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Taxpayers claimed $2.08 billion in total home-office expenses in 2023 — a significant year-over-year increase, according to data from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The increase came after the flat-rate method for claiming home-office expenses, used during the pandemic, was discontinued.

The 2023 claims of home-office expenses represent a 41.4% increase over the 2022 tax year, when $1.47 billion was claimed. The 2022 amount includes more than $863 million (59%) claimed using the temporary flat-rate method, which was available from 2020 to 2022.

The year-over-year increase suggests that the working-from-home trend persisted, with taxpayers taking time to itemize the associated expenses.

To be able to deduct home-office expenses from income, a taxpayer requires a form T2200 Declaration of Conditions of Employment from their employer. On a T2200, an employer confirms that an employee had a teleworking arrangement and that the employee worked from home more than 50% of the time for at least four consecutive weeks in the year.

Taxpayers calculate their home-office expenses on form T777 Statement of Employment Expenses, which comprises the following amounts:

  • office supplies, such as postage and stationery (line 8810);
  • other expenses, such as use of a cell phone (line 9270); and
  • work-space-in-the-home expenses, such as electricity (line 9945).

Commission employees can claim additional work-space-in-the-home expenses, such as home insurance and property taxes.

In 2020–22, taxpayers could alternatively use the shorter T777S: Statement of Employment Expenses for Working at Home Due to Covid-19, which included a flat-rate method to claim a deduction of $2 per day worked from home (to a maximum of $400 in 2020, and $500 in 2021 and 2022). With this method, employees didn’t need to obtain a T2200 (which also had a simplified version during the pandemic).

The table below shows the year-over-year increases in claim amounts for office supplies, other expenses and work-space-in-the-home expenses.

Claims of home-office expenses, tax years 2022 and 2023

2022 2023
Office supplies
T777 $23.01 million $135.43 million
T777S $16.66 million n/a
Other expenses
T777 $117.94 million $648.71 million
T777S $55.47 million  n/a
Work-space-in-the-home expenses
T777 $103.97 million $1.30 billion
T777S $290.53 million  n/a
Temporary flat-rate method
T777S $863.32 million  n/a
Total home-office expenses $1.47 billion $2.08 billion

Source: CRA. Figures are as of Jan. 10, 2025, and are subject to change as more returns are assessed and reassessed. Figures don’t include paper-filed forms.

For the 2023 tax year, “it appears that a large number of employees determined that the effort involved in deducting employment expenses using the detailed method was warranted,” said Lawrence Levin, a tax partner with EY Canada in Toronto.

Before 2020, two main types of employees claimed employment expenses: those in a commissioned sales role and those who had a permanent arrangement with their employer to work from a home office.

“While relatively few employees claimed home-office expenses before the pandemic, Covid ushered in new attitudes towards work from home,” Levin said. “Employees also became accustomed to claiming home-office expenses during the Covid years, perhaps using the flat-rate method.”

When they continued to work from home in 2023 and calculated home-office expenses using the detailed method, some of them, such as renters, may have determined they could claim a larger deduction than under the flat-rate method.

“Given the high cost of living, where the conditions for the deduction were met, employees were unwilling to forgo claiming this deduction,” Levin suggested. Further, most employees have come to expect that, when the requirements are satisfied, “their employer would help facilitate claiming the deduction by providing the form T2200.”

While employers aren’t required to provide T2200s, Levin previously suggested they prepare the forms in bulk for all employees who qualify instead of preparing them piecemeal when employees ask — which would likely be close to the tax-filing deadline.

Editorial note: Last year, the CRA provided data indicating $5.2 billion was claimed in home-office expenses in 2022, but that figure was an overestimation, the agency said. It incorrectly included data from sources such as T2125 Statement of Business or Professional Activities.