in this video I'll break down the exact process of exit in Canada so that you can start paying 0% tax these steps will differ for everyone but generally speaking this is the order in which you should do them and even if you're not considering leaving Canada today this can be a lengthy process and something you definitely want to prepare for maybe even years in advance because if you do the wrong thing at the wrong time this could actually cost you hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars I'm someone who just went through these steps I ended up paying nearly half a million dollars in tax when I left the country and this video should hopefully help you avoid doing that or at least give you the step-by-step procedure so you know exactly what you need to do with that said let's get into step one so step one is to really understand the important terms here and what you're effectively doing by leaving Canada when we say leave Canada this doesn't just mean physically leaving what it's really referring to is becoming a non-canadian tax resident that's the important step here because even if you physically leave Canada if you don't follow the rest of the steps properly you could still be subject to Canadian taxes or taxes in multiple countries depending on the places that you live so you want to make sure that you do this properly and you understand that the key thing you're trying to solve for is to become a non-canadian tax resident that involves not living in the country for a certain amount of time and cutting substantial ties which we're going to get into in the next step now the next step once we understand that is to pick where it is that we want to live now for this video I'll assume that you're going to live in one other country but you could live in multiple countries or maybe even be a digital Nomad really what we're trying to figure out at least first is where we're going to become a tax resident because we're leaving Canada and becoming non- tax resident we very likely need to establish tax residency in another country in order for Canada to not declare us an automatic tax resident so whether you want to live in multiple places you're only living in a place for a few months of the year you need to establish tax residency somewhere else so that's the first country that you need to decide on now if we're talking about 0% tax that's really going to limit your options obviously we have a lot of places in the Middle East for example UAE and Dubai in particular is where I moved that is currently a 0% tax on everything at least in my current situation there will be a small tax levied in 2026 but at least for now 0% personal 0% corporate uh 0% dividend 0% capital gain you need to look at the tax structure in the places that you're trying to move to if you're retiring for example you want to look at how different places are taxing say a pension or over sees income there's a lot of complexities and I'm not going to go into all the countries here but you need to pick where it is that you want to go and ensure that you can establish tax residency there certain things you may want to look at as well is things like tax treaties with Canada and with countries like the United States depending on how you make your money taxes are going to be different overseas and having a tax treaty can save you a significant amount of money but again it depends on the situation so regardless pick where it is that you want to live with the important caveat of ensuring that you're going to become a tax resident of at least one other country and ideally not of other countries that you don't want to be a tax resident of now after that you'll want to get set up in your new country what I mean in particular here is getting your Visa in order your residencies maybe setting up any different entities or companies that you need for that process and then very important to have your bank account set up and get things like local IDs Biometrics whatever you might need done all these countries will vary differently but in my case I had to physically go to the UAE for about 2 weeks set everything up there and then come back to Canada so I had everything set up in Canada and the UAE and then I could start going with the rest of my plan and decide the official day that I would depart Canada this doesn't just mean physically leaving it's also important for a tax situation so we'll talk about that later on regardless get set up in your new country and if you are going to be doing this in the UAE I actually have some business partners that can help you you can book a free consultation with them from the link below they can help you set up your UAE free zone company Mainland company whatever you want it to be they can walk you through the Visa process how to do that for yourself maybe your wife your kids they know pretty much everything there is to know about UAE and the law there and again there's a free consultation down below uh if you're interested in potentially moving to the UAE regardless once you've got set up in your new country it's time to start selling some Assets Now the next step is going to make this more clear for you but you will pay different taxes when you're a Canadian tax resident versus when you are a non-resident now generally speaking the tax is going to be higher on you when you are a non-canadian tax resident than when you are a Canadian tax resident but that is specific for Canadian assets or things that are held in Canada so if you were to say sell a small business and you're no longer living in Canada but it's a Canadian Corporation you're going to have a higher tax levied on you than if you were currently a Canadian tax resident so it's very important to plan this out carefully and consult with different accountants and make sure that if you are going to be really selling a lot of things or dissolving businesses that you have a step-by-step plan in place that's designed by professionals and you sell assets at the correct time again simply selling something before you leave could save you a significant amount of money it could also cost you money depending on what the asset is now if you have limited assets I'd recommend just selling everything even if it's a small loss or a small gain because it's a lot easier to just transfer cash over to a new country than it is to do things like transfer assets or to have to pay what's going to be in the next steps the deemed disposition so it's easier if you don't have a lot of stuff to just sell everything and just be purely liquid and cash and transfer that over if you have a lot of different assets and they're worth a lot of money or with substantial gains or losses then you definitely want to consult with an accountant and have them come up with a plan for you on when to sell them don't just sell them all all right away and definitely don't just wait until you leave and then sell them because that could cost you a ton of money now this next step kind of goes to the previous one and this is to start cutting your ties with Canada now you're going to be doing this while you're in the process of leaving as well as after you leave just because some of these things take some time to come cut but the idea is that you want to remove as many residential ties as possible with Canada the way the tax residency is determined is not as objective in Canada as it is in many other countries there is a list of primary and secondary residential ties that many of us hold with Canada the way that your tax residency is determined is the CRA will look at those various Ties on based on what you have subjectively they'll decide whether you're a tax resident or not so the idea