Built for Canadians who own US rental property.
If you live in Canada and rent out a property in Florida, Arizona, Texas, California, or anywhere else in the US, you file with both CRA and the IRS every year. BorderBird is the ledger that satisfies both — set up in 5 minutes, AI does the rest.
Create account, connect Gmail, add a property, add a tenant, run the first scan. Five steps, about a minute each.
Rent payments, utility bills, and receipts detected automatically — matched to the right property, dated, and queued for one-click import.
Years of payments in Yahoo, Outlook, or Apple Mail? Forward them to Gmail and BorderBird imports them with their original dates.
Upload a signed lease PDF — AI pulls dates, rent, and tenant names. Renewals, vacates, and full tenancy history stay organized.
Your tax situation, by the numbers
You report your worldwide rental income to CRA on your T1, with T776 detailing gross rent, expenses, and net rental income for each property. US rental income converted to CAD using the Bank of Canada annual average for the tax year.
If your specified foreign property — including the cost base of US rental real estate — exceeds CAD $100,000 at any point in the year, you must file T1135. The reporting threshold is on cost, not market value.
As a non-resident alien receiving US-source rental income, you file 1040-NR with Schedule E attached. You'll typically make a Section 871(d) election to treat the rental income as effectively connected so you can deduct expenses.
Attached to your 1040-NR, Schedule E reports gross rents and itemizes deductible expenses (mortgage interest, property taxes, repairs, insurance, depreciation, utilities, management fees) per property.
You need an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number to file 1040-NR. If you don't have an ITIN, file W-7 with your first 1040-NR. Many cross-border CPAs handle this for you.
When you eventually sell the US property, the buyer must withhold 15% of the gross sale price under the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act. You can apply for a withholding certificate (Form 8288-B) to reduce this if your actual tax liability is lower.
The Canada-US Tax Treaty prevents double taxation. After paying US tax via 1040-NR, you claim a foreign tax credit on your Canadian return to offset CRA's claim on the same income. The credit cannot exceed the Canadian tax payable on that income.
How BorderBird helps
- One ledger, two views. Every payment and expense renders in both Schedule E (USD) and T776 (CAD) without you re-keying anything.
- Bank of Canada rates baked in. Conversion uses the official annual average per tax year — the rate CRA accepts.
- T1135 threshold visibility. The cost base of your US property shows in CAD so you can see whether you crossed the $100,000 reporting threshold this year.
- Schedule E line mapping.Every expense entry pre-mapped to its Schedule E line position; the year-end CSV drops into your accountant's 1040-NR prep.
- State-specific guides. We publish a guide for every Canadian province × US state combination so you can read ahead of your specific situation — Ontario→Florida, BC→Arizona, and so on.