Adopting a child costs money long before the child comes home — agency fees, court costs, travel, translation. You may be able to claim an amount for eligible adoption expenses related to the adoption of an eligible child, and those adoption expenses go on line 31300 of your federal return.
An eligible child is a child under 18 years of age at the time an adoption order is issued or recognized by a government in Canada.
The adoption period is what dates the claim
This is the part that catches people out. You claim in the tax year that includes the end of the adoption period, even if the adoption process took more than one year. Expenses from earlier years are not lost — they are all claimed together, in that one year.
The adoption period starts at the earliest of:
- when an application is made for registration with a provincial or territorial ministry responsible for adoption, or with an adoption agency licensed by a provincial or territorial government
- when an application related to the adoption is made to a Canadian court
The adoption period ends at the latest of:
- when an adoption order is issued or recognized by a government in Canada for the eligible child
- when the eligible child first starts to live permanently with you
So the date on each receipt matters twice: it has to fall inside the adoption period, and the end of that period decides which return the whole claim goes on.
What you can claim
Eligible adoption expenses include:
- fees paid to an adoption agency licensed by a provincial or territorial government
- court costs and legal and administrative expenses related to an adoption order for the child
- reasonable and necessary travel and living expenses of the child and the adoptive parents
- document translation fees
- mandatory fees paid to a foreign institution
- mandatory expenses paid for the child's immigration
- any other reasonable expenses related to the adoption required by a provincial or territorial government, or by an adoption agency licensed by a provincial or territorial government
Travel and living expenses have to be reasonable and necessary — that qualification is the CRA's, and it applies to the parents' travel as much as the child's.
What does not qualify
Anything you were paid back for. You cannot claim the portion of eligible adoption expenses that you or another person were reimbursed for, or were entitled to be reimbursed for, or received assistance for, or were entitled to receive assistance for. That portion cannot be claimed at all — it comes off the total before you work out the claim.
More than the maximum, between all of you. If more than one person can claim an amount for the same eligible child, the total combined claim cannot be more than the maximum amount allowed for that child.
Claiming in your province or territory
There is a matching provincial or territorial claim on line 58330 of Form 428. It is open to you if you resided in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, or Yukon at the end of the year. Quebec residents claim through Revenu Québec instead. In the other provinces and territories, that provincial or territorial claim is not available, and the claim is federal only.
What to keep
Do not send any supporting documents when you file your tax return. Keep them in case the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) asks to see them later.
The CRA does not enumerate what a receipt for this line must show, so keep documents that establish the three things the claim turns on:
- the amount you paid
- who you paid — the licensed adoption agency, the court, the translator, the foreign institution
- the date, so the expense can be placed inside the adoption period
Keep the paperwork that fixes the start and end of the adoption period too. That is the registration or court application at one end. At the other, it is the adoption order, or the date the child began living permanently with you.
The receipts often span more than one year, but the claim lands in only one of them. Dossier tags each receipt to the year it was paid, so the whole adoption period is in one place when you file.
Official CRA sources
Source: Canada Revenue Agency (canada.ca). Not tax advice.