You cannot EFILE a return until the client has signed the authorisation. Which means that in a busy March, the signature — not the return — is often the thing standing between you and a filed file.
The good news is that this stopped being a paper problem years ago, and a fair number of practices have not caught up.
This began as a temporary pandemic measure on 18 March 2020. As of 2024 it is no longer temporary.
The CRA accepts an electronic signature on:
It remains the taxpayer's choice. Anyone who would rather sign on paper can, and that option has to stay open.
Record the date and time. For the T183CORP and T183TRUST, the form must report when it was electronically signed, and that information is transmitted to the CRA. If you collect signatures by having someone type into a PDF and email it back, nothing captures that automatically — you have to enter it manually before transmitting, and it has to be right.
Retain the signed form. The CRA regularly checks with preparers and requests signed copies. Guidance points to retaining these for at least seven years where a preparer has filed on the taxpayer's behalf. A signature you collected but cannot produce two years later is the same as no signature.
Verify identity yourself. The CRA was explicit during consultation that electronic signatures do not replace a preparer's know-your-client obligations. Confirming who signed remains yours to do, however the signature arrived.
The common workarounds all work, and all leave something out.
Print, sign, scan, email. Fine, and it puts a printer and a scanner between you and a filed return. It also means the signed copy arrives as an email attachment, which is where documents go to get lost.
A typed name in a PDF. Legally an electronic signature, but nothing records the time, nothing verifies the signer, and there is no audit trail if the signature is ever questioned.
A photo of a signed page. Works. Illegible at scale, impossible to search, and you are relying on the client's camera and your filing discipline.
None of these is wrong. They just push the work — the recording, the filing, the retrieval — onto you, at the point in the year when you have least capacity.
A purpose-built signing flow handles the parts the workarounds skip:
That last one is the daily benefit. In March, "which of my forty returns are waiting on a signature" is a question you want answered by a screen, not by memory.
The signed authorisation carries the client's name, SIN and financial details. It is one of the more sensitive documents in the whole engagement.
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security's guidance on managed services makes the point plainly: data held outside Canada is subject to different privacy, security and ownership laws, which may take precedence over Canadian ones. For a practitioner holding client SINs, that is worth weighing when choosing a signing provider.
It is not a reason for alarm. It is a reason to know the answer, because you are the one who would have to explain it.
A small thing that saves a lot of time: send the return and the authorisation together, with a one-line explanation of what they are signing. Clients who understand what the T183 is sign it the same day. Clients who receive an unexplained form to sign put it aside and ask you about it later, which is two more emails than necessary.
Electronic signatures on the T183 family are accepted, permanent, and the CRA's own position is that this reduces administrative burden. The requirements are modest: capture the date and time, keep the signed form, and verify identity yourself.
If you are still printing authorisation forms in March, that is the easiest hour you will ever get back.
Read next: How to Collect Documents from Clients at Tax Season
Verified against CRA guidance, August 2026. Check the CRA's list of accepted forms before each season — it has expanded over time. General information, not tax advice.