Do you stop being a Canadian tax resident when you leave?

Canada's approach is unusual: the day count is the secondary route, not the primary one. The CRA looks first at whether you have kept significant residential ties — most importantly a dwelling place available to you, a spouse or common-law partner in Canada, and dependants in Canada.

Secondary ties are weighed together rather than individually: personal property, social and economic connections, a driver's licence, health coverage, bank accounts and memberships. No single one settles it, and the assessment is of your situation as a whole.

The practical consequence is that physically leaving proves very little on its own. Someone who moves abroad but keeps a house available and a family in Canada may well remain a factual resident, taxable on worldwide income, regardless of how few days they spend there.

Running alongside that is the sojourning rule. Deemed residence needs three things together, and the day count is only the first: you stayed in Canada for 183 days or more in the year, you do not have significant residential ties, and you are not treated as resident of another country under a tax treaty. Any part of a day counts, though the CRA excludes days spent commuting to work from the United States.

This is the route that catches people with no intention of living in Canada — long assignments, extended family visits, a work pattern that drifts over the line. Deemed residence applies to the whole year, not just the portion after day 183.

Because residency turns on ties, ending it is about severing them and being able to show when. The date matters: it determines the split between resident and non-resident periods, and Canada applies a deemed disposition of certain property on departure, so the timing has direct consequences.

A treaty can also intervene. Where another country also treats you as resident, the treaty's tie-breaker may assign residence there and make you a deemed non-resident of Canada — a different status from simply not being resident, with its own effects.

All of that is fact-specific and financially significant, so it is a point for professional advice rather than a checklist.

• CRA — Income Tax Folio S5-F1-C1: Determining an individual's residence status
• CRA — Deemed residents of Canada