01The CRA's crypto compliance work arrives as a ladder: general education letters, then letters naming a specific issue, then a questionnaire or audit.02Since October 2025, that ladder maps directly onto disclosure relief: an education letter leaves you "unprompted"; a specific-issue letter makes you "prompted"; an audit closes the door.03The data behind the letters is real: court-ordered platform disclosures, a dedicated crypto audit team, and a Canadian CARF regime whose current 2026 legislative track points to the 2027 and subsequent calendar years.
Where the CRA's data comes from
Canada reaches platform records through unnamed-persons requirements — court orders compelling a platform to hand over user data wholesale. Coinsquare in 2021 was the precedent; a 2025 order against Dapper Labs reached thousands more users, and the technique is now routine. On top of that, Canada is legislating the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework. Current May 2026 federal explanatory notes apply the new Part XXI reporting regime to the 2027 and subsequent calendar years. The final enacted commencement must be checked before this page can be verified. A letter from the CRA about crypto is rarely a guess anymore — it is usually a data product.
The three rungs, and what each does to you
The education letter. A general reminder that crypto dispositions are taxable, sent broadly, naming no specific finding. It changes nothing legally — and under the post-October-2025 VDP rules it does not even make a later disclosure "prompted". Read it as the cheapest warning you will ever receive: the full 100/75 relief is still on the table, and the letter is evidence the clock has started.
The specific-issue letter. The CRA names the thing: unreported dispositions in a year, a platform, a mismatch. From this moment a disclosure on that issue is "prompted" — penalty relief can survive in full, but interest relief drops to about a quarter. Same facts, same forms, materially worse arithmetic — purely because of the postmark date.
The questionnaire and the audit. Crypto audits typically open with a detailed questionnaire — wallets, platforms, years, transfers, sources of funds. It is comprehensive by design, and it is evidence you author. Once an audit or investigation is underway, the VDP is closed for that issue. From here the work is audit defence: representation first, then the questionnaire, never the reverse order.
The ladder only moves one way. Nothing you do converts a prompted file back into an unprompted one — except having moved earlier.
What to do at each rung
- Education letter: reconstruct every year now — ACB per coin, superficial-loss checks, income events, T1135 exposure. If anything is wrong, the unprompted door is open and pricing at its best.
- Specific-issue letter: do not answer past the deadline and do not answer thinly. The reply and a prompted disclosure interact — sequence them with an adviser, because the reply is a written statement.
- Questionnaire or audit letter: representation before response. The questionnaire's scope, wording and timing are all negotiable through a representative; a solo answer fixes your story on the CRA's template.
- At every rung: keep proof of what you sent and when. Relief decisions turn on timing, and timing is proven with paper.
If more than one year is involved
Platform orders and CARF data span years, so a single-year fix against a multi-year pattern reads as confirmation, not correction. Scope the whole history once, then disclose it coherently — the VDP page covers the route and the arithmetic.
If you have received CRA correspondence, deadlines may be running. This page explains the sequence; it does not respond to it, and reading it creates no professional relationship.