Running payroll and remitting payroll deductions are two separate obligations with two separate deadlines — and mixing them up is one of the most common (and expensive) small business payroll mistakes.

What a remittance actually is

Every time you run payroll, you withhold CPP contributions, EI premiums, and income tax from each employee's pay. That withheld amount isn't yours to hold onto — it has to be sent to CRA ("remitted") by a specific deadline, along with the employer's matching CPP and EI portions. Paying your employees on time does not, by itself, satisfy this obligation.

Remittance frequency isn't the same for every business

CRA assigns your remittance frequency based on your average monthly withholding amount, generally falling into one of these categories:

  • Regular remitters — remit by the 15th of the month following the month deductions were withheld. This is the default for most small businesses.
  • Quarterly remitters — smaller employers with a strong compliance history and low average withholdings may qualify to remit quarterly instead of monthly.
  • Accelerated remitters (threshold 1 and 2) — larger employers with higher average monthly withholdings remit more frequently — as often as within a few days of each pay run — because the dollar amounts involved are larger.

Your specific frequency is assigned by CRA and shown in your payroll program account information — it isn't something you choose freely, and it can change as your payroll grows.

What happens if a remittance is late

Late remittances trigger penalties calculated as a percentage of the amount that was due, with the percentage increasing for repeated late remittances within the same calendar year — plus interest on the outstanding balance. Because remittances happen every pay period (not just once a year like a tax return), a single missed deadline early in the year can compound if the same mistake happens again a few months later.

The most common cause of a missed remittance isn't forgetting — it's not knowing the deadline had moved, because remittance frequency was reassessed and nobody updated the calendar. If your payroll volume has grown recently, it's worth confirming your current remittance frequency directly in your CRA payroll program account rather than assuming last year's schedule still applies.

The simplest fix: separate "payday" from "remittance day" in your process

Treat them as two distinct calendar events, not one. A payroll service that handles both — running the pay and filing the remittance on its own schedule — removes the chance of one getting done while the other quietly slips. That's the baseline of what Intersect's payroll service covers for every client: the pay run and the remittance, tracked and filed on their actual respective deadlines, not lumped together and hoped for the best.