Start a podcast in Canada: register for a CRA business number, track the $30,000 GST/HST small-supplier threshold, clear music rights before you publish, and distribute through an RSS feed. Process only — no audience or earnings promises.
Applies in: CA
A podcast is cheap to start and easy to publish badly. The recording part takes an afternoon. The parts that cause trouble later are the business registration, the tax threshold, and the music. A show that earns money is a business in the CRA's eyes whether or not it has a business number, a logo, or a sponsor. Set up the business side before the first paid episode, clear the music before the first published episode, and keep records from the first dollar. The audience will or will not come; this guide makes no promise about that, and it names no equipment, because the recording gear is not the part that decides whether the show survives its first year.
The work breaks into five layers: the business itself (business number, tax, records), the show's publishing mechanics (hosting, the RSS feed, directories), the music (cleared before publication, not after), the money (sponsorships, advertising, listener support, and the paperwork each one needs), and the habits that keep the show consistent (a recording schedule you can actually hold, and file names you can find again).
Start as a sole proprietor unless there is a concrete reason to incorporate. A sole proprietor and the business are the same person for tax purposes, and the income is reported on the personal return. Incorporation creates a separate legal person with its own filings, and it becomes worth discussing with an accountant when income is steady, when the show signs contracts in a company name, or when liability is a real concern — not on the day the first episode is recorded.
Three registrations matter at the start:
Keep a simple record from the start: the date, payer, amount, and purpose of every dollar received, and keep receipts for every business expense. CRA expects income entries to be supported by original documents such as sales invoices. A spreadsheet kept weekly beats a shoebox sorted in April.
Podcast income from sponsorships, advertising, and affiliate payments is revenue from taxable supplies, and it counts toward the small-supplier threshold. CRA defines a small supplier as a person whose revenue from worldwide taxable supplies was $30,000 or less in a single calendar quarter and over the last four consecutive calendar quarters. Cross $30,000 in a single quarter and registration is required from the supply that took you over. Cross it over four consecutive quarters without crossing it in any single quarter and registration is required from the first supply after you cease to be a small supplier. Either way, the threshold is measured on revenue before expenses, so a show that spends heavily on production can cross it while feeling unprofitable.
Below the threshold, registration is voluntary. Registering early has one clear benefit: a registrant can claim input tax credits for the GST/HST paid on business purchases, including hosting, software, and equipment used for the show. It also has one clear cost: from the registration date, GST/HST must be charged, collected, and remitted on taxable supplies. In Quebec, QST registration through Revenu Québec is a separate filing alongside GST/HST. Track revenue monthly, not annually — a sponsor deal signed in November can push a show over the threshold in a quarter that looked quiet in January.
A sole proprietor reports podcast income on Form T2125, Statement of Business or Professional Activities, filed with the personal income tax return, with a separate form for each business operated. CRA's guidance for that form expressly includes social media influencer activities: money received, and non-monetary gifts such as goods or services received in the course of the business, are business income. Podcast income fits the same treatment — sponsorship fees, advertising payouts, affiliate commissions, and listener support are all income of the business, and free products sent for review are income too, at their value, when received in the course of the business.
Deduct the expenses incurred to earn that income: hosting fees, music licences, editing software, a share of home-office costs where the rules allow, and equipment. Keep the invoices. An expense without a receipt is an argument, not a deduction. If the show is incorporated instead, the corporation files its own T2 return — the T2125 route is for unincorporated businesses only.
Music is where new podcasters lose episodes. The rule is simple and unforgiving: copyright protects a song from the moment it is created, and using it in a distributed episode needs permission from the rights holders. A streaming subscription, a purchased download, and a credit line in the show notes are none of them permission. Giving credit does not protect a show, and a few seconds of a song is still the song.
Two different rights are usually involved, and they are often held by different parties:
The practical consequence is the same as for video: build the show's music from a licensed stock music library, where the licence is written to cover use in a podcast, and keep a record of the licence for every track in every episode. Read the library's licence terms before subscribing — some library licences cover podcasts and some do not, and the difference is in the fine print, not the marketing page. If the show must use a commercial track, get permission in writing before publication, from every rights holder involved, and budget time for it: permission is slow, and a track that cannot be cleared is a track that does not go in the episode.
