Investors putting $1 billion or more into the Canadian economy will get priority access to binding Canada Revenue Agency tax rulings, the federal government announced Monday, as Prime Minister Mark Carney opened Canada’s first investment summit in Toronto.
The measure was announced in a news release from the office of Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and applies to the existing Advance Income Tax Rulings program, The Canadian Press reported. Under that program, a taxpayer can ask the CRA how income tax law will apply to a proposed transaction and receive a decision that binds the agency, before any capital is committed.
“When investors are considering major projects, certainty matters,” Champagne said in a media statement. “By prioritizing advance tax rulings for investments of $1 billion or more, we are giving them the clarity and predictability they need to invest with confidence, create opportunities and help build Canada’s economic future.”
The announcement landed on the opening day of the Canada Investment Summit, a two-day event at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Toronto that has drawn hundreds of executives and global asset managers. Carney, members of his cabinet and premiers from across the country are pitching investors on opportunities in energy, infrastructure and critical minerals over the two days, according to The Canadian Press. The summit is a central piece of the prime minister’s plan to stimulate $1 trillion in investment in Canada over the next five years.
What Ottawa has changed is the order of the queue rather than the published deadline. The CRA’s Income Tax Rulings Directorate targets issuing an advance income tax ruling within 90 business days of receiving all the information required under Information Circular IC 70-6, according to the agency’s service standards page, last updated March 25, 2026. Monday’s announcement did not say that target changes for qualifying investors.
The directorate’s published performance results show it has largely been meeting that target. It met its service standard on advance income tax rulings 91 per cent of the time in the 2024-25 fiscal year, 93 per cent in 2023-24 and 82 per cent in 2022-23. Technical interpretations, the directorate’s non-binding product, fared worse, meeting the standard 56 per cent of the time for taxpayers and their representatives in 2024-25.
Rulings requests also already sit ahead of other work at the directorate. A footnote on the same page, citing paragraph 11 of IC 70-6, says the directorate’s policy is to give priority to requests for rulings and to requests made by other areas of the CRA, and that requests for technical interpretations are generally dealt with in the order they are received. Monday’s measure creates a further tier of priority inside that existing arrangement.
The service is not free. The directorate provides rulings on a cost recovery basis and charges a fee for each hour or part hour worked on a request, the CRA says. The hourly base fee is $281.22 for the period running from April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027, rising to $306.50 once the Consumer Price Index adjustment required under section 17 of the Service Fees Act is applied. The fees are set by the Advance Income Tax Ruling Fees Order.
The government did not say how many requests are expected to meet the $1-billion threshold, or what effect the new priority will have on wait times for requests that fall below it.
The summit continues Tuesday, when Carney is scheduled to open the main program with a keynote speech. Ottawa has framed the event as the beginning of a sustained capital attraction push rather than a one-time gathering.
