Direct Deposit in Canada: Set-Up, Forms and When Money Arrives

Direct deposit is a way of being paid in which the payer, such as an employer or a government agency, moves the money electronically from its bank account into yours. To sign up, you give the payer your banking information, usually the line of numbers printed along the bottom of your cheques. A payer may also ask for a void cheque. Many online banking services provide a direct deposit form you can download and use in place of a void cheque. Federal payments can be set up through many financial institutions or with the department that pays you, starting from canada.ca’s direct deposit page.

What do you need to set up direct deposit?

One payroll provider’s list for an employee is the bank name, transit number, institution number and account number, the three numbers the routing numbers guide explains. Service Canada’s list is your social insurance number, the name of your bank or financial institution, the branch transit number and your account number.

The numbers are along the bottom of a cheque and in your online banking; without a cheque, your financial institution gives them to you once you say they’re for direct deposit. The guide shows how to find your numbers and read a cheque.

Payments Canada says a payer that asks for a void cheque does it to check that the details you give are accurate; the void cheque page explains how to void a cheque.

Enrolling doesn’t give the payer permission to take money out of your account or to watch it: the details can only be used to put money in. When a company withdraws money from your account instead of you sending a payment, that is a pre-authorized debit, set up separately.

Which direct deposit form do you need?

The document depends on who pays you:

Some provincial money goes through federal direct deposit: canada.ca’s list of payments includes the provincial and territorial payments made with the Canada Child Benefit, and the Ontario Trillium Benefit.

Each bank’s own direct deposit form or void cheque, and where its online banking keeps it, is on that bank’s page: RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank and Desjardins. Other institutions are on the void cheque page and institution numbers.

How do you set up direct deposit for your pay?

One payroll provider’s guide says each employee gives the employer the bank name, transit, institution and account numbers, which a void cheque from the employee’s financial institution shows, and that with self-service payroll software employees may type in their own details. A direct deposit form from online banking can replace the void cheque. The first pay by direct deposit can take a while to set up: when money arrives has the timing.

How do you get federal benefits and tax refunds by direct deposit?

Canada.ca’s direct deposit for individuals covers payments such as tax refunds, the Canada Child Benefit, CPP, OAS, EI, and student grants and loans. With several of them, you may have to go to more than one department, each set up on its own. Your tax refund and most CRA credits and benefits must share one account, though other payments can usually go to different ones.

For CRA direct deposit, you sign up through your CRA account or through your Canadian bank or credit union; consent given in the CRA account updates your details the next business day, and the CRA no longer takes sign-ups or changes by telephone.

The CRA doesn’t run CPP, OAS or EI. OAS banking details can be changed in My Service Canada Account, but for EI, CPP and the Canada Disability Benefit, Service Canada says that account can’t be used to change them “at this time”. For those, it offers a call back, help at a Service Canada office, or the benefit’s call centre.

The mail-in Canada direct deposit enrolment form could take up to 3 months to process, canada.ca says, and it is for mail only, with nothing enclosed but your void cheque. Until it is processed, you keep being paid by cheque. Accounts abroad are covered on canada.ca’s foreign bank account page, for the many countries it lists.

When does a direct deposit arrive?

How long a direct deposit takes depends on whether it is the first one after you sign up or a regular payment, and payments move on the days Payments Canada’s systems run.

The first deposit:

• From an employer: one payroll provider’s guide says setting up direct deposit can take from one day to a few weeks depending on the provider, a wait that repeats for each new employee, and that some banks and payroll providers need payroll run a certain number of days before payday.
• From the CRA: after you give consent in your CRA account, your CRA direct deposit details are updated the next business day.
• By the mail-in form: up to 3 months for canada.ca’s form, with payments by cheque in the meantime.

Regular deposits: Payments Canada systems are operational Monday to Friday, except statutory holidays. Payments Canada’s system closure schedule for this year:

• Thursday, January 1 (New Year's Day)
• Friday, April 3 (Good Friday)
• Monday, May 18 (Victoria Day)
• Wednesday, July 1 (Canada Day)
• Monday, September 7 (Labour Day)
• Wednesday, September 30 (National Day for Truth and Reconciliation)
• Monday, October 12 (Thanksgiving Day)
• Wednesday, November 11 (Remembrance Day)
• Friday, December 25 (Christmas Day)
• Monday, December 28 (closure for Boxing Day, Saturday, December 26)

A bank’s own closing days are on bank holidays. Federal benefits are issued on the dates the government lists, which are on government payment dates, but the government says they may take a few days to arrive, and a mailed cheque may take longer than direct deposit.

What if you change banks or accounts?

Tell each payor straight away when your banking information changes. Some financial institutions offer to do this for you, and after a merger or closure your institution might tell your payers itself. On the mail-in route, a change for a federal payment takes a new enrolment form. Canada.ca and the CRA both say not to close the old account until a payment has been deposited into the new one, and switching banks covers the rest of a move.

What if a deposit is missing, wrong or taken back?

Taken back. A direct deposit can be reversed: Payments Canada allows a mistaken one to be corrected for up to 3 days after the money becomes available to you, and gives you 90 days to refuse such a direct deposit correction. For a reversal that looks suspicious, its steps are the payer first, then, if that fails and you believe the money is legally yours, your financial institution, which may be able to refuse the correction. If it does, the money is taken back from the payer’s account and returned to yours. Keeping money that isn’t yours can expose you to legal action.

A deposit you don’t recognise. Payments Canada’s answer is to contact your financial institution, which can investigate.

A federal payment that hasn’t come. Canada.ca says to contact the department or agency that pays it if a payment didn’t arrive when expected, or if cheques keep coming after you set up direct deposit. The benefits calendar asks you to wait 5 to 10 business days before contacting the program, and each program’s wait is on government payment dates. If you believe a CRA payment went to the wrong account or back to the CRA, the CRA asks you to call once 10 business days have passed since the payment date.

A first pay that hasn’t come may still be inside the employer’s set-up time (when money arrives). Money you sent to the wrong account yourself is covered on money sent to the wrong account.

Related pages

• Void cheques
• Routing, transit and account numbers
• CRA direct deposit
• Government payment dates
• CPP payment dates, OAS payment dates and EI payment dates
• Bank holidays
• Pre-authorized debits
• Switching banks