GST/HST Credit Payment Dates 2026: All 5 Payments, the June 5 Top-Up + the 25% July Increase

The 2026 GST/HST payment calendar does not look like any year before it. Two regular quarterly payments arrived on January 5 and April 2. Then a fifth, unscheduled payment — a one-time top-up worth 50% of your entire annual credit — started landing in accounts on June 5, 2026. And in July, the GST/HST credit stops existing under that name: the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit replaces it, paying July 3 and October 5 with a 25% increase that the federal government has committed to keeping through 2031. If you searched for your next GST payment date and the deposit label on your bank statement does not match what you expected, this is why.

All Five 2026 Payment Dates — Including the One Nobody Planned For

Here is the full 2026 calendar, taken from the CRA benefit payment schedule. Note the split: the first two payments run on your 2024 tax return, everything from July onward runs on your 2025 return.

One scheduling quirk worth knowing: the CRA targets the 5th of January, April, July, and October and moves the payment to the preceding business day when the 5th lands on a weekend or holiday. That is why April paid on the 2nd and July pays on the 3rd. If a payment date passes and nothing arrives, the CRA asks you to wait 10 working days before contacting them. Households juggling multiple benefits should also note the Canada Child Benefit runs on a separate monthly calendar — the 20th of most months — so a missing deposit is often just a different program on a different schedule.

The June 5 Top-Up: 50% of Your Annual Credit, Up to $717

As part of the transition to the new benefit, the CRA issued a one-time top-up payment starting June 5, 2026, reaching more than 12 million Canadians. The formula is simple: 50% of your total annual GST/HST credit for the July 2025 to June 2026 period. If your annual credit was $400, the top-up is $200. If you received the maximum, here is what that 50% works out to:

Three conditions decide whether you get it. You must have been entitled to the January 2026 GST/HST credit payment — that is the qualifying gate, based on your family situation in January 2026 and your 2024 adjusted family net income. You (and your spouse or common-law partner) must have filed a 2024 tax return — and if you have not, the entitlement is not gone; file now and the CRA issues the top-up once the return is assessed. And the top-up covers only the federal credit: provincial and territorial amounts are excluded, so an Ontario household will not see a matching bump in its Ontario Trillium Benefit. Shared-custody parents each receive half of what full custody would have paid.

How Much the Credit Pays: July 2025–June 2026 Amounts

The payments that arrived in January, April, and June 2026 all come from the July 2025–June 2026 benefit year, calculated from your 2024 tax return. The CRA maximums: $533 for a single individual, $698 for a married or common-law couple, and $184 for each child under 19. Under the hood, the calculation sheet builds those from a $349 base credit, $349 for a spouse or common-law partner, and $184 per child, with the credit reduced by 5% of adjusted family net income above $45,521.

Here is the part most people miss: a single person with no children does not automatically get $533. The last $184 of that maximum is a supplement that phases in at 2% of income above $11,337 — so a single adult with near-zero income receives the $349 base, and the full $533 only applies in the income band from roughly $20,537 up to the $45,521 reduction threshold. The full GST/HST credit eligibility rules follow the same adjusted-family-net-income logic as the other income-tested federal benefits.

The cutoff column is computed from the CRA calculation sheet (maximum credit divided by the 5% reduction rate, added to the $45,521 threshold) — your Notice of Determination shows the exact entitlement. The payments are entirely tax-free and never appear on your return as income. Small annual entitlements are not paid quarterly at all: the CRA pays them as a single lump sum in July instead, which catches people who expect a January deposit that was already paid out months earlier.

July 2026: The Credit Becomes the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit — With 25% More

From July 2026 the GST/HST credit is renamed the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB). The CRA is explicit that eligibility, the payment calculation, and the quarterly structure are unchanged — you are automatically assessed when you file, payments stay tax-free, and the related provincial programs continue alongside. What changes is the amount: a 25% increase to the benefit starting July 2026, locked in for five years, 2026 to 2031.

Applied to the current maximums, 25% more works out to roughly $666 for a single person, $873 for a couple, and $230 per child — figures we have derived from the July 2025–June 2026 amounts, before the annual inflation indexation the CRA applies each July. The exact July 2026–June 2027 maximums will land somewhat higher once the CRA publishes the indexed parameters. For a couple with two children at the current $1,066 maximum, the 25% boost alone is worth about $267 a year — money that arrives only if your 2025 tax return is filed and assessed.

That last point is the practical trap. The July 3, 2026 payment is the first one calculated from your 2025 return. File late and the payment does not arrive on July 3 — it arrives whenever the CRA finishes assessing you, usually as a retroactive catch-up. And because the benefit year resets every July, a household whose income dropped in 2025 — a retirement, a layoff, a parental leave — can go from zero credit to a full credit in a single payment cycle without applying for anything.

What Income Shrinks the Credit — and What the Calculation Ignores

The credit runs on adjusted family net income: line 23600 of your return (plus your partner's line 23600), minus any Universal Child Care Benefit and RDSP income, plus any UCCB and RDSP repayments. Everything that flows into net income counts against you at 5 cents per dollar above $45,521 — employment income, EI benefits during a job-loss year, CPP retirement payments, employer pensions, and every dollar of a registered withdrawal on the RRIF minimum withdrawal schedule.

What the calculation ignores: TFSA withdrawals, which never touch line 23600. For retirees, this is the same structural logic that governs the GIS payment amounts — taxable withdrawals erode income-tested benefits, TFSA dollars do not. A 68-year-old couple drawing $48,000 of combined pension and RRIF income sits $2,479 over the threshold and loses about $124 of credit; fund the same spending with $5,000 less from the RRIF and $5,000 more from a TFSA, and the credit comes back. The dollar amounts here are smaller than the GIS stakes, but it is the identical lever — and seniors near the GIS income thresholds are usually well under $45,521, collecting both benefits in full.

Three Moves Before the July 3 Payment

1. File any missing returns — 2024 and 2025 both gate real money

The 2024 return controls the June 5 top-up; the 2025 return controls the July 3 payment and everything after it. Neither entitlement disappears if you file late, but both sit unpaid until the CRA assesses you. A couple with two children leaving both returns unfiled is parking roughly $533 of top-up plus a $1,066-and-rising annual benefit.

2. Set up direct deposit and update your marital status

Cheques follow your address on file; direct deposit follows you. A separation also changes the math in your favour — the credit recalculates on your individual income rather than combined family income, and the CRA applies the change from the month after you report it, not retroactively from whenever you get around to it.

3. If your income hovers near $45,521, time your withdrawals

The 5% reduction is calculated on prior-year income, so a lump-sum RRIF withdrawal in 2026 shrinks the benefit you receive from July 2027 onward. Splitting a planned withdrawal across two calendar years, or sourcing it from a TFSA, keeps adjusted family net income under the threshold and the quarterly deposits intact.

The Bottom Line: Same Credit, New Name, More Money — If Your Returns Are Filed

The 2026 schedule rewards people who pay attention: January 5 and April 2 closed out the GST/HST credit era, June 5 delivered a one-time 50% bonus worth up to $717, and July 3 opens the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit with a 25% raise that runs to 2031. Nothing about eligibility changed — the credit still phases out at 5% above $45,521, still ignores TFSA income, and still requires nothing from you except a filed tax return. That return is the entire system. File it, keep your household details current, and the five payments take care of themselves.