The Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit Will Be Paid Next Week
Volunteer hands holding food donations box with grocery products on white desk.
Next week, the new Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB) may show up in your bank account. (If you aren't signed up for direct deposit, the payment will come through the mail.)
According to the Canada Revenue Agency, as many as 12 million Canadians will receive the payment on June 5 and the amounts could range between $267 for a single person with no children to $533 for a married person with two kids.
Here’s what you need to know.
The June payment is an interim payment
The June 5 payment is a one-time top-up benefit that marks a transition between the end of the GST/HST benefit and the start of the new benefit payment in July. The amount deposited will be equal to 50 percent of your total annual GST/HST credit.
So, if your annual GST/HST credit totalled $400, your one-time top-up will be $200.
Are you eligible?
If you filed a tax return in 2024 and were entitled to receive the GST/HST credit in January 2026 then the answer is yes, you are eligible for this top-up payment.
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What the one-time payments could look like
- $267 for a single person without children
- $349 for a married couple with no children
- $533 for a person (married or not) with two children
Something to note: If you still have income tax owing, the CGEB payment will be applied to the balance owing.
The CGEB begins properly in July
In January, the federal government announced it was replacing the quarterly GST/HST benefit with the CGEB. That new benefit will begin in July and it is structured similarly to the GST/HST benefit that it replaces: it’s delivered quarterly, and eligibility and the amount received is determined by income. However, for the first five years, the amount received will be 25 percent more than whatever you were eligible to receive from the GST/HST benefit.
According to CRA, how much you get in July 2026 and until June 2027 will be determined by the information provided from your 2025 tax return, which means you'll need to file your taxes in order to receive it in July.
If you haven't filed your tax return yet
In order to get the first payment in July, CRA says you have to have filed your 2025 tax return by April 30. However, if you've filed after that date, all is not lost for the year. After the CRA assesses your return, and determines your entitlement, you will receive retroactive payments for credit amounts that you didn't get because you filed late.
A climate of rising cost and fewer supports
The benefit comes at a time when Canadians are feeling the pain of rising food prices, costs that are set to rise a further four to six percent, according to Canada’s Food Price Report 2026. Rising food prices are now a top concern among over half of Canadians, according to a January poll. And the drain on finances that groceries represent is significant. The Food Price Report indicates that higher food prices will mean a family of four will spend nearly $1,000 more this year on groceries than they did last year.
Concerns about rising grocery prices and the factors that may be influencing that rise are also behind the federal NDP’s recent push to ban a predatory pricing model called surveillance pricing.
The CGEB arrives as many Canadians face fewer financial supports than last year. As per the Toronto Star, the Carney government’s cancellation of the Canada Carbon Rebate and carbon taxes on fuel earlier means a family of four in Ontario will be losing $1,120 in previous aid this year.
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Flannery Dean is a writer based in Hamilton, Ont. She’s written for The Narwhal, the Globe and Mail and The Guardian.
