Most businesses remit GST/HST the "regular" way: add up the tax you charged customers, subtract the tax you paid on purchases (your input tax credits), and send the CRA the difference. It's accurate, but for a small service business it's also a lot of receipt-tracking for a modest ITC claim.

The Quick Method is a CRA election that replaces all of that with a single multiplication. Instead of netting tax-collected against tax-paid, you remit a fixed remittance rate applied to your GST/HST-included sales — and that rate is deliberately set lower than the tax you collect. The gap between what you collect and what you remit is yours to keep. Whether that's a good deal depends entirely on your business, and a specific list of businesses isn't allowed to play at all.

TL;DR — The Short Version
  1. The Quick Method = remit a fixed % of your tax-included sales instead of netting tax collected against input tax credits. The remittance rate is lower than the GST/HST you charge, so you keep the difference.
  2. The trade-off: you give up claiming ITCs on your operating expenses (the rate already accounts for them) — but you can still claim ITCs on capital purchases like equipment and computers.
  3. It shines for low-expense service businesses — consultants, copywriters, designers, coaches — who collect a lot of tax but don't pay much tax on inputs.
  4. Eligibility: your worldwide taxable supplies (with associates) must be $400,000 or less (GST/HST included) in any four consecutive fiscal quarters over the last five. You elect with Form GST74. There's also a 1% credit on your first $30,000 of eligible supplies each year.
  5. Some businesses are barred outright — including accountants, bookkeepers, financial and tax consultants, lawyers, and actuaries. If that's you, the Quick Method isn't an option.

Read on for how the math works, who qualifies, who's excluded, a worked example, and how to decide.

How It Works

One multiplication instead of two columns

Under the Quick Method, you still charge customers the normal GST/HST (5%, 13%, 14%, or 15% depending on the province). But to figure out what to send the CRA, you don't track the tax on your purchases. You take your total sales including the GST/HST you charged, and multiply by your assigned remittance rate.

That remittance rate is the heart of it. The CRA sets it below the rate you collect — because it bakes in an assumption about the input tax credits a typical business in your category would have claimed. The exact rate depends on (a) whether you mainly provide services or resell goods, and (b) the province where you make your supplies. You look yours up in the CRA's guide.

On top of that, you get a 1% credit on the first $30,000 of your eligible supplies (including GST/HST) each fiscal year — a small bonus that further reduces what you remit.

Source: CRA Guide RC4058 — Quick Method of Accounting for GST/HST; Streamlined Accounting (GST/HST) Regulations (SOR/91-51); Excise Tax Act, s. 227 (election).

The Catch

You give up ITCs on operating expenses

The reason the Quick Method isn't automatically better for everyone: under it you cannot claim input tax credits on your operating expenses — rent, software, supplies, phone, and so on. The lower remittance rate is the CRA's way of giving you an average credit for those instead.

So the Quick Method wins when the ITCs you'd give up are smaller than the amount the lower rate saves you. That's the case for businesses with high tax-collected and low tax-paid — classic low-overhead service providers. It tends to lose for businesses with heavy taxable purchases (lots of inventory, equipment, or subcontractors), where the real ITCs would beat the flat rate.

Important exception: you can still claim ITCs on capital purchases — equipment, computers, furniture, real property — even on the Quick Method. It's only the everyday operating ITCs you trade away.

Source: CRA Guide RC4058 (input tax credits under the Quick Method).

Who's Barred

The businesses that can't use it

This is the part that surprises people: the Quick Method is closed to a specific list of professions and entities, largely the ones whose work is finance and numbers. You generally cannot use it if you provide:

And of course any business over the $400,000 taxable-supplies limit is out. The irony is real — your bookkeeper can set this up for you, but can't use it themselves.

Source: Streamlined Accounting (GST/HST) Regulations (excluded persons); CRA Guide RC4058 (who can use the Quick Method).

A Real-World Example

The copywriter who was over-remitting

Meet Owen, who runs Cedar & Co. Copywriting, a one-person writing studio in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. He bills clients about $90,000 a year and, being in PEI, charges 15% HST — so he collects about $13,500 of tax. His expenses are tiny: a laptop every few years, some software subscriptions, a co-working desk. In a normal year his operating-expense ITCs come to maybe $400.

Copywriting isn't on the excluded list, and he's well under $400,000 — so Owen qualifies for the Quick Method. He's just never used it. Under the regular method he remits roughly $13,500 − $400 = $13,100 a year.

Now the Quick Method. He'd multiply his tax-included sales ($90,000 + $13,500 = $103,500) by his assigned remittance rate. Say that rate works out to about 10% for a service business in his province (illustrative — the exact rate is in RC4058 and depends on province and business type):

Owen's year — regular vs. Quick Method (illustrative)
Regular method: HST collected $13,500 − ITCs $400remit $13,100
Quick Method: 10% × $103,500 tax-included sales$10,350
Less 1% credit on first $30,000 of supplies(− $300)
Quick Method remittance$10,050
Roughly kept by switching≈ $3,050 / yr

Illustrative figures and rate. Owen gives up his ~$400 of operating ITCs, but the lower remittance rate more than makes up for it because his expenses are so low. A business with heavy taxable purchases could easily come out the other way.

About $3,000 a year, recurring, for filing one election — and as a bonus, far less receipt-wrangling at GST time. For a low-overhead service business, that's one of the cleanest tax wins available, and it's invisible until someone runs the comparison.

The Quick Method isn't about charging customers less. It's about remitting less of what you already collected — when your low expenses mean the credits you'd give up are worth less than the rate.

What should have happened

Should You Elect?

A quick decision guide

Deciding whether the Quick Method beats the regular method — and filing the election correctly — is exactly the kind of one-time analysis that pays for itself for years. It's part of what's included in every CDL plan, and you can estimate the cost in about a minute.

The Bottom Line

A legal way to remit less — if it fits

The Quick Method is one of the few genuinely simple tax wins in the system: less paperwork and, for the right business, less tax remitted. The catch is that "the right business" is specific — low expenses, under the limit, and not on the excluded list. For a lean service business that's never run the numbers, the comparison is worth doing once; the savings then repeat every year you stay eligible.

Wondering if the Quick Method would save you money?

It's a 20-minute comparison: your remittance the regular way versus the Quick Method rate for your business. If it wins, it wins every year.

Book a Free 20-Minute Call

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax advice. Quick Method remittance rates, eligibility, exclusions, and election timing are detailed and change over time, and the illustrative figures above are not the actual rate for any specific business. Consult a qualified professional or the Canada Revenue Agency before electing.

References

Primary sources, linked so you can read and interpret them yourself. Legislative links open on the official Justice Laws website; agency links open on the Government of Canada website.