Characters Accepted by CRA

CRA Acceptable Characters

CRA has clarified their restrictions on the characters (letters/numbers/symbols) that will be accepted in electronic submission (XML) files for a number of types of data fields:

“Please note that the CRA introduced a stricter validation process in January 2025. XML files that do not conform with our schema and specifications may now be rejected.”

These restrictions apply to addresses, recipient names, certification and contact names and other data fields. CRA has confirmed that XML submissions which follow these guidelines will not be rejected when uploaded. These restrictions do not apply to Revenu Québec XML submissions.

Acceptable Character Lists

These are the accepted character lists that apply to addresses, recipient names, certification and contact names, and other data elements; click one of the links below for details:

Addresses - Characters accepted by CRA
Recipient Names - Characters accepted by CRA
Contact Names - Characters accepted by CRA
Other Data - Characters accepted by CRA

What Will eForms Do?

eForms will warn the user when it encounters characters that do not follow CRA’s guidelines as data is imported, and as XML files are generated, but will allow you to proceed without making any changes to your data.

eForms will automatically replace any non-standard quote or hyphen character with a CRA accepted character as it creates the XML file; for example, eForms will replace an EM-Dash, ”—”, with a standard hyphen, ”-”; preserving readability and ensuring compliance with CRA’s stricter character validation.

eForms will not automatically alter any characters that are not on the accepted characters lists above, but you may receive a warning that characters exist in the XML file which CRA will replace with spaces upon receipt.

What Should You Do?

By default, eForms will create an XML file which includes all characters in your data, even if they are not on the lists above. You will have the choice to either submit the XML file using the data as it exists (knowing that CRA will replace any non-standard characters with spaces), or manually edit the data to include only characters from the list above.

Recipients will notice that non-standard characters have been replaced by spaces in their CRA accounts, but all forms created by eForms will show the data exactly as it exists in eForms’ data file.

What Will CRA Do?

CRA may issue warnings about potentially invalid characters in the XML file, but should allow you to proceed with the submission anyway. CRA has confirmed that XML files which include characters not in the lists above will be accepted, but those characters will be replaced by spaces during processing.

Please note that CRA could still reject an XML submission, for validation issues not discussed above.