Ontario Trillium Benefit: Eligibility, 2026-27 Amounts, Payment Dates and the ON-BEN Form

Most people meet this benefit as an unexplained monthly deposit, or as a CRA email saying a notice is waiting in their account. Behind that deposit sit three separate tests, three maximums and one form that decides whether two of the credits are paid at all. Here is who qualifies, what the current benefit year pays, when the money lands and how to keep it coming.

Key Takeaways

• The OTB bundles three tax credits, and you need to qualify for only one of them to get a payment.
• Payments from July 2026 to June 2027 are calculated from your 2025 return, so nothing is paid until it is filed and assessed.
• The sales tax credit needs no application, but the other two credits need a short form filed with your return every year.
• A year worth $500 or less arrives in one July payment; above that, you choose monthly payments or a single payment in June 2027.
• An OTB notice is a CRA letter about your entitlement, and the CRA’s email about it never asks for personal or financial information.

Three Ontario Tax Credits in One OTB Payment

The OTB is a tax-free payment that helps low- to moderate-income Ontario residents pay for energy costs, sales and property tax. The Province of Ontario sets the rules and funds the program, and the Canada Revenue Agency calculates and pays it on the province’s behalf. The three parts are:

• Ontario energy and property tax credit (OEPTC): helps people who rent or pay property tax on their home, and covers some of the sales tax on home energy costs.
• Northern Ontario energy credit (NOEC): an extra energy credit for people living in ten northern districts.
• Ontario sales tax credit (OSTC): a per-person amount toward the sales tax you pay, with no housing test.

You need to qualify for only one credit to receive a payment, and the CRA adds all three into a single amount. That is also why losing one credit is easy to miss: the deposit simply gets smaller.

Who Qualifies for the Ontario Trillium Benefit: Eligibility by Credit

The CRA uses your return to determine your eligibility, so you must meet the eligibility rules for at least one credit and have your 2025 return filed. You also lose the payment for any month whose first day falls within a stay of 90 days or more in a prison or similar institution.

Ontario Energy and Property Tax Credit

You can get the OEPTC for a month if you were a resident of Ontario on December 31, 2025, and still live in Ontario when that month begins. At that point you must also be 18 or older, have a spouse or common-law partner, or be a parent who lives or lived with your child. Then you need at least one of these in 2025:

• You paid rent or property tax for your principal residence in Ontario.
• You paid for accommodation in a public or non-profit long-term care home in Ontario.
• You lived on a reserve in Ontario and paid home energy costs, such as electricity or heat, for your principal residence.
• You lived in a designated university, college or private school residence.

Rent paid to a relative or friend counts only if that person reports it as rental income. If you have a spouse or common-law partner, the same one of you applies for both the OEPTC and the NOEC.

Northern Ontario Energy Credit

The NOEC uses the same age, family and housing tests, plus one more: you lived in Northern Ontario on December 31, 2025. Northern Ontario means the districts of Algoma, Cochrane, Kenora, Manitoulin, Nipissing, Parry Sound, Rainy River, Sudbury (including the City of Greater Sudbury), Thunder Bay and Timiskaming.

Ontario Sales Tax Credit

The OSTC has no housing test. You can get it for a month if you live in Ontario when that month begins and, at that point, you are 19 or older, have had a spouse or common-law partner, or are a parent who lives or lived with your child. You do not apply separately, because filing your return is enough. For a couple, the credit goes to whichever spouse’s return the CRA assesses first.

How Much Is the Ontario Trillium Benefit Payment for 2026-27?

The amounts below make up your 2026 Ontario Trillium Benefit, paid from July 2026 to June 2027 and based on your 2025 income. Each credit shrinks by a set percentage of adjusted family net income above a threshold, which means your own net income if you are single. The senior rows apply if you were 64 or older at the end of 2025.

In each OEPTC maximum, $290 is the energy part and the rest is the property tax part. Two rules decide most real amounts, and neither shows up in the headline figures. The CRA counts 20% of your rent, plus any property tax you paid, as your occupancy cost. The second part is then 10% of that cost, capped at $944, plus $73, and never more than the cost itself. As a result, a renter under 64 reaches the full $1,017 only when 20% of the year’s rent hits $9,440, which takes rent of $47,200 a year, or about $3,933 a month. For seniors the formula is 10% capped at $581, plus $617.

