The T2202 tuition slip: reading it and claiming your fees

What the T2202 shows

The T2202 is the proof the CRA accepts for tuition paid to a designated educational institution in Canada. Every such school prepares one for each qualifying student and files a copy with the CRA, so the slip also shows up in CRA My Account.

It lists each session you attended in the calendar year on its own row, then totals them. The boxes you need for your return are the totals at the bottom.

Fees only count if you paid more than $100 to that school for the year. A student at two colleges needs each slip to be over $100 on its own. Programs must be qualifying full-time programs, or specified part-time programs that provide at least 12 hours of courses each month.

Getting your T2202 form from your school

Schools must give you the T2202 for 2026 by the last day of February 2027. Most post it in the student portal as a PDF you can print. A school can use a secure portal without asking you first, may email it only with your written consent, and must provide two paper copies if you have no portal access or ask for paper. The school files its own copy with the CRA electronically, as an XML return or through the CRA's free Web Forms, by the same deadline. That XML file is for the CRA only; you need just the PDF or paper copy.

1. Sign in to your student account and look for a tax forms or financial section. The slip is usually posted in February.
2. If it is not there, check CRA My Account after the school has filed its return.
3. If fees look wrong, contact the registrar or student accounts office. Only the school can correct and reissue the slip.

T2202 vs the old T2202A

The T2202A was the certificate Canadian schools used before the 2019 tax year. The T2202 replaced it, and schools must now also file each certificate with the CRA. That change is why tuition slips appear in My Account and Auto-fill today when they did not before.

If you still have unused tuition from years when you received a T2202A, those amounts are not lost. They stay in your tuition carryforward balance, which the CRA tracks from year to year and which you can check in My Account.

Using the T2202 tax credit on your return

Enter box 26 on Schedule 11. The schedule then works through your tuition in a fixed order, and the result goes to line 32300. The federal credit is worth 14% of the amount claimed for 2026, the lowest federal rate.

1. Add current-year eligible tuition from all T2202 slips (and any TL11A, TL11C or TL11D certificates).
2. Schedule 11 first applies any carried-forward tuition from earlier years, then current-year tuition, until your federal tax is reduced to zero.
3. Whatever current-year tuition is left can be transferred, up to the limit, to a spouse, parent or grandparent.
4. Anything not used or transferred is carried forward for you to claim in a later year.

The federal education and textbook amounts ended in 2017, so only tuition counts federally now. Some provinces have their own rules, which appear on the provincial schedule in your software. Our tuition tax credit page covers the credit in more depth.

How much do you get back from a T2202?

The T2202 does not pay you money by itself. The tuition amount is a non-refundable credit: it lowers the federal tax you owe, and it turns into a refund only when more tax was deducted from your pay than you owe after credits. For 2026, each dollar of tuition used is worth 14 cents of federal tax.

So $7,200 in box 26 is worth $1,008 of federal tax in total, not $7,200 back, and only if someone has enough tax to use it. A provincial tuition credit, where your province has one, is worked out separately on the provincial schedule.

T2202 transfer to a parent, and carrying forward

You can transfer up to $5,000 of the current year's federal tuition amount, minus the part you used to bring your own tax to zero. The recipient can be your spouse or common-law partner, your parent or grandparent, or your spouse's parent or grandparent. A parent or grandparent claims it on line 32400.

Worked example

A student has $7,200 in box 26 for 2026 and part-time job income. Schedule 11 shows the student needs $1,500 of tuition to reduce federal tax to zero. The most that can be transferred is $5,000 minus $1,500, or $3,500. If the student transfers the full $3,500 to a parent, the remaining $2,200 is carried forward.

• The student must file a return and complete the transfer section of Schedule 11, even with no tax to pay.
• Only current-year tuition can be transferred. Amounts carried forward from earlier years stay with the student.
• Carried-forward tuition has no expiry date, but only the student can use it. The CRA says you have to file a return every year while you carry tuition forward; if you skip filing a year in between, the amount is not carried forward and cannot be claimed.

Transferring is not always the best choice. If the student expects a well-paid job soon after graduating, the carried-forward amount can be used against their own tax later. Our student tax return guide covers the rest of a student's return, including EI benefits on a T4E from summer layoffs.

Tuition slips from schools outside Canada

A T2202 comes only from designated institutions in Canada. Students at a university outside Canada use Form TL11A, commuters to a US school use TL11C, and deemed residents studying abroad use TL11D. These certificates are completed by the foreign school and handed to you rather than filed with the CRA, so they will not appear in Auto-fill. Keep them with your records. The tax slips overview lists the other slips a student might receive.