To receive the Canada Carbon Rebate, you had to have filed an income tax return for the previous year, even if you had no income to report. The first payment of 2025 was based on 2023 income tax returns. The second payment was based on 2024 income tax returns, and the third and fourth were cancelled after the Liberal government ended the federal fuel charge and the rebates. For more information, read “Why Canada is ending the consumer price on carbon.”
When was the Canada Carbon Rebate paid out?
The Canada Carbon Rebate was distributed four times per year: January 15, April 15, July 15 and October 15.
Before 2021, the climate action incentive was a refundable tax credit claimed on personal income tax returns.
Why was there a carbon rebate?
Carbon rebates were paid out from money collected as part of Canada’s carbon pricing system. In 2019, the federal government put a price on carbon pollution, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. At the time, the national minimum price was $20 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). It went up to $50 in 2022, $65 in 2023 and $80 in 2024. The minimum price was planned to continue rising $15 every April, up to $170 per tonne in 2030.
Carbon prices were collected through fuel charges and an output-based pricing system for industry. Starting on April 1, 2023, drivers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Yukon and Nunavut paid a fuel charge of $0.1431 per litre of gas. Starting July 1, 2023, this charge was also applied to drivers in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. (Rates for other fuel types vary.) In April 2024, the fuel charge rate increased to $0.1761, and in 2025, it rose to $0.2091. Provincial and territorial governments could use the federal carbon pollution pricing system or develop their own carbon pricing model or cap-and-trade system, as long as it met or exceeded federal standards.
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Ottawa returned 90% of the carbon pricing money it collected back to the jurisdictions where it came from, either to the provincial and territorial governments or, in the case of the CCR, directly to residents. The other 10% was used to support schools, small and medium-sized businesses, hospitals and Indigenous programs.
Who received Canada Carbon Rebate payments?
Recipients of Canada Carbon Rebates had to be residents of Canada for income tax purposes at the beginning of the month in which the CRA made the payments. Recipients also had to be a resident of “an applicable CCR province” on the first day of the payment month, as well as be at least 19 years old in the month before the payments went out. Certain people under age 19 were also eligible, if they met requirements.