Calculating the Benefit: A Worked Example

Example. Nadia is 34, single and rents an apartment in southern Ontario for $2,000 a month. In 2025 she paid $24,000 in rent and her net income was $38,000. Her benefit for July 2026 to June 2027 works out like this:

1. Occupancy cost: 20% of $24,000 is $4,800.
2. Energy part: the lesser of $4,800 and $290, so $290.
3. Second part: 10% of $4,800 is $480, plus $73, so $553.
4. OEPTC: $843, less 2% of the $8,953 above $29,047 ($179.06), so $663.94.
5. OSTC: $378, less 4% of that same $8,953 ($358.12), so $19.88.
6. NOEC: nothing, because she does not live in a northern district.

Her total for the year is $683.82. That is more than $500, so it arrives as about $57 a month unless she chose on her return to take one payment in June 2027.

Here is what the calculation sheets imply but never say. Between $29,047 and $38,497 of net income, where both of her credits are shrinking, every extra $1,000 of income costs her $60: $20 of OEPTC and $40 of OSTC. A $3,000 RRSP deduction would cut her net income to $35,000 and raise her total to $863.82, a $180 gain on top of the income tax the deduction saves. Check your room before you contribute, since an excess triggers the RRSP over-contribution penalty. The same band works in reverse: at about $46,200 of net income, her year drops to $500 or less and arrives in one July payment.

Trillium Benefit Payments: 2026-27 Dates and the $500 Lump-Sum Rule

If your 2025 return was assessed by June 19, 2026, your first payment came on July 10, 2026. When the 10th of a month falls on a weekend or statutory holiday, the CRA pays on the last working day before it. A return assessed after June 19 starts payments within four to eight weeks of the assessment, then on the 10th of each month thereafter.

The CRA has published every 2026 date and the June 10, 2027 date. In September 2026 it had not yet posted the rest of its 2027 calendar, so the January to May 2027 dates above apply its weekend rule; confirm them on the CRA’s payment dates page. If a payment is late, wait 10 working days before you call. If you receive your income tax refund by direct deposit, you receive your payment the same way; otherwise the CRA mails a cheque.

The size of your year decides the schedule:

• $500 or less: one payment in the first payment month, usually July.
• More than $500: monthly payments, or one payment at the end of the benefit year, on June 10, 2027. To wait, you tick box 61060 on the form, and you can make that choice only on the first return you file for 2025, filed by December 31, 2026.
• $2 or less: no payment. More than $2 but less than $10 becomes a single $10 payment.

A delayed single payment suits someone saving toward a bill, and it is not locked in. You can switch back by calling the CRA at 1-877-627-6645 or writing to your tax centre, and amounts owed arrive within four to eight weeks. The CRA also cancels the choice if you move out of Ontario, go bankrupt, die, or are incarcerated for 90 days or more during the benefit year.

How to Apply for the Ontario Trillium Benefit With Your 2025 Income Tax and Benefit Return

You claim the Ontario Trillium Benefit by filing your personal income tax and benefit return. You must file your tax return every year to keep the payments coming, even if you have no income to report. The CRA then works out your entitlement, which is why the amount never appears on the return: the OTB is not part of your income tax assessment.

The OSTC needs nothing more. The OEPTC and NOEC also need Form ON-BEN, the application for the Ontario Trillium Benefit and the Ontario Senior Homeowners’ Property Tax Grant, sent with your return. On the version for the 2025 tax year, you enter rent on line 61100, property tax on line 61120, and tick box 61140 if you lived in a designated student residence. Leave the form out and those two credits are not calculated.

In our personal tax practice, the application form is the part of a return we most often find left blank when we take over a file, usually after a change of software or preparer. The payments do not stop, because the sales tax credit keeps arriving, so nobody looks. A telling sign is a deposit of exactly $31.50: one adult’s full $378 OSTC divided by 12, with nothing from the OEPTC behind it.

