The Government of Canada has announced a Federal Holiday Tax Exempt Program, offering GST/HST relief on select items from December 14, 2024, to February 15, 2025. "Physical books" are included in the list of tax-exempt items during this period. Eligible items will automatically have GST/HST excluded from the tax calculation at checkout, so you won’t be charged for taxes on qualifying items.
For more details on the GST/HST exemption, click here. See below for additional information on qualifying items.
These items qualify as physical books:
Most published, printed books (hardcover or softcover):
- Updates of printed books
- Guide books, and atlases that do not mostly contain street or road maps
- Magazines and periodicals (that have no more than 5% of their printed space devoted to advertising) supplied by subscription, if all the consideration is paid during the relief period and only for those magazines or periodicals that are delivered during the relief period
- Physical audio recordings of printed books, if 90% or more of the recording is a spoken reading of a printed book, including abridged versions (for example, a cassette, compact disc, or reel-to-reel tape version of a published book)
- Physical recordings of a performance of a published play
- Bound or unbound printed versions of scripture of any religion, such as the Quran, the Bible, prayer books, missals, hymn books, and Torah scrolls
- Illustrated versions of religious scriptures (for example, comic book versions)
- Printed books that are wrapped or packaged for sale as a single item with a physical read-only medium that is made up of either a reproduction of the printed book or material that makes specific reference to the printed book
These items would NOT qualify and will be taxed:
- E-books
- Books designed primarily for writing on, such as address books, diaries, journals, and notebooks
- Colouring books, scrapbooks, sticker books, sketchbooks and albums for photographs, stamps or coins
- Agendas and calendars
- Cut-out and press-out books
- CD-ROMs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs with textual or visual information
- Cost of shipping