For an employee to deduct employment expenses on their tax return—including home office expenses—they need a completed form T2200, Declaration of Conditions of Employment, from their employer.
In recent years, many employers have been preparing T2200 for more employees than ever before with the rise of remote and hybrid work arrangements, which continued in 2024. As such, employers should be aware that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) released an updated form T2200 for the 2024 taxation year.
Deducting employee home office expenses
For an employee to claim home office expenses, the eligibility requirements, use of the detailed method, types of expenses that are deductible, and method of calculation remain the same as 2023. Specifically, an employee is eligible to claim home office expenses if their employer required them to work from home by their contract of employment. The CRA modified this condition during the COVID pandemic, and since then has provided guidance on this requirement given the prevalence of employees working from home.
Per commentary on the CRA website, the requirement to work from home is considered to be met if an employee has voluntarily entered into a formal telework arrangement with their employer. While the agreement can be written or verbal, the term ‘formal telework arrangement’ is not defined. Employers will need a process for preparing and distributing form T2200 to eligible employees on an annual basis. For 2024, employers should be familiar with the updates made by the CRA to form T2200.
Changes to form T2200
The most notable change made to the 2024 version of form T2200 is that employers no longer need to indicate what percentage of an employee’s employment duties were performed at their home office. This is a welcome change as completing this information was often not a straightforward task for employers. In its place, two new questions have been added. Where the employee was required to use their home for work, the form now asks:
- Has the employee worked more than 50% of the time from the workspace in their home for a period of at least four consecutive weeks in the year?
- Has the employee used the workspace in their home regularly and continually for in-person meetings with clients or other people while doing their work?
These two new questions are in line with the employee eligibility requirements. Although the form asks employers to answer both questions, employees only need to satisfy one of these two conditions to be eligible to claim home office expenses, provided the other eligibility criteria are met. In addition, some questions on form T2200 have been combined and reordered with no substantial changes.
More than one eligible period
For employees who worked more than 50% of the time from home for at least four consecutive weeks in the year, the period can be longer than one month but they can only claim expenses for the eligible period(s).
For example, assume that an employee entered into a formal telework arrangement in 2024 that allowed them to work three days from home from Jan. 1 to March 31 (period 1), then returned to the office five days a week from April 1 to Oct. 31 (period 2) and then worked three days from home from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 (period 3). This employee would have two eligible periods (i.e., periods 1 and 3), and as long as the other eligibility criteria are met, they can claim the employment portion of deductible expenses for each of these two periods.
How we can help
Employers should be aware that although there isn’t a stipulated deadline to complete the T2200, employees need to provide it to the CRA upon request.
If you have any questions, please contact one of our trusted advisors.
The information in this publication is current as of February 7, 2025.
This publication has been carefully prepared, but it has been written in general terms and should be seen as broad guidance only. The publication cannot be relied upon to cover specific situations and you should not act, or refrain from acting, upon the information contained therein without obtaining specific professional advice. Please contact BDO Canada LLP to discuss these matters in the context of your particular circumstances. BDO Canada LLP, its partners, employees and agents do not accept or assume any liability or duty of care for any loss arising from any action taken or not taken by anyone in reliance on the information in this publication or for any decision based on it.