RC269: Employee Contributions to a Foreign Pension Plan or Social Security Arrangement for 2023 – Non-United States Plans or Arrangements

If you contributed to a foreign social security arrangement or employer-sponsored pension plan this year in a country other than the United States,  you’ll need to complete the RC269: Employee Contributions to a Foreign Pension Plan or Social Security Arrangement for 2023 - Non-United States Plans or Arrangements form.

Your contributions to a foreign social security arrangement might be eligible for a 15% non-refundable tax credit. Any foreign social security contributions that are over the limit for this tax credit, can be treated as contributions to a registered pension plan (RPP) as long as they meet the deduction limit and pension adjustment requirements.

You can also claim a deduction on the RC269 form for your contributions to an employer-sponsored pension plan. The maximum amount of contributions that you can deduct for a year is the lesser of 50% of the money purchase limit for the year and 9% of your earned income for the year.

Note: If you’re completing the RC269 page of H&R Block’s tax software, and you also need to file a RC267 and/or an RC268, you can’t NETFILE your return. Instead, you’ll need to file a paper copy of your return.

Thanks to Canada’s various tax treaties, your pension plan contributions can be recognized if you moved from one country to another for a short period of time, as long as you meet certain conditions. Those conditions are:

  • The Canadian Competent Authority has to agree that the social security arrangements correspond to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and that your foreign pension plans correspond to a Canadian registered pension plan (RPP)
  • You were regularly participating in the arrangement before working in Canada
  • Your contributions are attributable to your work in Canada, and were made while you worked here
  • Your employment income is taxable in Canada
  • The period in which you made contributions while temporarily living in Canada is no more than 60 months (48 months for Finland)
  • Your contributions are deductible only in the year they were made and only to the extent that they’d qualify for tax relief in your home country if you had lived and worked there

Note: You’ll need to enter your resident compensation for the year on the RC269 page. This is the total of your salaries, wages, and other amounts from your employer, excluding any amounts that are exempt from income tax in Canada because of a tax treaty.

Follow these steps in H&R Block’s 2023 tax software:

Note: Be sure to report all amounts in Canadian dollars. You can use the average exchange rate given on the Bank of Canada website.

  1. On the left navigation menu, under the Credits & deductions tab, click Tax Topics.

  2. Select the Pension contributions & expense checkbox.

  3. At the bottom of the page, click Add selected topics to my return.

  1. Under the CONTRIBUTIONS TO A FOREIGN PENSION PLAN heading, select the checkbox labelled Employee contributions to a foreign pension plan or social security arrangement (RC269), then click Continue.

  2. When you arrive at the page for RC269, enter your information into the tax software.