How to Make Money With DoorDash in Canada: Pay, Requirements and Taxes

DoorDash describes Dashers as independent contractors who decide when, where and how much they deliver. You get offers in the Dasher app, accept the ones that suit you, and handle your own costs and taxes. This page covers how DoorDash says its pay works, what you need to start, the insurance question, and how the income is taxed. It is part of the side hustles hub; the food delivery apps comparison puts DoorDash next to Uber Eats, and Instacart covers grocery shopping.

How Dasher pay works

DoorDash does not publish a typical hourly or monthly figure for Canada. Its pay page describes three parts: base pay, customer tips, and promotions.

When an offer comes in, the app shows where it is and what you’ll make, and you can accept or reject it (DoorDash Canada). Comparing each offer’s pay with the distance it involves, and with your own cost of driving that far, is how the per-offer mode becomes an hourly figure.

What you need to start

DoorDash’s Canadian sign-up page lists:

• Age: 18 or older.
• Vehicle: any car, scooter, or bicycle (in select cities). DoorDash says there are no car requirements; to deliver by car you need a valid driver’s licence and insurance.
• Documents: consent to a background check, two pieces of government ID, a valid Business Number or Social Insurance Number, and a full-class driver's licence if you deliver by car.
• Phone: an iPhone or Android smartphone.

Delivery differs from ride-sharing in two ways DoorDash points out: you don’t carry passengers, and you can use any mode of transportation.

Insurance

DoorDash’s requirements article says it has a commercial auto policy covering up to $1,000,000 in bodily injury or property damage to third parties from accidents while on an active delivery. It also says you must keep your own insurance, including auto insurance, in the amounts the law requires while you deliver, and that DoorDash’s coverage may not apply if you don’t. Whether your personal policy covers delivery use is a question for your broker or insurer; Uber’s insurance page, for one, makes telling your insurer the driver’s responsibility.

Taxes on delivery income

Delivery income is self-employment income. You report it and your expenses on Form T2125 with your personal return; the DoorDash tax guide walks through the form, and vehicle expenses for the self-employed covers which car costs count and the logbook the CRA expects.

GST/HST. Food delivery is not ride-sharing, so the general small-supplier rule applies: You have to register for the GST/HST once you make taxable sales in Canada and are no longer a small supplier: that happens when your taxable sales go over $30,000 in a single calendar quarter (register from that sale) or over the last 4 consecutive calendar quarters (by the end of the month after that quarter); below that you can register voluntarily. The total counts taxable sales from all your businesses, not just DoorDash. If you also drive riders, ride-sharing has its own rule for those fares.

CPP. You contribute to the CPP if you are over 18, work in Canada outside Quebec and earn more than $3,500 a year; contributions stop when you turn 70, and from 65 someone already receiving a CPP or QPP retirement pension can choose to stop. Self-employed people pay both the employee and the employer share of CPP contributions on their net business income (11.90% above the basic exemption up to the first earnings ceiling, plus 8% CPP2 between the first and second ceilings), worked out on Schedule 8 and paid with the income tax return. A non-refundable tax credit is claimed on half of the base contributions, and the other half, the first additional contributions and all CPP2 contributions are deducted from income.

Related guides

• Side hustles hub
• Food delivery apps compared
• How to make money driving for Uber in Canada
• How to make money with Instacart in Canada
• Gig worker taxes in Canada