RQ: Guide to Filing the RL-1 Slip: Employment and Other Income (RL-1.G-V)
  
  

FAQs

Do I need to file year-end slips every year?

Yes. Every business that pays people must issue the appropriate slip to report income to the CRA. If you pay employees in Québec, you’ll also issue RL-1s as your Québec payroll slips. 

Do I have to file electronically?

If you issue more than five slips (T4s, T4As, or RL-1s) at once, the CRA and RQ prefer and recommend electronic filing.

When are T4s, T4As, and RL-1slips due?

The deadline is the last business day of February following the tax year. For the 2025 calendar year, that means Friday, February 27, 2026.

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Fine print changes all the time. We do our best to keep things accurate and helpful, but this blog doesn’t replace your accountant, bookkeeper, or lawyer.

If you catch something off, let us know and we’ll fix it. And if we link to other sites, that’s just us sharing resources — what they say is on them, not us.

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