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CSV with the default and other valid Xero tax codes per account. Import file and rate list below.
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Quebec runs the most complete provincial tax system in the country, and paradoxically that makes its bookkeeping cleaner than the PST provinces: QST behaves like the GST it sits beside, both taxes are recoverable for registrants, and one administration collects the pair. The work is in the details, dual registration numbers, out-of-province suppliers, and a handful of accounts where recovery stops. This Xero chart of accounts carries those details as defaults.
The wash, and where it does not apply
Most Quebec purchases arrive at 14.975%, 5% GST plus 9.975% QST on the same base, and for a registered business both components come back, ITC and ITR respectively. So the default across the cost accounts is simply the seeded QC - GST/QST on Purchases rate, and the interesting accounts are the exceptions:
- Meals and entertainment: both recoveries are cut to 50% for most businesses; the account note carries the double haircut.
- Club memberships: no recovery under either tax, ever, hence the quarantine account.
- Insurance: exempt from GST and QST, but Quebec levies its own premium tax at the QST-harmonized rate, and that one is a cost.
- Motor vehicles: recovery caps and personal-use apportionment apply under both taxes.
The 5% lines nobody warns you about
An Ontario consultant or a Calgary supplier who is not QST-registered bills you GST only. The line is real, legal, and 5%, which is why this chart has you create a custom GST on Purchases (5%) rate before importing: coding those bills at 14.975% invents QST that was never charged, and coding them at zero loses the GST credit. Whether QST then self-assesses is a per-supplier question worth deciding once and noting in the readable CSV.
Setup: four custom rates, then import
Xero’s Canadian edition seeds provincial pairs only, so add GST on Purchases (5%), Zero Rated, Exempt, and Out of Scope under the Tax menu, Tax settings, Tax rates. Then Accounting, Chart of accounts, Import. Xero picks each line’s tax by contact first, item second, account third; these defaults are the reliable floor underneath.
Invoicing needs one more habit: both numbers, GST and QST registrations, printed on every invoice. Customers claiming their own recoveries need them, and Revenu Quebec expects them.
Running the file
- Reconcile one tax cycle, not two: the combined return files to Revenu Quebec, and the GST/QST payable account should tie to it each period.
- Keep a per-supplier note of who bills 14.975%, who bills 5%, and who (foreign platforms) needs your numbers to stop charging unclaimable tax.
- Skim the exception accounts before filing: meals at half, clubs at zero, insurance premium tax as cost.
- Route the readable CSV into onboarding; its notes column is the Quebec induction most bookkeepers never receive.
Two Quebec habits round out the setup. First, the invoice template: alongside the two registration numbers, customer-facing documents generally need to respect Quebec’s French-language requirements, so build the bilingual or French template once rather than retrofitting a hundred invoices. Second, the savings sweep: with nearly 15% of every taxable sale owed onward, moving the combined tax share of each deposit into a dedicated account on arrival turns the Revenu Quebec filing from a cash-flow event into a transfer.
Volume is where dual-tax coding bends. Hubdoc captures the paper as it arrives. ExpenseFlow reads each bill, distinguishes 14.975% suppliers from GST-only ones, applies the half-recovery and no-recovery rules where they live, and posts coded entries into Xero against these accounts. Dext pins recurring vendors to rules.
Numbering is conventional and gapped, 1000s assets through 6000s expenses. On QuickBooks? Use the Quebec chart of accounts for QuickBooks; the rates behind this chart are documented in the Quebec Xero tax rates reference.