Groceries and Essentials Benefit: What Replaced the GST Credit

If you were getting the GST/HST credit and something looked different this summer, nothing went wrong. The credit was renamed the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit in July 2026, and every amount went up 25%. The last payment under the old name landed on April 2, 2026. Everything since has been the CGEB.

Same rules, same quarterly schedule. More money, for five years. Here’s how much you get, at what income, and why about 500,000 more people and families now qualify than did last year.

What is the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit?

The Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit is a tax-free quarterly payment from the CRA for people with low and modest incomes. It replaced the GST/HST credit (opens in a new tab) in July 2026 and works exactly the same way, with one change: every amount is 25% higher, and stays that way through to the April 2031 payment. More than 12 million Canadians receive it.

Why the 2026 numbers you’ve seen look so big

Most of the coverage this year quoted $1,890 for a family of four and $950 for a single person. Both are real, and neither will happen again. Those totals include a one-time top-up paid on June 5, 2026, worth half a year of the old credit, which the Department of Finance put at $3.1 billion (opens in a new tab) on its own.

Strip the top-up out and you get the number that matters from here on: about $1,358 a year for a couple with two children, and $679 for a single person.

How much do you get?

For the payment period running July 2026 to June 2027, the maximums are $679 for a single person, $890 for a couple, and $234 for each child under 19. A single parent’s first child counts for $445 instead of $234. The CRA calculates your amount from your 2025 tax return and splits it across four payments.

Single people with no children are the one case with a wrinkle. The base amount is $445, and a supplement worth up to $234 more phases in at 2 cents per dollar once your income passes $11,564. You reach the full $679 at about $23,300.

Do you earn too much to qualify?

Probably not. The number to be careful with is $46,432. That is where the CRA starts reducing your payment, not where it stops. Above it, the benefit comes down by 5 cents for every dollar of adjusted family net income, so it comes down gradually over tens of thousands of dollars instead of stopping at a cut-off.

Here is what that looks like, straight from the CRA’s own payments chart (opens in a new tab):

A single person keeps getting something up to about $60,000. A couple with two children keeps getting something up to about $73,600. A couple with four children is still being paid at $80,000.

This is also why the benefit now reaches more people than the GST credit did. The maximum amounts rose 25%, but the income where reductions begin did not move, so the payment runs further up the scale before it hits zero. The Department of Finance counts about 500,000 individuals and families who are newly eligible on that arithmetic alone.

If you stopped filing a return years ago because you assumed you earned too much, that’s worth re-checking. It’s one of several ways Canadians end up leaving money unclaimed without ever knowing it.

What do you have to do to get it?

Nothing, in most cases. There is no application form. File your tax return every year by April 30, even if you had no income at all to report, and the CRA considers you automatically for the CGEB and for the provincial programs that ride along with it.

The conditions are short. You need to be a resident of Canada for tax purposes, and at least 19 years old. If you’re under 19 you still qualify if you have or had a spouse or common-law partner, or if you’re a parent living with your child.

Two situations need a bit more:

• New to Canada. You apply once, for your first year, using Form RC151 (opens in a new tab). If you have children under 19, send Form RC66 with it. After that first year, filing your return is enough.
• Shared custody. Each parent can be paid half of the child’s share.

File late and your payments can stop until the return goes in. They restart once the CRA has processed it, and the missed quarters are paid out.

When is it paid?

The CGEB is paid quarterly, in July, October, January and April. For 2026 the CRA published four dates: January 5 and April 2 under the old GST/HST credit name, then July 3 and October 5. The 2027 dates aren’t out yet, so the CRA’s payment dates page (opens in a new tab) is the one to check rather than any list published in advance.

One exception trips people up. If your quarterly amount would be under $50, you don’t get four deposits. You get the entire year in a single July payment instead.

If a payment doesn’t arrive, check your CRA account first, then give it 10 business days past the date before calling.

If some of it stays in the account

A CGEB payment is meant for groceries and the rest of the essentials, and in most households that’s exactly where it goes. Groceries are one of the biggest lines in most Canadian budgets, and four payments a year don’t come close to covering what a household actually spends on food. But when part of a payment does sit in your account for a few weeks, Lodavo pays you for leaving it there.

Lodavo is a free Canadian app. You connect the savings or chequing account you already have, and every $25 you’ve set aside earns you a ticket in a weekly cash draw. At least $100 goes to a user every week, and the top prize is $10,000. Your money never moves, so it keeps whatever interest it was already earning. Saving on a tight budget is hard enough, and when every dollar is spoken for, having a draw to check each week helps more than another rule about cutting back.

Worth doing before October

The next payment lands October 5, 2026. If you haven’t filed your 2025 return, that’s the one thing standing between you and every quarter that follows, and it’s worth doing even if you owe nothing and earned nothing. It’s also what unlocks the rest of the federal money you might be owed, not just this one payment.

Ready to make saving more interesting? Download Lodavo free on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) or Google Play Store (opens in a new tab) and start earning tickets for the weekly draw.

This article is general information, not tax advice. For your own situation, check with the CRA or a tax professional.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.