If you missed the form in an earlier year, you can generally ask the CRA to change a return for any of the previous 10 calendar years. Use My Account, Form T1-ADJ or a signed letter to your tax centre, and attach that year’s completed application with proof of where you lived and what you paid.

Ontario Senior Homeowners and the Property Tax Grant

The same form carries a separate grant. If you were 64 or older on December 31, 2025, and owned and lived in your Ontario home and paid its 2025 property tax, you can apply for a grant of up to $500. Unlike the monthly credits, the grant is not spread over the year: the CRA pays it about four to eight weeks after it assesses or reassesses your return.

What Is an OTB Notice, and Is the Canada Revenue Agency Email Real?

An OTB notice is the CRA letter about your entitlement for the benefit year. The CRA sends one when you are entitled, in most cases sends one explaining why when you are not, and issues another if your choice of a delayed single payment is cancelled. It is separate from your notice of assessment, because the benefit is calculated outside your assessment.

Many people first hear about the notice by email. If your correspondence preference is set to electronic mail, the CRA emails you when new mail, such as a benefit notice, is ready in My Account, and no paper copy follows. A real message shows the sender name Canada Revenue Agency / Agence du Revenu du Canada, and the CRA says these emails will not ask for personal or financial information. The Government of Ontario says the same about texts: it will not text you for personal information so you can receive a benefit. Rather than clicking a link, sign in to My Account directly, and see our guide to what to do after a CRA email for the other checks.

If the notice looks wrong, compare it with the housing costs and income on your 2025 return. A missed amount is usually fixed by adjusting the return; if the CRA’s reading is the problem, you can dispute it with a notice of objection.

Why You Might Not Receive Your Ontario Trillium Benefit

• Your 2025 return is missing or not yet assessed. Nothing is paid until you file your income tax return and the CRA assesses it.
• The application form was left out. Without it, only the sales tax credit can be paid.
• Your income is above the range. Each credit phases out, and a single person’s OSTC reaches zero once net income passes $38,497.
• You did not live in Ontario on the right dates. The OEPTC and NOEC depend on where you lived at the end of 2025, and the OEPTC and OSTC also require you to live in Ontario as each month begins. If you moved to or from Canada, your residency status matters too.
• Your year was paid in a single payment. A total of $500 or less came in July, and a delayed choice waits until June 2027.
• You owe money. The CRA applies the payment first to debts owed to it or its partners, including family support orders in arrears.
• Your spouse’s return was assessed first. The couple’s OSTC goes to that spouse.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the OTB taxable?

No. The OTB is not taxable, so the payments do not go on your return as income. The CRA also neither charges nor pays interest when a payment turns out too high or too low.

Do you need to apply every year?

Yes. You must file a return every year to keep receiving the benefit, and the OEPTC and NOEC also need the application form with each return. The OSTC is calculated from your return with no separate application.

Can I get the OTB as a lump sum instead of monthly?

Yes, if your year totals more than $500. Tick box 61060 on the application with the first return you file for 2025, by the end of 2026, and the CRA pays the full amount on June 10, 2027. A year worth $500 or less is paid automatically in one payment, usually in July.

What happens if I file my 2025 return late?

You can still receive the benefit. Your first payment comes within four to eight weeks after the CRA assesses the return, and later payments follow on the 10th.

Can I claim rent I pay to a family member?

Only if that family member reports the rent as rental income. Payments to relatives or friends who do not report them do not count, so keep a record of what you paid and to whom.

Is there a minimum OTB payment?

Yes. A year that totals $2 or less pays nothing, and a year above $2 but under $10 pays a single $10.

The Bottom Line

Like other tax credits and benefits paid through your return, the OTB reaches you only when the CRA has what it needs each year.

• File a return every year, even with no income, and include the application form if you paid rent or own your home.
• Expect less than the maximum if you rent: the larger part of the credit peaks only at $47,200 of rent a year.
• Payments land on the 10th or the last working day before it, and a year of $500 or less arrives in one payment.
• Open an OTB notice in My Account rather than through an email link.

If your payments shrank and you cannot see why, the answer usually sits between what you paid for housing, what your return reported and how the CRA read it. Our personal tax team can review your returns and application forms for the years in question and prepare the adjustment requests. Get in touch before another benefit year starts.