A home-based or online business in Coquitlam or anywhere else in BC must register for GST once its taxable sales top $30,000, whether that happens inside a single calendar quarter or over the last four quarters combined. Below that line it is a small supplier, and registering is a choice. PST is a separate provincial test with a $10,000 line for small sellers, and sales made through an online marketplace follow rules of their own.
None of this depends on where you work from. A spare room in Port Moody, a garage on Burke Mountain or a kitchen table in Maillardville faces the same tests as a storefront. What changes is how fast you can cross them without noticing.
What counts toward the $30,000 GST small-supplier threshold?
Taxable revenue counts, from anywhere in the world, before expenses. The CRA tallies it like this:
- Worldwide taxable sales, including zero-rated ones (taxable at 0%)
- All of your businesses, if you are a sole proprietor: the Etsy shop and the weekend photography both go in
- Associated businesses, if you operate as a corporation or partnership, where they were associated at the start of the quarter
- Not counted: financial services, sales of capital property, and goodwill on selling a business
The test works on calendar quarters: January to March, April to June, July to September, October to December. It is not your fiscal year and not a rolling twelve months.
Because the count is gross, a reseller with slim margins hits it early. An online store that turns $30,000 of sales into a few thousand dollars of profit has still crossed the line.
When do you have to start charging GST?
That depends on which test you fail. One big quarter makes GST start immediately. A slow climb over four quarters gives you a short grace period. Either way, you have 29 days from your effective date of registration to register.
A big quarter (hypothetical). Say a Burke Mountain skincare brand sells through its own Shopify site. October and November bring in $28,000. On December 3, an order for $2,500 takes the quarter to $30,500. That December 3 sale is the first one that carries GST, and every sale after it does too.
A slow climb (hypothetical). Say a Port Moody jeweller sells about $8,000 a quarter on Etsy and at craft fairs, so no single quarter comes close. After the October to December 2026 quarter, the last four quarters total $32,000. Her small-supplier status ends one month after that quarter closes, on January 31, 2027. Her first sale after that carries GST.
The difference matters for cash. In the first case, GST applies to an order already priced and paid at the old rate, unless the price list was adjusted ahead of time. In the second, there is a month of warning, but only if someone was counting.
Should you register for GST voluntarily before you reach $30,000?
Register early if most of your customers are businesses or your start-up costs are heavy. Wait if you sell to consumers on tight prices. A voluntary registrant charges GST, files returns and claims input tax credits like any other registrant.
Reasons to register early:
- You buy a lot up front. Inventory, a laser cutter, packaging, photography gear and ad spend all carry GST you can claim back as input tax credits.
- Your buyers are registered businesses. A bookkeeper, designer or consultant selling to companies adds GST that those clients usually recover, so the price effectively doesn't rise for them.
- You will cross soon anyway. Registering on your own timetable beats registering on the CRA's.
Reasons to wait:
- Your buyers are consumers. A $40 candle becomes $42 with GST. On Etsy, where shoppers compare prices quickly, that 5% comes out of your margin or your sales.
- Filing is a real cost. Every period needs a return, even a nil one, filed electronically in most cases.
- It's not easy to undo. CRA's voluntary-registration guidance says a small supplier who wants to cancel must have stayed registered for at least a year.
Small registrants are usually assigned an annual reporting period. For a sole proprietor whose year ends December 31, the GST owing is due April 30 and the return itself June 15. A corporation filing annually gets three months after its fiscal year-end for both.
Do Amazon, Etsy or other platforms collect GST for you?
Sometimes, while you're unregistered. CRA's e-commerce guidance makes a distribution platform operator the deemed supplier when it facilitates sales of goods by sellers who are not registered, where the goods sit in a Canadian fulfilment warehouse or ship from a place in Canada to a buyer in Canada.
Once you register, those sales become yours to report. Two points for the books:
- Keep the platform's tax reports with your monthly records, so it is clear which sales the platform handled and which you did.
- How platform-handled sales count toward your own $30,000 total is not something the CRA's FAQ spells out. Ask your CPA before relying on either answer.
A store on your own domain is generally a different matter. Whatever software runs it, you set the terms and take the order, so the sale is normally yours, and so is the GST once you are registered.
Does an online seller in BC need to register for PST?
