Match the optional form to the direction of travel
Form NR73 is titled Determination of Residency Status (leaving Canada) and is for a person who has left or plans to leave temporarily or permanently and needs help determining residence status. Form NR74 is the entering-Canada form for a person who entered or stayed briefly in Canada and needs similar help. The CRA folio says taxpayers in these situations should consider the applicable form.
NR73 and NR74 are optional routes to ask for the CRA's opinion; they are not mandatory steps for everyone who travels, enters or leaves. CRA's public residence page frames the process as something to use if a person wants the agency's opinion. A day estimator should not issue either form as a required output or imply that a person failed a rule by not submitting one.
Understand what the CRA opinion represents
The folio says the CRA can in most cases provide an opinion from the information recorded on the completed NR73 or NR74. The opinion is based entirely on the facts the taxpayer provides, so complete details about residential ties in Canada and abroad matter. Supporting documents may later be required if the circumstances receive a more detailed review.
The same official guidance is explicit that this opinion is not binding on the CRA. It is not a binding ruling and does not guarantee how every later audit, assessment or court would treat incomplete, changed or newly documented facts. A binding advance income tax ruling is discussed separately by the CRA and is not what ordinary submission of NR73 or NR74 produces.
Do not turn the forms into calculator questionnaires
The forms ask for detailed personal, family, property, travel and financial circumstances because residence is an all-facts issue. Roam Window does not collect those sensitive facts and should not reproduce an NR73 or NR74 interview inside a presence calculator. Users should obtain the current form directly from Canada.ca and follow the CRA's submission instructions if they choose that route.
A calculator can preserve dates without deciding how a dwelling place, spouse or common-law partner, dependants, secondary ties, intention or foreign residence should be weighed. It also cannot know whether a reported physical-presence day was a qualifying sojourn or whether a tax treaty changes a domestic residence basis. Those limitations remain even when a form link is provided.
Keep filing, treaty and advice questions outside the opinion shortcut
Requesting an opinion does not replace the separate analysis of a person's filing status, filing obligations, tax liability, departure or arrival consequences, or treaty position. The current law and facts for the relevant period still control. NR73 and NR74 are not mandatory tax returns, and their existence does not let an estimator make a final residence conclusion.
Use the form pages to identify the applicable optional request and the CRA folio to understand its non-binding character. If certainty, treaty assistance or filing guidance is required, the folio points to separate CRA channels. Roam Window does not provide personal tax or legal advice and does not determine final residence, whether a form should be filed, or what information a particular person must report.
- NR73 concerns leaving Canada; NR74 concerns entering or sojourning in Canada.
- Both are optional opinion requests, not mandatory calculator outputs.
- The resulting CRA opinion is non-binding and may be reviewed later.
Official sources
- CRA — Form NR73, Determination of Residency Status (leaving Canada)
- CRA — Form NR74, Determination of Residency Status (entering Canada)
- CRA — Folio on residence-status opinions and their limits
- CRA — Determining your residency status
Sources were checked on . Linked institutions may update their guidance after that date.