Register with CRA Represent a Client, get a RepID, business number, or GroupID, and get authorized to act for an individual, business, trust, or registered plan, with the levels of access and confirmation steps the CRA publishes.
Applies in: CA
Represent a Client is an online portal inside your CRA account for people authorized to deal with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) for someone else. It gives an authorized representative secure online access to tax information for the individuals, businesses, registered plan owners, and trusts they represent. It is not your own tax account, and registering for it does not by itself let you see anyone else's information. Authorization for each client is a separate step, described below.
This guide is about the mechanics of registering and getting authorized. It does not advise which level of access to accept or give, and it does not give tax advice. The person whose taxes are involved selects the level and the expiry date in the authorization step, using the descriptions the CRA publishes.
To reach the service for the first time, register from inside your CRA account: sign in, select Add account from the Welcome page, select Representative account, select Register with Represent a Client, then select Register your business or Register yourself. After confirmation, return to the Welcome page and select your Representative account to enter the service.
Anyone who wants to access information and services for individuals, businesses, registered plan owners, and trusts can register. The CRA's examples include a friend or family member, an executor, a power of attorney or legal guardian, an employee who does payroll, GST/HST, or corporate work for an employer, a bookkeeper, a public trustee, a lawyer, and a financial planner, as well as an owner or employee of a business that provides tax or payroll services, a non-resident representative living in the United States, and an authorized employee or service provider of a registered plan owner.
Registering yourself gives you a RepID, a seven-character alphanumeric code provided by the CRA when you register. Give that code to clients, family, or friends who want to authorize you, or to your employer so the employer can associate you with its client accounts. If you lose or forget your RepID, you do not register again: sign in, open your Representative account, select Review and update, then View and update my registration information to see it.
Registering a business works differently. Clients authorize the business with its business number, the nine-digit number the CRA assigns to businesses, and only employees associated with the business can then access client information. Only a person the CRA recognizes as an owner, partner, director, or officer of the business in its business number database may register the business. If you are not identified that way, the help pages direct you to call 1-800-959-5525 to update that information first. A sole proprietor without a business number should register as an individual representative instead. Registering a business also gives the person registering a personal RepID, for clients who want to authorize only that person.
A third identifier, the GroupID, identifies a group of representatives. Any representative can sign in and create a group, which receives a unique GroupID, and every representative associated with that GroupID has online access to the tax information of taxpayers who authorized the group. The GroupID is a six-character alphanumeric code beginning with G.
The level of access is set in the authorization itself, and the number of levels depends on the type of account:
This guide states the numbered levels only because the CRA authorization page linked above publishes them, with these exact wordings. Earlier CRA help pages describe the same process without numbering the levels, so if a screen you see uses words instead of numbers, follow the wording on that screen.
On an individual account, level 1 lets the CRA disclose tax return information, adjustments to the return, RRSP, Home Buyer's Plan, and Lifelong Learning Plan information, accounting information including balances, payments on filing, and instalments or transfers, benefits and credits information such as the Canada Child Tax Benefit and the GST/HST credit, and marital status, without information related to a spouse or common-law partner. Level 2 discloses the same information and lets the representative ask for changes, including adjustments to income, deductions, and non-refundable tax credits, and accounting transfers. Entering an expiry date is optional. If no date is entered, the authorization stays in effect until the client cancels it. The client can view, cancel, or change any authorization granted with a RepID, GroupID, or business number at any time through Authorize my representative on the My Account home page.
The fastest route is for the client to authorize you directly with your identifier. Give the client your RepID, business number, or GroupID. The client signs in to their CRA account, enters the identifier to add you as an authorized representative, and confirms the authorization. Once they have signed in and confirmed, you have access through Represent a Client.
On the client side, authorizing a representative online through Authorize my representative gives instant, secure access. The client sees a verification screen showing the information you entered when you registered, including the identifier, and should check it before selecting Continue. The client then selects the level of authorization, which is a mandatory entry, and may enter an expiry date. The review screen shows the level and expiry date, and the client selects I agree to complete it.
If you hold the client's information, you can start the request from inside Represent a Client. The request-authorization steps are:
Then wait for activation. The client may need to sign in to their CRA account and confirm the request within 10 business days, and in some cases the CRA will validate with a confirmation call. If you chose to provide tax information for an individual client, there is no waiting period for confirmation of authorization. If the client is a primary trustee, they must access My Trust Account through Represent a Client and confirm the request there. All electronic authorization requests for individuals and business clients are held until the representative has been verified, and clients may be contacted by the CRA to verify the request, so do not treat a submitted request as active access until it is confirmed.
A client who cannot or does not want to authorize online access can fill out Form AUT-01, Authorize a Representative for Offline Access. That form gives access to tax information by phone, by mail, by fax, or in person. It does not provide online access. The client sends the form to the appropriate CRA tax centre listed on the form within 6 months of the date it is signed.
Once authorized, you reach client information from the main menu by entering the client's SIN, business number, trust number, non-resident tax account number, or registered plan number in the appropriate field. The services available differ depending on whether you are representing an individual, a business, a registered plan owner, or a trust, so the options you see for one client type do not carry over unchanged to another. You can also reach the same information by phone, by mail, or in person once authorized.
To change or end an authorization, the client uses Authorize my representative in My Account, where they can change the level, the expiry date, or both, or delete the authorization. Deleting it means the representative can no longer deal with the CRA for them in any channel. Re-authorizing later requires the same identifier route again, and the CRA states that it cannot supply a lost RepID, GroupID, or business number to the client for privacy reasons, so the client must ask the representative for it.
No fee for registering or using Represent a Client is stated in this guide, because none of the CRA pages states one. Processing times beyond the 10-business-day confirmation window and the no-waiting-period tax-information route are not stated, because the pages give no other timeline. The detailed list of services a representative can perform for each client type is not reproduced, because the pages point to separate services lists for individuals, businesses, trusts, non-resident accounts, and registered plans rather than stating the lists. A separate registration route for legal representatives and for someone who died is not described here — the pages point to dedicated legal-representative and represent-someone-who-died pages; check those pages for that route. Confirm any of these points on the current CRA pages before relying on them.
No. Registration gives you a RepID, or registers your business, so clients can authorize you. You still must request and receive authorization for each client before you can see or change anything for them, and electronic requests are not activated until the CRA has verified you as a representative.
A RepID is a seven-character alphanumeric code the CRA assigns when you register as a representative. A GroupID is a six-character code beginning with G that identifies a group of representatives. A business number is the nine-digit number the CRA assigns to a business, and a client who authorizes a business authorizes all of its associated employees.
On a personal tax account there are two levels: level 1 allows access to information only, and level 2 allows access to information and to make certain account changes. Business accounts and registered plan administrator accounts also have level 3, delegated authority, which may authorize additional representatives on behalf of the business or plan. Non-resident and trust accounts have levels 1 and 2.
No, not through the individual authorization described on the CRA authorization screens. A representative does not have access to change your address, view your address, view direct deposit information, authorize another representative, or view authorized representatives. Those limits apply even at level 2.
It depends on the confirmation method chosen for an individual client. If the client must confirm in My Account, they have 10 business days and the CRA may validate the request with a confirmation call. If you provide the client's tax information from a notice of assessment processed at least 6 months ago, there is no waiting period for confirmation.
They can complete Form AUT-01, Authorize a Representative for Offline Access, and send it to the tax centre listed on the form within 6 months of the date it is signed. That form gives access by phone, mail, fax, or in person only. It does not provide online access through Represent a Client.