T4 box 14: total employment income, taxable benefits included

What goes in box 14 and what stays out

The CRA's instruction is one line: report your employee's total income before deductions in box 14 canada.ca. That covers salary, wages, bonuses, vacation pay, commissions, taxable allowances and the value of taxable benefits, and RC4120 adds tips, honorariums, director's fees and pay in lieu of termination notice canada.ca.

The CPP and EI columns follow one rule from T4130. A taxable cash benefit is pensionable and insurable. A taxable non cash benefit is pensionable but generally not insurable, with two exceptions: board and lodging during a period of cash salary, and employer RRSP contributions the employee can withdraw canada.ca. The CRA's chart gives the code for each benefit canada.ca.

Anything the CRA doesn't consider taxable stays off the slip. A reasonable per kilometre allowance and a reasonable reimbursement of business expenses are not income, so they appear nowhere on the T4 canada.ca.

Worked example: one 2026 employee, three different boxes

Say your client pays an Ontario employee the following in calendar 2026. The employee drives a company car and is covered by the group life plan.

Box 14 is $83,900: the $79,000 of cash pay plus $4,900 of taxable benefits. Code 34 shows $4,600 and code 40 shows $300, both already inside that $83,900.

Box 24 is $68,900, not $79,000. The car and the life insurance are non cash, so they aren't insurable, and the cash pay runs past the 2026 maximum insurable earnings of $68,900 canada.ca.

Box 26 is $83,900, the same as box 14 here. Both benefits are pensionable, and the total sits under the 2026 YAMPE of $85,000 canada.ca. Raise the bonus by $2,000 and box 14 goes to $85,900 while box 26 stops at $85,000.

Notice the payroll register's gross pay for this employee is $79,000. That $4,900 gap to box 14 is the benefits, and it's the usual reason box 14 doesn't match gross pay on a year end report.

Why box 14, box 24 and box 26 rarely match

Box 24 is the insurable earnings you used to calculate the EI premiums in box 18, up to the year's maximum, and box 26 is the pensionable earnings used for CPP and CPP2, up to the additional maximum canada.ca. For 2025 slips those caps were $65,700 and $81,200. RC4120 says boxes 14 and 24 will often be the same amount, which holds only for an employee with no non cash benefits who earns under the EI maximum.

Box 26 also drops earnings that aren't pensionable for CPP: amounts paid before or during the month the employee turned 18, after the month they turned 70, and during months they were considered disabled. RC4120 tells you to subtract those from box 14 and enter the difference in box 26 canada.ca.

Both boxes are mandatory. Enter 0 in box 24 or box 26 when there are no insurable or pensionable earnings, rather than leaving them blank canada.ca.

Codes that are already inside box 14

RC4120 marks these "Other information" codes as included in box 14: 30 (board and lodging), 32 (travel in a prescribed zone), 34 (personal use of an employer automobile), 36 (interest free and low interest loans), 38 (security options benefits), 40 (other taxable allowances and benefits) and 42 (employment commissions) canada.ca. The code is a breakdown of box 14, not an addition to it.

For code 34 the CRA says the employee won't report the amount on any line of their return, because it's for CRA use only canada.ca. The employee reports box 14 on line 10100, totalled across all their T4 slips canada.ca.

Some codes are the reverse: they never go in box 14. RC4120 lists code 31 (special work site), code 33 (medical travel, which sits inside code 32), and codes 39, 41, 91 and 92 (the security options deductions) as amounts you leave out of box 14 canada.ca.

Year end edge cases that change box 14

Retroactive pay goes on the T4 for the year you paid it. The CRA's rule is that income is reported for the year in which it is paid, regardless of when it was earned canada.ca. A 2025 raise paid in March 2026 belongs in 2026 box 14.

Retiring allowances never touch box 14. Report them under code 66 (eligible) or code 67 (non eligible), or code 69 for a non eligible amount tied to tax exempt income of a First Nations employee, and don't withhold CPP or EI on them canada.ca. Pay in lieu of termination notice is the trap: it isn't a retiring allowance, it's employment income, so it goes in box 14 canada.ca.

If the employer is a government, municipality or public authority paying an emergency services volunteer, leave the first $1,000 out of box 14 and report it under code 87 canada.ca. For commissions, report the commission without GST, HST or PST canada.ca.

If a benefit is taxable only in Quebec, leave box 14 blank for it and report the amount in box 26 canada.ca. Never put a negative amount on a slip to fix an earlier year. Amend the original slip instead canada.ca.