Short answer: usually yes. When you let someone use your intellectual property and they pay you a royalty for it, the Canada Revenue Agency treats that royalty as payment for a taxable supply. So GST/HST can apply. Whether you actually charge it comes down to one thing: who is paying you, and where they are.
This is a different question from how royalties are taxed as income. If you are looking for the income-tax side, see how royalties are taxed in Canada. This article is only about GST/HST.
Why a royalty counts as a taxable supply
A royalty is the payment you receive for letting someone use a right that belongs to you: a copyright, a patent, a trademark, a design, or other intellectual property. For GST/HST, that right is treated as intangible personal property, and licensing it is a supply like any other.
That means the default position is simple. If you make that supply in Canada and you are registered for GST/HST, you charge tax on the royalty. The exceptions are where it gets interesting, and where most creators and sellers actually live.
The question that decides it: who pays you, and where are they?
The rate you charge depends almost entirely on the person paying the royalty.
| Who pays you the royalty | GST/HST you charge |
|---|---|
| A Canadian business or person, and you are registered | 5% to 15%, depending on the province |
| A non-resident who is not registered for GST/HST (for example a US platform or foreign licensor) | 0% (zero-rated) |
| A royalty on natural resource production | None (a separate rule applies) |
For most authors, designers, and online sellers, the second row is the one that matters. Royalties paid by a foreign company that is not registered in Canada are zero-rated. You charge nothing, but the supply is still inside the GST/HST system, and that distinction is worth real money.
Zero-rated is not the same as exempt
This is the part people miss. Both zero-rated and exempt mean you collect no tax from the customer. The difference is what happens to the GST/HST you pay on your own costs.
- Zero-rated: you charge 0%, but you can register and claim back the GST/HST you paid on business expenses (software, advertising, agent or platform fees, equipment).
- Exempt: you charge nothing and you cannot claim any of that tax back.
Royalties to a non-resident are zero-rated, not exempt. So if your income is mostly foreign royalties, registering for GST/HST often puts money back in your pocket rather than costing you anything, because you recover the tax on your Canadian expenses while charging 0% on the royalties themselves.
If you earn royalties from Amazon KDP or another foreign platform
Self-published authors, print-on-demand designers, and licensors paid by a US or other foreign platform are usually in zero-rated territory. The platform is the non-resident paying the royalty, so you charge no GST/HST on what you receive.
But you are still paying GST/HST on the tools you use to run the business. Registering lets you recover that. For anyone with steady foreign royalty income and real Canadian costs, this is the move worth checking. Our GST/HST registration service is built for exactly this, and if you also sell physical product, our Amazon seller accounting ties it all into one set of books.
Keep proof of who you are dealing with
Zero-rating is not automatic. To treat a royalty as zero-rated, you have to be able to show the CRA that the person paying you is a non-resident and was not registered for GST/HST when the supply was made. Keep the contracts, the payment records, and anything that establishes where the payer is based. If an auditor asks and you cannot show it, the zero-rating can be denied.
Where it gets situation-specific
A few cases do not fit the simple table. Royalties routed through a Canadian collective such as a copyright agency can follow their own rules. Mixed arrangements, where a royalty is bundled with services you also provide, can change the answer. And if you are not yet registered but your royalty income is growing, the timing of when you should register is its own decision.
These are the moments to talk to an accountant who works with creators and sellers rather than guess. Getting it right once is far cheaper than unwinding it after a review.
The short version
- A royalty for licensing your IP is generally a taxable supply for GST/HST.
- Paid by a Canadian and you are registered, you charge GST/HST at the provincial rate.
- Paid by a non-resident who is not registered, it is zero-rated at 0%.
- Zero-rated still lets you recover GST/HST on your expenses, which is why registering often pays for itself.
- Keep evidence of who is paying you and where they are based.