Spousal support is deductible only if periodic and in writing

Which support payments can your client deduct?

Only a "support amount" as defined in 56.1(4): an allowance payable on a periodic basis for the maintenance of the recipient, the children or both, where the recipient has discretion over its use laws-lois.justice.gc.ca. For a current or former spouse or common law partner, the couple must also live separate and apart because the relationship broke down, and the amount must be payable under a court order or written agreement canada.ca. Payments made with no order or agreement fall outside these rules entirely: your client can't deduct them and the recipient doesn't report them canada.ca.

"Periodic" doesn't mean frequent. It means a series of payments whose timing is set by the order or agreement, and only a new order or agreement can change that timing canada.ca. The Folio adds that intervals longer than a year are unlikely to qualify, and that a payment amounting to a release from future maintenance normally isn't an allowance canada.ca.

Why unpaid child support blocks the spousal deduction

Paragraph 60(b) gives the deduction as A minus (B + C): A is all support paid to that person after 1996 while living apart, B is the child support that became payable under the order on or after its commencement day, and C is support your client already deducted in earlier years laws-lois.justice.gc.ca. Every payment goes to child support first, and only the excess counts as spousal support. Child support that stays unpaid carries forward into the next year canada.ca.

Worked example. An order made in 2025 requires $1,500 a month from January 2026: $1,000 child support and $500 spousal support. Your client pays 10 months in 2026, then catches up in 2027.

In 2026 your client paid $5,000 of what the order calls spousal support, but the formula allows only $3,000, because the $15,000 first covers the full $12,000 of child support for the year. In 2027 they pay the $18,000 due plus the $3,000 shortfall, and the deduction jumps to $9,000. Across the two years the deduction totals $12,000, exactly the spousal support due.

The recipient side doesn't always mirror this. In the CRA's own example, a payer who fell behind on child support could deduct nothing, yet the recipient still reported the $600 of spousal support she had received canada.ca.

How lines 21999 and 22000 are filled in

Line 21999 takes the total support paid under the order or agreement, child support included. Line 22000 takes only the deductible part. The CRA's example is a payer who enters $18,000 on line 21999 and $6,000 on line 22000, and it warns that a mismatch between the two lines can delay or deny the claim canada.ca.

The year of separation is the trap. Your client can claim either the support deduction or a personal credit such as the spouse amount or the eligible dependant credit for the person they paid, not both. If the credit wins, enter the total on line 21999 and zero on line 22000, so the CRA still has a record of the payments canada.ca. Separation for this purpose starts on the first day of a breakdown separation that lasts at least 90 days canada.ca; the common law partner rules work the same way.

Does the order have to be registered with the CRA?

Yes, if it includes any spousal support. Your client registers it on Form T1158, one form per court order or written agreement, so the CRA can verify the spousal and child parts of the payments canada.ca. The form itself is a fillable PDF on the CRA's T1158 page canada.ca. Don't register an order that requires only child support, and don't attach the order to the return. When the support payable changes, other than a cost of living adjustment or a change already written into the order, your client contacts the CRA canada.ca.

Orders made before May 1997 keep the old rule: child support is deductible by the payer and taxable to the recipient. That ends once the order is varied to change the child support, a new order with the same person changes the total child support, the order names a date after which payments are not taxable or deductible, or both parties file Form T1157 canada.ca to elect the post April 1997 rules. The T1157 election can't be reversed canada.ca.

When do lump sums, prior payments and third party payments count?

A lump sum is generally not a support payment because it isn't periodic. It is one when it brings overdue periodic payments under the order up to date, or when a court order clearly requires retroactive support for a specific period before the order canada.ca. It isn't one when it prepays amounts not yet due, covers a period before a written agreement's date, or buys a release. In the CRA's example, $5,000 paid to settle $6,000 of overdue spousal support (with $1,000 forgiven) is not deductible canada.ca. When your client deducts one lump sum of at least $3,000 that catches up earlier years, they must give the recipient a completed Form T1198 canada.ca, the statement of a qualifying retroactive lump sum payment canada.ca.

Payments made before the order is signed count only if the order or agreement says so and they were made in the year it was made or the year before. The order is then deemed made on the date of the first such payment laws-lois.justice.gc.ca.

Payments to a third party, such as a landlord or a school, are deductible only if the recipient could redirect them, or the order or agreement states that 60.1(2) applies canada.ca. Even then, costs of a home the payer lives in are excluded, and mortgage principal and interest on a loan to buy or improve the recipient's home are capped at one fifth of the loan's original principal canada.ca.