If you paid for a Canadian digital news subscription, you may have been able to claim part of the cost. Digital news subscription expenses went on line 31350 as a non-refundable tax credit — it could reduce the federal tax you owed, but it did not result in a refund if you had no tax payable.
This credit ended. It was only available for tax years 2020 to 2024, and it is not available for 2025 and later tax years. A subscription receipt dated after 2024 cannot support a claim on this line.
You can still claim the credit for qualifying subscription expenses paid in 2020 to 2024 that have not already been claimed — on those years' returns.
What qualified
A qualifying subscription expense is the amount a subscriber paid in the year for a digital news subscription from a qualified Canadian journalism organization (QCJO) that does not hold a licence to carry on a broadcasting undertaking. The subscription must give access to digital content that is primarily written news.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) publishes a list of qualifying digital news subscriptions, which is how you check whether the organization you paid was a QCJO.
What did not qualify
A subscription from an organization that is not a QCJO. If the organization is not on the CRA's list, the cost cannot be claimed at all.
The non-digital or partner part of a bundle. If your subscription also gave access to non-digital content or partner content, only the cost of a comparable standalone digital subscription is eligible. If no comparable standalone digital subscription exists, only part of the amount you paid is eligible — the CRA's page sets out how much.
Someone else's subscription. Only the individual who subscribed can claim the expenses. If you and another person shared the same subscription, you can split the claim, but the combined claim cannot be more than the maximum allowed for the credit.
What your receipt must show
The CRA does not list required receipt fields for this line. What the eligibility wording turns on is:
- the amount you paid in the year for the qualifying digital news subscription
- the subscription year, which has to be one of the tax years 2020 to 2024
- which QCJO you subscribed to
Your subscription receipt normally carries all three.
What to keep
Do not send supporting documents when you file your tax return. Keep them in case the CRA asks to see them later.
Keep the subscription receipts for 2020 to 2024. If your subscription was bundled with other content, keep whatever shows the cost of a comparable standalone digital subscription too, since that is the part that is eligible. Dossier tags a subscription receipt to the year it was paid, which is what shows whether it falls inside the years this credit covered.
Official CRA sources
Source: Canada Revenue Agency (canada.ca). Not tax advice.