T2200 and T2200S: An Employer’s Guide to Signing

On this page

• What a T2200 Is and When an Employer Must Sign One
• T2200 vs T2200S: Which Form Applies for the 2026 Filing Season
• The Employer’s Test: When Conditions of Employment Truly Require Expenses
• Filling Out the T2200 Section by Section
• What Employees Can Claim Once You Sign: Home Office, Vehicle, Supplies
• What Employees Cannot Claim Even With a Signed T2200
• Your Liability as an Employer for Signing an Inaccurate Form
• How Employees Use It: Form T777 and Supporting Records
• Commission Employees: The Extra Boxes and Wider Deductions
• A Practical Process for Issuing T2200s Across Your Workforce
• FAQ: T2200 and T2200S Forms
• Need Help Issuing T2200s This Year? Talk to Our Payroll Team

What a T2200 Is and When an Employer Must Sign One

Every January a handful of employees ask for “the work from home form.” Here is what you are actually being asked to sign, and what it commits you to.

Three things to be clear on before you sign anything:

1. The T2200S is gone. It was a temporary COVID era form for 2020 through 2022, alongside the flat rate method. Neither applies now. There is one form, the T2200, and CRA updated it in 2024 to be easier to complete for employees who are only claiming home office expenses.
2. The flat rate method is gone too. The $2 a day shortcut ended after 2022. Everyone now uses the detailed method, which means actual expenses, actual receipts and a signed T2200.
3. You are certifying facts, not doing an employee a favour. Signing a T2200 for someone who was not genuinely required to incur the expense is a false statement, and it exposes you as well as them.

Let us work through it properly.

The T2200 does not go to CRA. The employee keeps it and produces it if asked. Your obligation is to complete it accurately when an employee’s conditions of employment genuinely required them to pay expenses out of pocket.

 

You should be signing one when the employee:

• Was required by their employment contract or by the practical conditions of the role to pay their own expenses
• Was not reimbursed for those expenses, or was only partly reimbursed
• Incurred expenses that are actually deductible under the Income Tax Act

 

You should not be signing one when:

• The employee chose to work from home for convenience and could have worked at the office
• You reimbursed the expenses in full
• The employee wants to claim something that is not deductible anyway, such as a chair or a desk

There is no statutory penalty for failing to issue a T2200. There is also no legal right for an employee to demand one. But refusing to sign where the facts support it leaves an employee unable to claim a legitimate deduction, which is a poor outcome for both of you. The right answer is to establish the facts and act on them.

 

T2200 vs T2200S: Which Form Applies for the 2026 Filing Season

Form	Status
T2200	Current. The only form in use
T2200S	Discontinued after the 2022 tax year
T777	Current. The employee’s statement of employment expenses
T777S	Discontinued after 2022, with the T2200S
Temporary flat rate method, $2 a day	Discontinued after 2022

What the 2024 update changed. CRA revised the T2200 so it is easier to complete for employees who are only claiming home office expenses. Rather than working through the full set of questions on vehicles, travel and supplies, an employer in that situation answers a short set of relevant questions and skips the rest.

Electronic signatures are now accepted on the T2200, following amendments introduced by Bill C-47. You do not need wet ink, which makes bulk issuance far more practical.

 

The Employer’s Test: When Conditions of Employment Truly Require Expenses

This is the section worth slowing down on, because “required” has a specific meaning.

For home office expenses, the employee must meet one of two tests:

Test	What it means
The principal place test	The home workspace is where the employee principally, meaning more than 50% of the time, performs the duties of employment. CRA has applied this as more than 50% of the time for a period of at least four consecutive weeks
The exclusive use test	The space is used exclusively to earn employment income and is used on a regular and continuous basis for meeting clients, customers or other people in the course of employment

Most remote and hybrid employees rely on the first test. An employee in the office three days a week and at home two does not meet it.

“Required” does not require a written clause. A formal contract term is the cleanest evidence, but a documented policy, a written direction, or the plain practical reality of the role can establish the requirement. What does not establish it is employee preference. If the employee could have worked at the office and chose not to, the condition is not met.

The reimbursement question matters. If you paid the employee a non taxable allowance or reimbursed the expense, they cannot claim it. If you reimbursed part of it, they can claim the unreimbursed portion, and the T2200 needs to state the amount reimbursed.

