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Running the property

How do you actually manage a rental property from another country?

Three things break at distance: reconciling rent that arrives without references and in the wrong currency, evaluating trades you cannot visit, and keeping a paper trail you will have to reconstruct at tax time from another country. Remote landlording is mostly uneventful — until one thing goes wrong, at which point the distance multiplies every step of resolving it.

Who this applies to: Landlords whose rental property is in a different country from where they live.

Key facts
Lump-sum rule
Apply oldest month first
Reporting FX
Bank of Canada rates, not your bank's
Trades
Find them before you need them

How it works

Money in is the expensive one. When a tenant pays three months in a single transfer and it is credited to the current month, two months of arrears disappear from view and nobody notices until reconciliation months later. Apply lump sums oldest month first so a large payment can never mask an older debt.

Currency compounds it. Rent arrives in one currency and expenses land in another, and the reporting rate is not the rate you actually received — Canadian reporting uses Bank of Canada rates rather than your bank's.

Find one reliable trades person before you need them and pay slightly over the odds to keep them. The cost of the wrong contractor found in a panic on a Sunday is not the invoice, it is the second visit.

Where people get caught

Decide where receipts, photos and messages live before you need the system, not after. At tax time you will be assembling a full year of evidence from another country, often for two tax authorities with different requirements, and reconstructing it from a phone gallery and an email search is where most of the pain actually lands.

Source: Operational guidance, not tax advice.

Related questions

My tenant pays me rent directly. Do I still owe non-resident withholding tax?
Yes — and the legal obligation to withhold and remit sits with whoever pays you, which usually means your tenant.
How do I get the 25% non-resident withholding tax back?
File a Section 216 return. It taxes you on net rental income at graduated rates and the CRA refunds the difference.
I'm Canadian and buying a US rental. What am I missing on tax?
By default the IRS takes 30% of gross rents with no deductions. The §871(d) election moves you to a net basis.

Frequently asked questions

What exchange rate do I use for reporting?
For Canadian reporting, Bank of Canada rates are used rather than the rate your bank happened to give you on the day. Using actual received rates is a common first-year error that makes the books disagree with the return.
Should I use a property manager if I live abroad?
It depends on distance, unit count and your tolerance for 2am phone calls. For a non-resident of Canada there is a second argument for it: a professional manager can act as your withholding agent and carries that liability knowingly, which a family member generally does not.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice. Rules change and your situation is specific — verify with the CRA or IRS, or with a cross-border advisor, before acting. ← All answers

BorderBird helps cross-border landlords track rent and prepare CRA NR4 and IRS Schedule E filings — see how it works.