Who Else In Your Family Can Claim The DTC
Getting approved for the Disability Tax Credit takes a doctor's signature, a form that runs several pages, and often a long wait, and then a lot of the people who finally get approved find it does almost nothing for them. The credit is non-refundable, which means it only works against tax you actually owe. If your income is low enough that you owe little or nothing, the disability amount, $10,138 for the 2025 tax year, just sits there.
That unused amount doesn't have to be wasted, and the list of family members it can move to is much wider than most people assume. A spouse or common-law partner is the obvious one, but it can also go to a parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, niece or nephew, plus the same relatives on your spouse's side. What CRA wants to see is that the person with the impairment depends on that family member for at least one of food, shelter or clothing.
If the supporting family member was already named on the DTC application, claiming the transfer is a line on the tax return. Line 31800 when you're claiming for a dependant, line 32600 when it's your spouse. If nobody was named, they can send CRA a signed written request setting out the support they provide, and the transfer can still go through.
If someone was eligible in past years and never claimed the disability amount, CRA also lets you go back and adjust those returns up to 10 years. That is ten separate returns, each with a credit nobody used. For a family already carrying the extra costs that come with a disability, that can add up to real money.
I pay attention to this because I work as a physiotherapist, so eligibility comes up with my clients more often than it does for most people. A while back I wrote about the RDSP, the account a DTC approval gets you access to. This one is simpler, and it gets missed more often, mostly because the person who benefits isn't the person whose name is on the form. Qualifying as a supporting family member is a bit stricter than the relationship list makes it sound, so it's worth confirming your own situation before you file.
