Income tax deductions and flight training

CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency) allows students to deduct some of the cost of flight training against their current and future income taxes. The following is our high level over view. For the full details go here.

The T2202 tax form are issued to students on request via email for the previous calendar tuition costs if enrolled in the Professional Pilot Course and/or Commercial Flight Training.

The following are the maximum hours the CRA will allow credit toward the income tax deduction.

Private License 45 hours, dual or solo:
Note: you are not able to claim the PPL on its own, unless it is with an accompanying CPL cost – proving that you are continuing on to the Commercial License! If you only have Private License costs for a calendar year, they may not accept your claim. If this is the case, still complete the tax form for the year and keep it somewhere safe – you can submit it along with the next form the following year, once you have some commercial training costs, essentially ‘back-dating’ your tax claim.

Commercial License 35 dual hours and 30 solo hours

Other Ratings (Multi, Instrument, Instructor):  Transport Canada minimum training requirements may be claimed

You CAN inlude cost for ground School and written exam fees.

You CANNOT include cost for owner aircraft, lodging/meals, textbooks and flying hours above the maximum allowed to be claimed.

The CRA defines a qualifying student as:  An individual must spend not less than 12 hours in the month on courses in the program. Ground school, flight training and ground briefings will all count towards the 12 hour minimum.