Moving Back to Canada from the US: What Happens to Your Accounts
Moving back to Canada is the mirror image of leaving — but it isn't simply "undo the departure tax." It has its own residency rules, its own deadlines, its own tax return complications, and — depending on your immigration status — potentially its own exit tax on the US side.
Step one: establishing Canadian residency again
Canadian tax residency isn't a switch you flip on your arrival date in a legal sense so much as a set of factual ties the CRA looks at: a home available to you in Canada, a spouse or dependents living there, Canadian bank accounts and provincial health coverage, and so on. Once those ties are re-established, you're generally back to being taxed as a resident — on worldwide income, the same as any other Canadian.
Most people file a split-year return for the year they move back: a US return covering income up to your departure date from the US, and a Canadian return starting from the date Canadian residency resumes. Getting the exact date right matters, since it determines which country taxes which slice of that year's income.
The US exit tax — only relevant to some returnees
Don't confuse this with Canada's departure tax, which is a completely different regime from a different country. The US has its own expatriation tax under IRC Section 877A, but it only applies to a specific group: "Long-Term Residents" — Green Card holders who have held that status in 8 or more of the last 15 tax years — and to US citizens who formally renounce citizenship, if either group meets certain net-worth or tax-liability thresholds when they give up their status. This is also distinct from US estate tax, which can apply to a Canadian resident who never held a Green Card at all, purely from owning US-situs assets like US-listed stocks.
If you're a Canadian who was in the US on a temporary visa or held a Green Card for only a few years, this generally doesn't apply to you at all — you simply stop being a US tax resident when you leave. If you held a Green Card for close to a decade or more, it's worth confirming your Long-Term Resident status and whether the thresholds catch you before you formally give up the Green Card.
What happens to each account type
401(k) and traditional IRA
These stay as US accounts — Canada doesn't force you to collapse them. Canada taxes withdrawals as foreign pension income when you eventually take distributions, generally with a Foreign Tax Credit available for any US withholding, similar in spirit to how Canada treats a returning RRSP.
Roth IRA
The CRA generally continues to respect Roth tax-free treatment for a returning resident under specific elections, but this is an area where the paperwork (a treaty-based election on your first Canadian return after moving back) genuinely matters — miss it and you risk Canada taxing growth that was meant to stay tax-free.
TFSA
If you kept a TFSA open while a US resident and contributed to it, non-resident contributions can trigger a 1%-per-month CRA penalty tax until withdrawn or until residency resumes. Once you're a resident again, normal contribution room resumes going forward — but review what happened to the account while you were away before assuming it's clean.
OAS eligibility keeps accruing
If you hadn't started collecting OAS before you left, years of Canadian residency after you move back continue counting toward the 40-year full-pension calculation — the clock isn't reset by having lived abroad. It's worth tracking your cumulative residency years rather than assuming time away permanently capped what you're eligible for.
Walk through your specific accounts with the Moving Back to Canada tool, and check the departure tax guide if you're comparing this against staying in the US long-term instead.