T2 deadline after dissolution: 6 months from the dissolution date

Final T2 due dates for a dissolved corporation

The CRA's instruction is short: you must always file a corporation income tax return up to the date of dissolution or closure canada.ca. That final tax year ends on the dissolution date shown on the articles of dissolution, and the return is due like any other T2: six months after the end of the year laws-lois.justice.gc.ca.

The month count follows two rules. A year that ends on the last day of a month is due on the last day of the sixth month after it, so an August 31 year end is due February 28. Any other year end is due on the same day of the sixth month, so September 17 becomes March 17 canada.ca.

When a filing date lands on a Saturday, Sunday or a public holiday the CRA recognizes, the return is on time if the CRA receives it, or it is postmarked, by the next business day canada.ca. Payments get the same next business day treatment canada.ca.

Worked example: a December year end dissolved in September

Your client has a December 31 year end and its certificate of dissolution is dated September 17, 2026. Its 2025 return (year ended December 31, 2025) was due June 30, 2026 as usual. The final return is a separate, short year.

The three month balance date applies only to Part I, VI, VI.1 and XIII.1 tax, and only when the corporation was a CCPC throughout the year, claimed the small business deduction for the current or previous year, and had taxable income for the previous year (or associated group taxable income) within its business limit canada.ca. Everything else is due two months after the dissolution date.

The gap is the trap. The final year's tax is due four months before the return in this example (three for a qualifying CCPC), so estimate it and pay by the balance due date even if the return comes later. A late final return is handled like any other late T2, covered in late filing penalties for a T2. The general deadline rules are in the T2 filing deadline.

What the CRA expects on the final return

Answer yes on line 078 only when the corporation has already been permanently dissolved with its incorporating authority and you are filing for a tax year that ends on that date. Take the date from the articles of dissolution canada.ca.

Until the dissolution is formal, the corporation still exists for the CRA, and it has to file a return even if there is no tax payable canada.ca. A corporation that stopped operating years ago but was never dissolved keeps its annual T2 obligation.

A short final year needs no approval. The T2 guide lists a corporation that has wound up and is filing its final return with an abbreviated fiscal period as one of the exceptions to the rule that a change of fiscal period needs CRA approval canada.ca.

Closing the business number accounts

How the corporate income tax (RC) account closes depends on where the corporation was incorporated canada.ca.

Payroll has its own clock. Remit any amount deducted or withheld at source within seven days, and send the T4 slips and T4 Summary within 30 days of the day the business ends canada.ca. See the T4 slip deadline for the regular rules.

The clearance certificate and the order of steps

A clearance certificate is for a corporation that is winding up or going through any other type of dissolution. A legal representative who distributes property without one, while tax is owing, is personally liable for unpaid amounts up to the value of the property distributed canada.ca. The request goes in on Form TX19 canada.ca.

For a corporation, the CRA asks for a directors' or shareholders' resolution confirming the intent to dissolve and the dissolution date, the notice of assessment for the final T2, a statement of the assets distributed to date and the proposed distribution plan as of the wind up date, plus proof that you are the legal representative. The CRA acknowledges the request within 45 days, and the assessment can take up to 120 days if every document is there canada.ca.

That timeline is why the final T2 often goes in long before its six month deadline. The certificate needs a notice of assessment for the final return, and the T2 guide says that return should include Schedule 100 showing how the assets were distributed canada.ca. Map the sequence (final return, assessment, certificate, distribution, articles of dissolution) with your client before anything is filed with the incorporating authority.

Wind up under section 88 versus a plain dissolution

Section 88(1) covers a taxable Canadian corporation wound up into a parent that owns not less than 90% of the issued shares of each class, with the rest held by persons dealing at arm's length with the parent laws-lois.justice.gc.ca. In the parent's return, line 072 asks whether a subsidiary was wound up under section 88 during the year, and a yes means Schedule 24, or processing may be delayed canada.ca.

Section 88(2) is the one that trips people up. Subparagraph 88(2)(a)(iv) deems the taxation year to have ended immediately before the time of computation and a new one to start then, but the opening words of 88(2)(a) limit it to computing the capital dividend account, the capital gains dividend account and capital surplus on hand from before 1972 laws-lois.justice.gc.ca. It does not move the filing deadline. See the capital dividend account for why that computation matters before a winding up dividend.