Generally yes, if you sell taxable goods, software or taxable services in BC in the ordinary course of business, unless you qualify as a small seller. Bulletin PST 003 sets the small-seller conditions. You must meet all of them:
- Your business is in BC, with no established business premises, and you don't regularly sell from established commercial premises
- Gross retail sales of the goods, software and services the bulletin covers came to $10,000 or less in the past 12 months, and you expect the next 12 to stay at or under $10,000
- You haven't sold goods wholesale in the previous 12 months
- You aren't a lessor, an independent sales contractor, a contractor installing goods into real property, or a marketplace facilitator
- You don't sell the items the bulletin rules out, such as accommodation, cannabis, vehicles and most liquor
The home-based detail helps most online sellers. A basement workshop or home office used to make or sell goods online is not established business premises, as long as you don't run a storefront there or meet customers in it.
The $10,000 count is strict in two ways. It covers the immediately preceding 12 months, re-checked every month, not a calendar year. And it includes exempt sales and sales outside BC. Cross it, and you must register.
Small-seller status has a cost too. You can't charge PST, but you also can't buy stock exempt from PST as goods for resale. Registering voluntarily lets you buy inventory for resale without PST, and you then charge PST on your sales. Closing the account later requires at least a year of registration.
How does PST work when you sell through an online marketplace?
On sales the marketplace facilitates, the online marketplace facilitator collects and remits the PST, so you don't. Bulletin PST 142 defines a facilitator as a business that contracts with sellers, runs the platform and collects the buyer's payment. A listing site where buyers and sellers arrange payment between themselves doesn't qualify.
Three details matter for a Tri-Cities seller:
- You stay on the hook. The seller remains jointly and severally liable for PST the facilitator should have collected on your sales and didn't.
- Off-platform sales are separate. Sales through your own website, at a market or from a pop-up may require you to register and collect PST yourself.
- Your seller fees carry PST. Listing, advertising, fulfilment, customer service and payment collection supplied by the marketplace are online marketplace services, generally taxed at 7% when your business counts as being in BC (a physical presence, staff or management here). If the facilitator doesn't charge it, you self-assess: on your next PST return if you are registered, or, if you have no PST number, on form FIN 405, a Casual Remittance Return, due by the end of the month after you bought the service.
Say a Maillardville reseller lists vintage gear on a marketplace and also sells through a Shopify site. The marketplace handles PST on its own sales. The website sales are tracked on their own line so the small-seller test can be applied to them, and the marketplace's fee invoices are checked each month for PST.
What records should a home-based seller keep from the first sale?
Records that answer the threshold questions before the CRA or the province asks. At minimum:
- Sales by calendar quarter, for the GST test, with a running four-quarter total
- Sales over a rolling 12 months, for the PST small-seller test
- Each platform's payout report split into gross sales, fees, refunds and any tax the platform collected
- Fee invoices from each marketplace, showing whether PST was charged
- Receipts for stock, equipment and ad spend, with GST shown, in case you register and claim input tax credits
- Sales through your own site kept separate from marketplace sales
Monthly bookkeeping keeps those totals current. If a threshold has already been crossed and sales went out without tax, catch-up bookkeeping rebuilds the record, and your CPA advises on correcting the returns.
For the cost of keeping this up, see how much bookkeeping costs in Coquitlam in 2026. For how sales tax fits with payroll and year-end, read the Coquitlam owner-operator's guide to bookkeeping.
Questions owners ask
Is the $30,000 GST threshold based on profit or on sales?
On sales. The test counts taxable revenue before any expenses, so a shop with thin margins can cross it long before it earns $30,000 of profit.
Do my other businesses count toward the $30,000?
A sole proprietor adds up the revenue of all their own businesses. A corporation or partnership adds the revenue of associated businesses that were associated at the start of the quarter. Whether two businesses are associated is a question for your CPA.
If I register voluntarily, can I cancel when sales stay low?
Not straight away. CRA's guidance says a small supplier asking to cancel must have stayed registered for at least a year, and every return up to that point still has to be filed, including nil returns.
Does Etsy or Amazon collect BC PST on my sales?
On sales the marketplace facilitates, the online marketplace facilitator generally collects and remits the PST, so you do not. You can still be liable if the facilitator fails to collect, and sales through your own website may need your own PST registration.
Do I pay PST on my marketplace seller fees?
Generally yes, if your business is in BC for PST purposes. Listing, advertising, fulfilment and payment services from the marketplace are online marketplace services taxed at 7% PST; if the facilitator does not charge it, you self-assess.
I sell from my basement in Port Coquitlam. Is that an established business premises for PST?
Not by itself. Bulletin PST 003 says a home workshop or office used to make goods you sell online is not established business premises, as long as you do not run a storefront or meet customers there.