 

Filling Out the T2200 Section by Section

Part A, employee information. Name, address, SIN, and the period of employment being certified. Get the period right for anyone who joined or left mid year.

Part B, conditions of employment. The substantive questions. Answer each honestly:

Question area	What you are certifying
Required to pay own expenses	Whether the employment conditions required the employee to pay expenses without reimbursement
Reimbursements and allowances	Amounts paid, and whether they were included on the T4
Home office	Whether the employee was required to work from home, and for what portion of the time
Motor vehicle	Whether the employee was required to use their own vehicle, and any allowance paid
Travel	Whether the employee ordinarily worked away from your place of business
Supplies	Whether the employee had to supply consumables used directly in their work
Assistant, office rent, cell phone	Whether the employee had to pay for these
Commission	Whether any part of the remuneration was commission based

Part C, employer declaration. Signed by an officer who can certify the facts. An electronic signature is acceptable.

Be specific on percentages and amounts. “Approximately” invites a CRA review of the employee’s claim. If you paid a $200 monthly vehicle allowance, say so and say whether it was taxable.

 

What Employees Can Claim Once You Sign: Home Office, Vehicle, Supplies

Home office, salaried employees

Deductible	Not deductible
Rent, work space portion	Mortgage interest
Electricity, heat, water	Mortgage principal
Home internet access fees, work portion	Property taxes
Minor repairs and maintenance supplies	Home insurance
	Capital cost allowance on the home
	Furniture, desks, chairs, monitors
	Capital improvements

How the work space percentage is calculated: the square footage of the work space divided by the total finished area of the home. Where the space is not used exclusively for work, for example a dining table, that percentage is further reduced by the proportion of hours it is used for work.

Motor vehicle expenses. If the employee was required to use their own vehicle for employment duties and did not receive a non taxable allowance, they can claim the business portion of fuel, insurance, licence and registration, maintenance and repairs, leasing costs (capped at $1,100 a month before tax in 2026), interest on a vehicle loan (capped at $350 a month) and capital cost allowance. A mileage logbook is required. No logbook, no claim that survives a review.

Supplies. Consumables used directly in the work: stationery, printer ink and paper, work related long distance charges. Not tools, not equipment, not a calculator, not a briefcase.

 

What Employees Cannot Claim Even With a Signed T2200

This is the list worth circulating internally, because it prevents most of the disappointed conversations:

• Office furniture and equipment. Desks, chairs, monitors, keyboards, standing desks. These are capital items and salaried employees cannot claim CCA on them.
• Computers, tablets and printers. Same reason.
• The monthly base rate of a landline, even a dedicated one.
• Cell phone connection or licence fees. The employment use portion of the airtime plan can be claimed. The device and the connection fee cannot.
• Mortgage interest, property taxes, home insurance, for salaried employees. Commission employees get property taxes and insurance, but never mortgage interest.
• Capital expenses, including renovations to create a home office.
• Anything you reimbursed, or covered with a non taxable allowance.
• Wall décor, plants, coffee, and the long tail of items people ask about every year.

 

Your Liability as an Employer for Signing an Inaccurate Form

What happens to the employee: CRA denies the claim on review, reassesses the return, and charges interest on the tax owing. If the pattern repeats, penalties can follow.

What happens to you:

• Reputational and practical cost. An employee whose claim was denied because your form said something that was not so will be back at your desk, and you will be issuing corrected forms.
• CRA scrutiny. A pattern of denied claims from one employer invites a payroll review, which rarely limits itself to T2200s.
• Third party civil penalties. Under section 163.2 of the Income Tax Act, a person who makes a false statement that they know, or would reasonably be expected to know, could be used by another person for tax purposes can be personally liable for a penalty. This is not routinely applied to T2200s, but it is the reason “just sign it, it is not your return” is bad advice.

The safeguard is simple. Certify what is true. If you do not know whether an employee worked from home more than half the time, find out before you sign rather than after.

Maxpro Financials advises BC and Alberta employers on T2200 policy and issuance alongside payroll, which mostly means having the facts established before the January rush rather than during it.

 

How Employees Use It: Form T777 and Supporting Records

The employee does not file the T2200. They:

1. Complete Form T777, Statement of Employment Expenses, calculating the deductible amounts.
2. Enter the total on line 22900 of the T1.
3. Keep the signed T2200, the receipts and the logbook for six years.

