Canadian T4, T4A and T5 Slips Explained for SA Newcomers

“Where’s my T4?” is a question every Canadian payroll department hears on repeat every February, from newcomers and lifelong residents alike. For a South African newcomer, these slips are best explained by starting with what they’re for, before getting into which one is which.

The concept, and the honest South African comparison

Canada’s tax system runs on year-end information slips — a T4 for employment income, and separate slip types for other kinds of income — that employers, banks and other payers issue after the calendar year ends, summarising what they paid you so you and the CRA both have the same numbers to work from. The closest South African equivalent, conceptually, is your IRP5: a single annual document your employer issues showing what you earned and what was deducted. Canada’s version is split across several different slip types depending on the source of the income, rather than one document per employer, which is the structural difference worth holding onto even before the specific slip names mean anything to you.

What this piece can honestly tell you — and what it can’t

Here’s where honesty matters more than sounding authoritative: the specific content of a T4 versus a T4A versus a T5, exactly when each is required to arrive in your mailbox, and what to do procedurally if one goes missing, are not details the research behind this piece could confirm to a standard worth publishing. Rather than guess at CRA’s own slip definitions and risk stating something that’s subtly wrong — which, on a tax document, is exactly the kind of error that compounds — the honest move is to say so plainly and point you to the source that actually knows: CRA’s own newcomer tax guidance on canada.ca, which covers slip types directly and is kept current in a way this post can’t guarantee to match.

What is confirmed, and worth acting on now

One piece of this connects directly to something covered elsewhere in this batch: none of your slips will be issued correctly at all without a valid Social Insurance Number on file with your employer, your bank, and anyone else paying you. If your SIN is a 900-series number tied to a work permit, keep its expiry date current — a lapsed SIN doesn’t just stop your pay, it can mean the year-end reporting behind it gets tangled too. Getting the SIN right, early, is the one action in this whole topic that’s fully within your control and fully confirmed to matter.

What to actually do when the slips start arriving

You can’t control what arrives in your mailbox at tax time, but you can control what happens next. Keep every slip in one folder as it lands, from January through into March — don’t assume you’ll remember which ones you’ve received. If something you expect doesn’t show up, check directly with the employer or institution that should have issued it before assuming it’s lost. And for your first filing year specifically, pair whatever slips arrive with a Canadian accountant who’s handled newcomer returns before, rather than working out on your own which slip does what — our companion piece on your first Canadian tax return covers why that first year carries extra complexity worth paying for professional help with.

Cape2Canada’s guide, Your First 90 Days in Canada, covers the SIN and banking steps that determine whether these slips arrive correctly in the first place.