Northern Residents Deductions (2025 Tax Year) | Residency and Travel

If you live in a prescribed northern or intermediate zone for at least six consecutive months, you can claim the northern residents deductions on Form T2222 and line 25500 of your return. There are two separate deductions: a residency deduction for each day you lived in the zone, and a travel deduction for trips that started there. This page covers both for the 2025 tax year, which places are in each zone, and how the amounts are worked out; it is the regional entry in our guide to Canadian tax deductions and credits.

Both are deductions, not credits: they come off your income before tax is calculated, so what they save depends on your marginal rate (the difference between a tax deduction and a tax credit explains why).

Northern zone or intermediate zone

CRA lists every place that is in a prescribed zone. If you lived in the northern zone (Zone A) you can claim the full deductions; in the intermediate zone (Zone B) you can claim one-half of them, for both residency and travel.

The provincial rows are examples, not the full lists. Check your exact community on CRA’s line 25500 page, which also says to contact CRA if you think you live in a prescribed zone that isn’t listed. CRA’s list has no places in New Brunswick, in Prince Edward Island or on the island of Newfoundland.

Residency deduction

• You lived in a prescribed zone on a permanent basis for a continuous period of at least six consecutive months.
• Every place in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut is in the prescribed northern zone (Zone A).
• You can claim a basic residency amount of $11.00 for each day of 2025 you lived in Zone A.
• You can add $11.00 a day for the days you maintained and lived in a dwelling in the zone, if you are the only person claiming the basic residency amount for that dwelling.
• Non-taxable board and lodging benefits from a special work site reduce the residency amounts.
• The residency deduction can't be more than 20% of your net income.

The two daily amounts

The additional amount doesn’t depend on whether your employer houses you: CRA counts you as having maintained and lived in a dwelling even if your employer let you live there rent-free and paid the utilities and upkeep. What matters is the kind of home and how many people in it claim.

• A dwelling is a self-contained home with its own kitchen, bathroom, sleeping area and private entrance: a house, apartment or mobile home. A bunkhouse, dormitory, hotel room or room in a boarding house is not one.
• One claimant per dwelling for the extra amount. Each person living in the dwelling can claim the basic amount on their own return. If more than one does for the same period and dwelling, no one in the household can claim the additional amount for it. A couple can therefore have one person claim both amounts, or both claim the basic amount; CRA suggests weighing everyone’s taxable income when choosing.
• The 20% cap. Form T2222 limits the residency deduction to the lesser of the residency amounts and 20% of your net income (line 23600), so a low-income year can cap the claim.
• Special work sites. If your main home is outside a prescribed zone, you may still qualify for some or all of the basic amount for living at a special work site in a prescribed zone for at least six consecutive months. Non-taxable board and lodging benefits from a special work site (box 31 of the T4 or box 124 of the T4A) reduce the residency amounts, except at sites far from any large population centre.

Meeting the six-month test

• Temporary absences don’t usually break your period of residency; CRA looks at how many absences you had, why, and how long they were.
• Moving within the zones doesn’t break it either, if you moved directly from one place in a prescribed zone to another.
• The period can begin or end in the tax year, so someone who moved north late in the year can still claim those days once the six months are complete.
• Not there long enough yet? If you haven’t lived in the zone for six consecutive months when you file, file without the claim and ask CRA to adjust your return once you qualify.
• A person who died in the year qualifies if they lived in a prescribed zone for six months or more before the date of death.

Worked example: a couple in Yellowknife

Travel deduction

• You can claim up to two non-medical trips for yourself and for each eligible family member, and any number of medical trips.
• Each trip's deduction is the lowest of the taxable employer travel benefit (or the part of a $1,200 standard amount per person allocated to it), the trip's total cost, and the lowest return airfare between the nearest airport and the nearest designated city.
• You can't claim a trip if you received, or were entitled to, non-taxable travel assistance, a travel allowance or a reimbursement for it.

The lowest of three amounts, per trip

For each trip, the deduction is the lowest of:

1. either the taxable travel benefit you received from employment for that trip, or the part of the traveller’s $1,200 standard amount you allocate to it;
2. the total travel expenses for the trip;
3. the lowest return airfare available at the time of the trip between the airport closest to your home and the nearest designated city, even if you drove or went somewhere else.

You don’t need an employer travel benefit. The $1,200 standard amount is available for each person who travels: it is an amount per person, not per trip, covering all of that person’s trips in the year, medical or not. The employer-benefit route is the alternative when the benefit is larger. You can use it only if you deal at arm’s length with your employer and the benefit was included in your income for the year (box 32 of the T4 or box 028 of the T4A; medical travel benefits are also shown in box 33 or box 116). Once anyone uses an employer benefit for a traveller in a year, no one can use any of that traveller’s standard amount that year.

Other rules from CRA’s line 25500 page:

• Eligible family members are those who lived with you at the time of the trip: your spouse or common-law partner, your or your partner’s children under 18, and certain wholly dependent relatives.
• You can claim travel without claiming residency. If your partner claims both residency amounts, you can still claim the travel deduction.
• Medical trips have no trip limit, but expenses claimed on T2222 can’t also be claimed as medical expenses by anyone.
• Zone B residents claim one-half of the total of the lowest amounts for their trips.
• Travel expenses include air, train and bus fares, vehicle costs, meals, hotels, camping fees, taxis and tolls, and can be worked out with CRA’s detailed or simplified meal and vehicle rates.

Nearest designated cities

The lowest return airfare is always priced to the designated city nearest your airport. CRA’s list is Vancouver; Calgary and Edmonton (Alberta); Saskatoon; Winnipeg; North Bay, Toronto and Ottawa (Ontario); Montréal and Québec (Quebec); Moncton; Halifax; and St. John’s. CRA also publishes lowest return airfare tables you can use instead of a quote.

Worked example: a family trip from Zone A

Claiming on your return

Form T2222 has three steps: Step 1 records the period you lived in the zone, Step 2 works out the residency deduction (with separate sections for Zone A and Zone B) and Step 3 the travel deduction (Chart A allocates each person’s standard amount; Chart B lists each trip). The total from line 19 of T2222 goes on line 25500 of your return. Keep receipts and the airfare quote or table amount for at least six years in case CRA reviews the claim.

• At work: the TD1 form lets you claim the deduction for living in a prescribed zone with your employer, so it is reflected in the tax taken off each pay.
• Moving north for a job: the moving expenses deduction has its own rules for the cost of the move. For an estimate of your overall tax bill, see the income tax calculator.