In a change of practice, the Canada Revenue Agency is no longer providing pre-approval or automatic reviews of proposed changes to a charity’s purposes or activities.

Registered charities looking to update their purposes or activities going forward will need to be aware of the change and how it will affect them.

Below we summarize what the CRA’s pre-approval process looked like before, what has changed, and what your charity should do if it wishes to update its purposes or activities.

How did the CRA’s pre-approval process work before?

Before 2026, the CRA had strongly encouraged registered charities to obtain pre-approval from the Charities Directorate before amending their purposes. The CRA had urged this practice in order to ensure that the charity’s purposes and activities remain exclusively charitable under Canadian law.

The CRA had generally advised registered charities to update their purposes if they:

  • planned to carry out new charitable activities that do not fall within the scope of their existing purposes;
  • had any purpose(s) that are no longer supported by any charitable activities; or
  • had older purpose(s) that would not be considered charitable at law today.

Formally changing purposes was often a lengthy process. Pre-approval requests could only be made in writing. The Charities Directorate had up to four months to respond to such a request. If the Directorate approved a charity’s proposed amendments without further changes or questions, the charity would have to call a special meeting of members (or have members pass a written resolution in lieu of having a meeting) to amend the charity’s governing documents. After its purposes had been formally amended, the charity would then be required to provide a copy of the new purposes to the CRA for its records.

What has changed?

On January 15, 2026, the CRA announced in its Quarterly Update that it will no longer provide pre-approval or automatic reviews of proposed changes to a registered charity’s purposes or activities. The CRA, however, did not indicate in its Update when the change in practice would take effect.

Subsequently, the CRA updated its website (date modified: February 9, 2026) to indicate that it “no longer pre-approves changes to a charity’s purposes or activities.” As such, the change in practice is now in effect.

The CRA now advises registered charities seeking to amend their purposes to review the CRA’s guidance products on changing purposes and changing activities and then:

  1. formally amend the purposes in the charity’s governing documents;
  2. send the CRA a copy of the charity’s updated governing documents after adopting the amended purposes; and
  3. send the CRA a revised statement of activities.

CRA further states that it will send a letter to the charity acknowledging receipt of the charity’s revised documents for its file.

What questions remain unanswered?

The CRA’s new practice raises several unanswered questions, specifically about revised activities and the nature of any follow-up by the CRA.

With respect to activities, in its Quarterly Update, the CRA did not say that a charity is required to send an updated statement of activities if its activities had also changed; the CRA only encourages charities to do so (“If you update your activities, we encourage you to also provide us with an updated statement of activities”).

However, on its updated website, the CRA now says that “[y]ou should then send us an updated copy of the governing document reflecting these changes, along with a revised statement of activities, so that your file remains current.”

It remains to be seen whether submitting a revised statement of activities is now not just encouraged, but expected, by the CRA. We anticipate most charities will provide both revised purposes and activities to the CRA, and for good reason. As changes in purposes are often prompted by changes in activities (even anticipatory changes), it makes sense for charities to notify the CRA about both types of changes.

Additionally, on its website, the CRA says that “we may review [a charity’s] changes at a later date and contact you if we have concerns or need further information.” In recent correspondence that we have received from CRA (when we have amended a client’s purposes), the CRA has also said something similar.

The CRA, however, makes no comments on what it will do if it later finds that the charity’s amended purposes are not exclusively charitable. Will the CRA promptly notify the registered charity and request corrective amendments? Or will the CRA raise its concerns during the course of an audit?

What are the implications for charities?

For some registered charities, such as charities adopting model purposes or charities with professional advisors who can advise on whether certain proposed purposes are charitable, the end of the pre-approval process will likely make it quicker and easier to amend purposes and launch new charitable activities.

On the other hand, this change may create uncertainty over whether a charity’s amended purposes or activities remain charitable at law. This is a particular concern for charities adopting non-standard purposes, charities operating with limited access to professional advisors, or charities that would otherwise typically rely on the CRA’s pre-approval process for comfort.

Under the previous process, registered charities with pre-approved purposes could be reasonably assured that the CRA would not later object to their purposes on an audit (subject to the CRA’s express reservation of rights to challenge the charity’s work in the future). Without the comfort of pre-approval, the charity bears the full responsibility of ensuring that their purposes and activities continue to remain exclusively charitable at law.

We also wonder whether this new process will lead some charities to hesitate when thinking about innovative charitable work given the risk that CRA could later challenge them on audit. In other words, while we welcome a more streamlined approach (given that some charities need to be able to move quickly to amend purposes in certain circumstances), we will want to watch for any unexpected negative implications from the change.

What supports and resources are available to charities?

In its Quarterly Update, the CRA indicated that its Client Service team will continue to be available to provide “general information” if a charity needs help “understanding whether something is charitable.”

The CRA says something similar on its website: its Client Service representatives are available to support charities by directing them to the relevant guidance and “answering general questions about what is considered charitable.”

In a potentially more promising development, the CRA also indicated in its Quarterly Update that it will release a new suite of resources, including:

  • refreshed guidance on charitable purposes;
  • an expanded set of model purposes; and
  • a short guide to help charities understand and draft appropriate charitable purposes.

These resources have not yet been published, but we look forward to reviewing them when they are available. We are cautiously optimistic that they will improve the sector’s understanding of the CRA’s new regulatory expectations and alleviate some uncertainty created by the retirement of the CRA’s pre-approval process.

What should charities do if they wish to update their purposes and/or activities?

Going forward, charities should continue to update their purposes where:

  • they plan to carry out new charitable activities that do not fall within the scope of their existing purposes;
  • they have any purpose(s) that are no longer supported by any charitable activities; or
  • they have older purpose(s) that would not be considered charitable at law today.

Ultimately, each charity must determine whether its purposes and activities are exclusively charitable.

We recommend that charities seek legal advice before altering their purposes or activities, particularly given the uncertainty created by the CRA’s retirement of its pre-approval process and the introduction of the relatively new (and untested) qualifying disbursement rules. These rules require a charity to have a recognized common law charitable purpose within one of the four categories of charity (relieving poverty, advancing education, advancing religion, or other purposes beneficial to the community) before it can make a grant to a non-qualified donee. We addressed the qualifying disbursement rules in these previously published articles:

As this is a developing story, we also encourage readers to check our Insights regularly and subscribe to the Social Impact Newsletter for updates. If you have a specific question about the CRA’s announcement and how it might affect your charity or if you would like to amend your charity’s purposes or activities, please reach out to a member of Miller Thomson’s Charity and Not-for-Profit Law Group, who would be pleased to assist.