CRA - Other Data Characters

Acceptable Characters for Other Data

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. These restrictions apply to names, addresses and other data fields.

Specified fields other than name, contacts and address (e.g., Cities, Company and buisness names, amendment notes) should only contain characters shown in the table below.

For all XML submissions, CRA will replace any character not shown in the table above with a space.

Below are examples of data contining invalid characters, and how CRA will process them upon submission.

Data will be written to the XML file as they exist within eForms, but the non-standard characters in the data will be replaced with spaces by the CRA. There would be many other possible names that could include an invalid character.

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Recipients will notice that non-standard characters have been replaced by spaces in their CRA accounts, but all forms created by eForms will show the data exactly as it exists in eForms’ data file.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

Other Acceptable Characters

There are other accepted character lists that apply to address, recipient name, and contact name data; 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\