Charity FAQs

What Are Qualified Donees?
A common misconception is that the term “Qualified Donee” is synonymous with the term “registered charity.”

This however is inaccurate. The term Qualified Donees includes more than 4,100 organizations that are not registered charities, categorized as follows:

1. Registered charities (in practice, the largest category of qualified donees);
2. Registered Canadian amateur athletic organizations, of which there are 126 currently in Canada;
3. Housing corporations resident in Canada constituted exclusively to provide low-cost accommodation for the elderly and exempted from tax by paragraph 149(l)(i) of the Act;
4. The United Nations and its agencies;
5. Universities outside Canada prescribed to be universities with a student body that ordinarily includes students from Canada (these universities are listed in Schedule VIII of the Income Tax Regulations), currently numbering 526;
6. Charitable organizations outside Canada to which Her Majesty in right of Canada has made a gift during the charity’s fiscal period, or in the 12 months immediately preceding the period;
7. Canadian municipalities – as of today’s date, there are 3,572 municipalities across Canada;
8. Her Majesty in right of a province; and
9. Her Majesty in right of Canada.