Etsy and Amazon both show tax at checkout, which is why so many Canadian sellers treat the registration question as settled. For a seller who lives in Canada it is not settled. The rules that let a marketplace account for the tax are written for non-residents, and once your sales pass $30,000 the obligation is yours.
The short answer
- The small supplier threshold is $30,000, measured over four consecutive calendar quarters.
- It is measured on your taxable sales, not on what lands in your bank account.
- Tax collected at checkout is not the same thing as your own registration.
- Cross $30,000 inside one quarter and you stop being a small supplier on that sale.
- Cross it across four quarters instead and you stop at the end of the month following that quarter.
- Those two routes produce dates that can sit weeks apart.
Why the marketplace collecting tax does not answer your question
This is the part that catches people, and it is worth being precise about. The CRA has a set of digital-economy measures that make somebody other than the seller responsible for GST/HST on a sale. They are real, and they do apply to goods sold through platforms.
They are also written for a particular audience. The CRA’s registration questionnaire sorts businesses into categories, and the qualifying-goods categories read as a non-resident vendor, a non-resident distribution platform operator vendor, or a distribution platform operator facilitating those supplies. They exist so that tax gets collected on goods sold into Canada by sellers the CRA cannot easily reach.
They were not written to relieve a seller who lives here. Whatever a platform does at checkout on a given order, the registration test for a person making taxable sales in Canada is unchanged: once you stop being a small supplier, you have to register. That test is about your sales, not about whose name is on the tax line of the buyer’s receipt.
The practical version: a platform showing tax at checkout tells you which party remitted on that order. It does not tell you whether you should be holding a GST/HST number, and the two questions get run together constantly.
If you are already registered, the position is clearer still: you keep charging and remitting on your own sales, and the platform’s role does not displace that.
The $30,000 line, and the two different ways you cross it
Almost every summary of this rule stops at the number. The number is the easy part. What decides when you owe tax, and from which date, is how you got past it.
| What happened | Where you stand | Effective date of registration |
|---|---|---|
| You stay under $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters | Small supplier. Registration not required. | If you register voluntarily, usually the day you ask for the account, or up to 30 days before. |
| You pass $30,000 within a single calendar quarter | You stop being a small supplier straight away, and charge GST/HST on the sale that took you over. | No later than the day of that sale. |
| You pass $30,000 over the previous four or fewer quarters, but not inside any one of them | You stop being a small supplier at the end of the month following that quarter. | No later than the day of your first sale after that. |
The middle row is the one that surprises sellers. A strong quarter, a viral product, one wholesale order: pass $30,000 inside a single quarter and there is no grace period at all. The tax is due on the sale that crossed the line, whether or not you had an account that day.
The third row is gentler and easier to miss. Growing steadily past $30,000 across a year gives you until the end of the month after the quarter you crossed in. Sellers who know the $30,000 number but not this distinction tend to assume they have that breathing room in both cases, and one of the two times they do not.
What counts toward the $30,000
The threshold looks at your taxable sales, not your profit and not your payouts. For a marketplace seller that distinction matters, because the figure that lands in your bank account has already had platform fees, advertising and refunds taken out of it.
Working from payouts is the most common way a seller finds out late. The gap between gross sales and net payout on a busy store is easily thousands of dollars a quarter, and it runs in the direction that hides the problem: your bank shows less than you sold. Reconciling gross sales rather than deposits is the habit that prevents it, and it is the same habit that makes e-commerce bookkeeping across Shopify, Etsy and Amazon tractable at year end.
Registering before you have to
A small supplier is allowed to register voluntarily, and there is a reason to consider it. A registrant can claim input tax credits for the GST/HST paid on business purchases: inventory, packaging, software, professional fees. A seller who is buying a lot of taxable inputs and has not yet crossed $30,000 may be paying tax they could be recovering.
The trade is real though. Registration brings filing obligations and the discipline that goes with them, and if you sell mostly to consumers it also means adding tax to your prices. It is a calculation rather than an obvious yes, and it sits alongside the other structural question most growing sellers reach at a similar point, which is whether to incorporate or stay a sole proprietor.
GST/HST is not the only tax on the sale
Registration answers the federal question. It does not answer the provincial one, and the provincial rules for marketplaces work differently: they can put the obligation on the marketplace in situations where the federal rules leave it with you. If you sell into British Columbia, BC PST for online marketplaces covers who registers and who collects there.
Selling into the United States is a third question again, with its own state-by-state thresholds, and it is not answered by anything on this page.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a GST number to sell on Etsy or Amazon in Canada?
Not while you are a small supplier. A seller resident in Canada has to register once they stop being a small supplier, which happens when taxable sales pass $30,000 measured over four consecutive calendar quarters. Tax appearing at checkout does not settle that question on its own, so it is worth checking your own figures rather than assuming the platform has dealt with it.
Can I sell on Etsy without a GST number?
Yes, while your taxable sales stay under the $30,000 small supplier threshold measured over four consecutive calendar quarters. You may also register voluntarily before you reach it.
Does the marketplace collecting tax mean I do not have to register?
No. Tax shown at checkout tells you which party remitted on that order. Whether you are required to hold your own GST/HST account is a separate test, and it turns on whether you are still a small supplier. The digital-economy measures that put the tax on a distribution platform operator were written for non-resident vendors and for platform operators, not as relief for sellers who live in Canada.
What happens if I pass $30,000 in one quarter?
You stop being a small supplier immediately. You have to charge GST/HST on the sale that took you past $30,000, and your effective date of registration is no later than the day of that sale.
What if I pass $30,000 gradually instead?
If you exceed $30,000 over the previous four or fewer consecutive calendar quarters, but not within any single quarter, you stop being a small supplier at the end of the month following that quarter. Your effective date of registration is no later than the day of the first sale you make after that.
Should I register before I have to?
It is allowed, and a registrant can claim input tax credits on the GST/HST paid on business purchases. Whether that is worth the filing obligation depends on how much tax you are paying on inputs and who your customers are.
Not sure which side of the line you are on
If your sales are near $30,000, the useful exercise is working out which quarter you crossed in and what that makes your effective date. It is a short piece of work and it is much cheaper before the CRA asks than after. Offices in Abbotsford, Langley and Brampton, and we work with sellers across Canada.
Sources: Canada Revenue Agency, When to register for and start charging the GST/HST (small supplier limit calculation for most businesses), GST/HST for digital-economy businesses: Overview and its registration questionnaire, and GST/HST memorandum 2-2, Small suppliers. Checked 17 August 2026. General information only, not advice for your situation. Thresholds are federal; provincial sales tax registration is a separate test.