Records CRA expects to see if it reviews the claim:

Expense	Evidence
Rent	Lease and proof of payment
Utilities	Bills for the period
Internet	Bills showing the access fee, plus a reasonable work use allocation
Work space	Square footage of the space and of the home, and the hours calculation if not exclusive
Vehicle	Full logbook, fuel and maintenance receipts, insurance, lease or loan documents
Supplies	Receipts
The T2200 itself	Signed, for the correct year

A T2200 is year specific. One signed for 2024 does not support a 2026 claim. Conditions change, and so does the form.

 

Commission Employees: The Extra Boxes and Wider Deductions

Employees paid at least partly by commission, whose contract requires them to pay their own expenses and who ordinarily work away from the employer’s place of business, get a wider set of deductions.

	Salaried employee	Commission employee
Rent and utilities, work space portion	Yes	Yes
Home insurance	No	Yes
Property taxes	No	Yes
Mortgage interest	No	No
CCA on the home	No	No
Advertising and promotion	No	Yes
Entertainment	No	Yes, 50%
Lease of a cell phone, computer or tablet	No	Yes, employment use portion
Motor vehicle expenses	Yes	Yes
Overall cap	No cap on the deductible categories	Capped at commission income earned in the year

That last row is the important constraint. A commission employee’s total claim under the commission rules cannot exceed the commissions they earned. Where the commission is small, they may be better off claiming under the salaried rules instead, which are narrower but uncapped. The T2200 needs to identify the commission portion so the employee can make that comparison.

 

A Practical Process for Issuing T2200s Across Your Workforce

For an employer with more than a handful of staff, the January scramble is avoidable.

In the autumn:

1. Decide your policy. Which roles are genuinely required to work from home, use a personal vehicle, or buy their own supplies? Write it down.
2. Get the employment agreements and remote work policies to reflect that, so the requirement is documented rather than argued.
3. Identify the population who will legitimately need a form.

In December and January:

1. Confirm the facts per employee: the period, the proportion of time at home, reimbursements and allowances paid, and whether any commission applies.
2. Use a template with the standing answers pre filled, and vary only what genuinely varies.
3. Issue electronically, using an electronic signature.
4. Distribute a short guidance note with the form: what can and cannot be claimed, what records to keep. This alone eliminates most of the follow up questions.

Year round:

1. Keep the underlying evidence: remote work approvals, vehicle allowance records, reimbursement policies. If CRA reviews one employee’s claim, it will look at the employer’s records too.

 

FAQ: T2200 and T2200S Forms

Is the T2200S still used? No. It was discontinued after the 2022 tax year, along with the T777S and the temporary flat rate method.

Can I still use the $2 a day flat rate? No. It ended after 2022. Every claim now uses the detailed method with a signed T2200.

Am I legally required to sign a T2200? There is no statutory obligation, but where the facts support it, refusing costs the employee a legitimate deduction for no good reason.

Can I sign electronically? Yes. Electronic signatures are accepted on the T2200.

My employee works hybrid, three days in the office. Do they qualify? Not under the principal place test, which requires more than 50% of the time at home. They might qualify under the exclusive use test if they regularly meet clients in a dedicated space, which is uncommon.

Can employees claim a desk or office chair? No. Furniture and equipment are capital items and salaried employees cannot claim capital cost allowance on them.

Can they claim their whole internet bill? Only the work use portion of the access fee, and only the share attributable to the work space.

What if I paid a monthly allowance? Say so on the T2200, and state whether it was taxable. A non taxable allowance for an expense generally removes the ability to claim that expense.

Do I send the T2200 to CRA? No. The employee keeps it and produces it if CRA asks.

How long should the employee keep the records? Six years from the end of the tax year the claim relates to.

 

Need Help Issuing T2200s This Year? Talk to Our Payroll Team

The T2200 is a small form that quietly carries a certification. Issued carelessly, it produces denied claims for your employees and questions for you. Issued properly, it takes very little time and it is a genuine benefit to the people who are entitled to it.

Maxpro Financials helps BC and Alberta employers set the policy, establish the facts, build a template that fits the actual roles in the business, and issue T2200s electronically alongside the T4 process. We also advise employees on what is claimable on the T777, so the form and the return line up.

If T2200 requests arrive on your desk every January and nobody is quite sure what the answer should be, that is a conversation worth having in November.

Book a consultation or call BC +1 (778) 951 1269 / Alberta +1 (403) 437 6016.