How much of my child's or spouse's unused tuition credits can be transferred to me?

by TurboTax• Updated 1 week ago

Students may transfer a maximum of $5,000 of the current year’s federal tuition amount, minus how much they need to reduce their federal tax owing to zero. Depending on the province or territory’s tuition, education and textbook credits, students may also transfer the province’s maximum amount minus the amount they need to reduce their provincial tax owing to zero.

Students must claim their tuition amounts and reduce their own tax payable to zero before they may transfer any leftover credits to an eligible recipient. Once they have claimed their tuition fees, TurboTax will let them know how much of their leftover current-year credits can be transferred to someone else.

How much should your child or spouse transfer?

It’s generally best for you take only the amount you need, leaving the rest for the student to carry forward to a future year when they can benefit from it. If you take more of the student’s transfer amount than you actually need to reduce your tax owing to zero, the excess amount will go to waste.

Once your child or spouse transfers their leftover tuition credits and you know how much they transferred, you can go to your tax return and claim the tuition credits they transferred to you.

Who can the leftover credits be transferred to?

If you are the student’s spouse or partner, or the student or spouse/partner’s parent or grandparent, you may be eligible to use their leftover credits to help reduce how much tax you owe.

Your child or spouse can only transfer any tuition credits leftover from the current year, and they can only transfer these credits to one person (even if they’re transferring federal and provincial/territorial amounts). They don’t have to transfer unused credits to the same person every year.

For more information, visit the Provincial and territorial tax and credits for individuals page.