T4E slip: how EI benefits are taxed and when you repay

What is a T4E slip?

The T4E meaning is in its full name: Statement of Employment Insurance and Other Benefits. Service Canada sends one to everyone who received EI benefits in the calendar year, and to people who repaid an EI overpayment from an earlier year. Benefits are taxed in the year they were paid, not the year your claim started, so a claim that began in December 2026 with payments in January 2027 lands on your 2027 T4E.

EI income is taxable. Service Canada deducts some tax from each payment, but often not enough to cover the full amount owed once your job income is added. That gap is why many people who were on EI see a balance owing in spring.

T4E vs T4

A T4 comes from your employer and reports wages. A T4E comes from Service Canada and reports benefits. If you were laid off in June and collected EI for the rest of the year, you get both slips and enter both. Employment income from the T4 goes on line 10100; EI goes on line 11900.

T4E: where to get it

Service Canada posts T4E slips in My Service Canada Account (MSCA) as early as February 1, and mails paper copies before mid-March. The slip is also sent to the CRA, so it appears in your CRA account and can be pulled into certified software with Auto-fill my return.

1. Sign in to My Service Canada Account and open the tax slips section to view or print the T4E.
2. Or sign in to your CRA account and look under tax slips for the year.
3. If the address on file was out of date, update it with Service Canada so the paper copy is not lost. For 2025 slips, the cut-off for address changes was January 15, 2026.
4. For a month-by-month breakdown, download the itemized statement of benefits paid from MSCA.

You can no longer ask the CRA by phone for a paper copy of a slip, so the online accounts are the fastest route. More options are on our missing tax slip page.

T4E boxes and where they go

Enter box 14 minus any tax-exempt amount in box 18 on line 11900. If part of your benefits were maternity or parental benefits, software also records that portion on line 11905 so it can be used in other calculations. Box 22 income tax deducted goes on line 43700 with the tax from your other slips.

If you repaid an EI overpayment directly to Service Canada during the year, the T4E shows the principal repaid. You can deduct that on line 23200. Penalties and interest on an EI debt are not deductible and do not appear on the slip.

EI tax deducted and tax owing

Tax withheld from EI is set at a flat rate that does not know about your other income. Suppose you earned $48,000 from a job before a layoff and then received $9,000 in EI. Your employer withheld tax based on $48,000 a year of pay, and Service Canada withheld on the $9,000 alone. Together the two may fall short of the tax on $57,000.

You can ask Service Canada to withhold more tax from future EI payments to avoid a bill. If you already owe, file by April 30, 2027 for the 2026 year and pay what you can; our CRA balance owing page explains payment options. An RRSP contribution made by the 60-day deadline can also lower the tax on EI income.

EI benefit repayment at tax time

Some people have to give back part of their EI through the tax return. Repayment applies when all three of these are true: box 15 shows regular or other benefits, box 7 shows a 30% repayment rate, and your net income, calculated in a special way, is over the threshold. Service Canada has set the threshold at $86,125 for 2026, up from $82,125 for 2025; the 2027 figure has not been posted yet.

Who does not repay

• Anyone whose net income for the repayment test is not above the threshold: $86,125 for 2026.
• Anyone who received less than 1 week of regular or fishing benefits in the preceding 10 tax years.
• Anyone paid only special benefits, such as maternity, parental or sickness benefits. If you had both regular and special benefits in the year, part of the regular benefits can still be repaid.

How the repayment is calculated

The special net income starts from line 23400 and removes certain items such as universal child care benefits and RDSP income. The repayment is 30% of the lesser of your box 15 benefits and the amount your net income exceeds the threshold. The chart on the back of the T4E does the math.

The $1,162.50 is deducted on line 23500, which lowers net income, and the same amount is added to tax payable. For the full rule, including the OAS side, see line 23500 social benefits repayment.