Two related traps: a guest's performance of someone else's song inside an interview raises the same question as a track laid under the edit, and theme music supplied by a friend is only cleared if the friend actually holds the rights and says so in writing. "A friend made it" is not a licence.
Podcast distribution runs on an RSS feed, and the feed is the whole mechanism. A podcast host stores the audio files and generates the feed — a structured file carrying the show title, description, cover art, episode titles, and audio file links. Directories such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify read the feed. Submit the feed to each directory once, and every episode published afterward appears in the directories automatically, because the directories reread the feed. There is no per-episode upload to each app.
The setup sequence, in order:
Cover art and episode files must meet each directory's own requirements, which the directories publish on their help pages. Check those requirements at submission time rather than trusting a remembered specification — artwork sizes and audio requirements are revised, and a feed rejected for artwork is a week lost to a fixable detail.
Podcast money arrives in four shapes, and each one needs its own paper:
None of these routes needs an audience promise to start. What each one needs is the paperwork done before the money moves: a contract for sponsors, statements kept for platforms, and a clear description for listeners. A show that grows slowly with clean books is in a better position than a show that grows fast and cannot reconstruct its first year.
No single startup figure is worth quoting. A show recorded on equipment already owned, hosted on a basic plan, and scored from a stock library can start for the cost of the hosting plan and the music licence. A show that hires an editor, commissions original theme music, and buys recording gear faces a larger outlay before the first episode. The expensive mistakes are the same in both cases: paying for a year of hosting before the recording habit is proven, and publishing an episode whose music was never cleared and watching it come down. Spend first on the business registration, the music licence, and the records. Let paid episodes pay for the upgrades.
Not to record and publish a show. You need the business paperwork once money comes in. A sole proprietor gets a CRA business number through Business Registration Online, which is the identifier for CRA program accounts, and reports podcast income as business income. If you trade under a name other than your own legal name, register that name in your province. Incorporation is a separate decision, and it is worth discussing with an accountant once the show earns steady income or takes on contracts.
When you stop being a small supplier. CRA treats a person as a small supplier while revenue from worldwide taxable supplies is $30,000 or less in a single calendar quarter and over the last four consecutive calendar quarters. Past that threshold you must register for a GST/HST account and start charging GST/HST. Sponsorship fees, advertising revenue, and affiliate payments for taxable supplies count toward the threshold. Registration below the threshold is voluntary, and registering lets you claim input tax credits on hosting, equipment, and other business purchases.
Only with permission from the people who hold the rights in the song. Buying a track or paying for a streaming subscription buys private listening, not the right to put the song in an episode and distribute it. An episode that embeds a commercial song without permission can be taken down, and the claim can arrive months after publication. The practical fix most podcasters use is music from a licensed stock library, where the licence covers use in a podcast, and a written record of the licence for every track used.
SOCAN administers music licences in Canada, with tariffs and rates approved by the Copyright Board of Canada, and it lists licences for online uses of music. Whether a particular podcast needs a SOCAN licence depends on how the music is used, because performing rights and reproduction rights are different rights held by different parties in many cases. Do not assume a licence for one use covers another. If your show uses commercial music, check with SOCAN before you publish, and get the answer in writing. Shows built on licensed stock music avoid the question for the tracks the library licence covers.
As business income. A sole proprietor calculates gross and net business income on [Form T2125, Statement of Business or Professional Activities](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/forms/t2125.html), and files it with the personal income tax return. CRA guidance on that form lists social media influencer activities, including money and non-monetary gifts received in the course of the business, as business income. Keep every sponsor invoice, platform payout statement, and expense receipt. Amounts credited to an account count as income even if you have not withdrawn them.
Only a registered charity can issue official donation receipts, and a podcast is not a registered charity by virtue of asking for support. Money listeners send through a support platform or tip link is generally business income for the podcaster, reported the same way as sponsorship or advertising revenue, and the listener gets no charitable tax credit for it. If you run listener support, describe it plainly as support for the show, not as a charitable donation, and keep the payout statements with your tax records.
Figures deliberately left out of this guide: podcast hosting plan prices and storage limits, directory review times, stock music library subscription prices, and advertising or sponsorship rates were all left out because they change by provider and by month, and no official page states a current figure. Check the provider's own current plan or licence page before paying, and recheck directory help pages for artwork and file requirements at submission time.