RL-1 Slip
Relevé 1 in French
Quick definition
The RL-1 (Relevé 1) is Québec's provincial employment slip, filed with Revenu Québec. It reports your employment income and deductions for the Québec return, arriving each tax season alongside your federal T4.
Québec's second slip
Because Québec collects its own income tax through Revenu Québec, employees who work in Québec receive two slips for the same job: the federal T4 slip for the CRA, and the RL-1 for Revenu Québec. The RL-1 feeds the provincial TP-1 return, Québec's own income tax return, filed separately from the federal one. Employers must issue it by the end of February.
The key boxes
The layout mirrors the T4's logic with different letters:
- Box A: employment income for Québec purposes.
- Box B: QPP contributions withheld.
- Box C: employment insurance premiums.
- Box E: Québec income tax withheld at source.
- Box J: employer-paid premiums to a private health services plan.
Box J: the classic Québec difference
Box J deserves its own explanation, because it is the most famous gap between the two tax systems. Employer-paid premiums for a private health or dental plan are a taxable benefit in Québec but not federally. The amount in box J is included in your provincial taxable income, while the federal system ignores it (though it can support the Québec medical expense credit).
This is the main reason box A of your RL-1 rarely matches box 14 of your T4: the two governments simply disagree on which benefits count as income. A mismatch between the slips is normal, not an error, and tax software expects it.
In Canada
The RL-1 is one slip in a whole provincial family: Revenu Québec also prescribes the RL-2 for retirement and pension income and the RL-3 for investment income, each pairing with a federal equivalent. Only Québec runs this parallel slip system, a direct consequence of being the only province that collects its own personal income tax.
Worked example
Émilie earns $60,000 at a Montréal employer that pays $1,200 a year in private health plan premiums for her. Her T4 shows $60,000 of employment income, but her RL-1 box A shows $61,200, with the $1,200 detailed in box J. Nothing is wrong: Québec taxes the health premiums as a benefit and the federal government does not. Her software carries each slip to the right return, and box E's Québec tax withheld is credited on her TP-1.
Related terms
Reviewed by Alexandre Bernier, CFP®, CIM®, PFP®·Updated July 2026