here is to remove as many ties as you possibly can to lower your risk of being determined a Canadian tax resident let's go through some of the ties here and again keep in mind that you're going to cut a lot of them before you leave and then some of them after you leave now some of the ties that you want to be aware of are things like real estate so if you own a home in Canada and that is not rented out that's automatically going to deem you a tax resident so either you need to sell your house or your houses or you need to rent them out when you leave now beyond that things like a spouse or children if you have that in Canada that is a significant tie I don't know if that automatically ties you back to the country but it's very likely that you need to take them with you if you do go to another place you can't just go live there by yourself and maybe come back and forth uh that's very likely going to make you a tax resident things like being a part of a religious organization that can tie you back to Canada maintaining Furniture in Canada even in something like a storage unit uh having things like a driver's license health card health insurance having your passport that can tie you back to Canada obviously all of us are going to keep our passport that's probably the only tie that you want and then things like bank accounts credit cards having a pet like a dog or a cat those are all ties that could potentially make you a Canadian tax ared so although you can't get rid of all of them you definitely want to get rid of as many as possible and even owning different Canadian corporations or having huge investments in Canada can be a reason that you get back in the tax net so the idea is look at these ties and make a plan for how you can get rid of as many as possible again you don't want to take a risk here you want to move as much as you possibly can to other countries and cut these ties so you are not deemed the Canadian tax resident so once you cut significant ties with Canada it's time to physically leave the country now this involves actually getting up and going so flying ideally one way to wherever your new country is and then just marking down that this is the day that you became an official nonresident of Canada now pretty much immediately after you leave what you're going to want to do is start updating all of your addresses and contact information within Canada so if you are maintaining a Canadian bank account ideally it has a low balance in it and you don't have things like credit cards but if you do have the account and for some reasons you might need it you want to update the address and the status of that to be nonresident so change the address on that account to wherever you actually live uh any other services or things that you have in Canada where there is an address you want to update those again to indicate that you are not actually physically in the country and I just want to let you know that you don't need to do anything special like call up CRA or send them an email or something and tell them that you left you just are self-determining that on this day when you left you became a Canadian uh non- tax resident and this is what you'll put in when you file your different returns later on if Canada determines that they want to audit you or they want to challenge your tax residency status they can do that and they can go back and look at all the information but there's nothing special that you need to do now there is a form that you can actually submit to the Canadian government and get a determination of your tax residency status everyone highly recommends that you do not submit this form because when you do that you are giving the Canadian government extra information and extra reason to look into you which is just not necessary you don't need to fill that out you don't need to ask them anything you don't need to do any anything special later on if they disagree with you they'll challenge you and then you deal with it then so now that you physically left it's time to pay your deemed disposition or your departure tax now this can be thought of like an unrealized capital gain on any net increase of the assets that you've obtained in Canada now this is only applicable if you have assets over $25,000 if you're less than that you don't have to file this but the deemed disposition kind of works like the following pretty much you are deemed to have disposed of any asset that you have in Canada at fair market value on the day in which you leave so that means let's say I have some jewelry that's worth $25,000 I bought it uh 10 years ago so it was $25,000 10 years ago now on the day that I left this jewelry is valued at $50,000 well that's a $25,000 change in value or increase in value so I'm going to have a capital gains tax that I need to pay on that even though I haven't sold the jewelry I still have to pay the Canadian government that tax because now I'm taking those assets with me to another country where I could then dispose of them there so the idea is can is trying to tax any increase in value that you've obtained since you've been in the country and this can be very bad for you if you own for example shares of a small business that's why it's important that you do your tax planning in advance you potentially sell some of this and realize say a lifetime capital gains tax exemption uh you just make sure you're very careful with what you're deeming uh at Exit because the tax can be higher it can be worse than if you were to do this when you are a Canadian tax resident I'm not going to get into this too much because I have an entire video that breaks down all of the information one thing to keep in mind is that real estate is exempt from this it's just things like stock bonds shares of a company that's going to be the big one for most of you jewelry paintings uh other antique items for example are going to fall under this and you definitely want to look at that with an accountant or a lawyer and again you can check out the video I have here now after you do that we are getting close to the end the next step is to establish significant ties and tax residency with another country so in the case of a place like UAE you need to stay there a minimum of 3 months of the year to establish that tax residency and ideally you want to have a year-long lease and just show that you have significant ties to that country and you're not going to return now after you do that or potentially at the same time you'll also want to be looking at doing things like dissolving different companies in Canada for example maybe you're like me and you had a holding company operational company trust you're going to want to try to get rid of those entities in the most tax efficient way possible you're going to want to transfer assets from Canada over to your new country now that depends on what type of assets you have things like a tfsa or an RSP are actually fine to keep in Canada that's not going to tie you back as a tax resident but it could be advantageous for you to move them over and for example take advantage of tax-free growth in something that would normally be an RSP you could actually pay the penalty and probably do better off in the long run anyways there's all kinds of different tax implications here and these steps will vary person by person but I think that's a pretty good over review of the different things that you want to do now if you do want help with this or referrals to accountants lawyers and the people that help me go through this process then feel free to send me an email from my Channel's about page definitely leave a like comment down below what you thought and I will see you in the next video