IFTA in Quebec: Licence, Decals and Filing With Revenu Québec

IFTA in Quebec is administered by Revenu Québec, the province's tax authority, which handles licensing, decals and quarterly filing for Quebec-based carriers. The SAAQ (Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec) does not. Carriers who assume every vehicle obligation in Quebec goes through the SAAQ get caught here, partly because the SAAQ keeps its own information page on fuel tax for carriers operating outside Quebec.

A Quebec-based carrier running qualified motor vehicles outside the province, into other Canadian provinces or into the US, needs a Quebec IFTA licence in place of separate permits for each jurisdiction it crosses. If a vehicle operates only within Quebec, you don't need an IFTA licence for it.

Quebec carriers file the quarterly IFTA return on Revenu Québec's Quarterly Fuel Tax Return form, either the paper copy Revenu Québec mails out or the fillable PDF from its website, which is printed and mailed back, or with authorized tax software. Revenu Québec's IFTA page does not list an online filing service in My Account for Businesses. Due dates follow the standard IFTA quarterly schedule shared by every member jurisdiction: April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31, moved to the following Monday when the date falls on a weekend. The form is CAZ-510-V. From the first quarter of 2027 (January 1 to March 31, 2027), Revenu Québec will stop mailing it, and it will only be available on its website as a fillable PDF.

You must file a return every quarter while the licence is valid, including a quarter with no travel outside Quebec and no tax owed. The Quebec IFTA licence runs on the calendar year, valid January 1 through December 31, so you renew it each year on top of the quarterly filings.

Revenu Québec accepts distance records produced by a vehicle-tracking system, including GPS, when each trip record holds a defined set of data. The list is longer than for paper trip sheets: the original GPS or other location data; the date and time of each reading, at intervals frequent enough to validate the distance in each jurisdiction; the location of each reading; the odometer, hubodometer or engine control module reading at the start and end of the quarter; the distance calculated between readings; the route; the total distance; the distance in each jurisdiction; and the vehicle identification or unit number.

Fuel records have their own list. Each purchase needs the date, the quantity and type of fuel, the price per litre or total price, the seller's name and address, the purchaser's name and the vehicle the fuel went into. A fleet with its own bulk tanks also keeps delivery receipts, a quarterly inventory reconciliation for each tank and a record of every withdrawal.

Revenu Québec asks for all of it to be kept for six years and made available to any member jurisdiction on request; Ontario, for comparison, asks for four years from the due date or filing date. Revenu Québec can audit on behalf of the other jurisdictions, and records it finds inadequate can lead to an additional assessment. A summary report alone does not meet the list: keep the underlying GPS readings the totals were calculated from.

A qualified motor vehicle has two axles and a gross weight or registered gross weight over 11,797 kg (26,000 lb), or three or more axles at any weight, or is used in a combination whose total gross weight or registered gross weight is over 11,797 kg. Revenu Québec notes that a pickup truck towing a trailer can qualify, which catches out service fleets that think of IFTA as a tractor-trailer rule. The vehicle must also be used at least partly for commercial purposes and be designed, used or maintained to carry passengers or freight.

Quebec is your base jurisdiction if your main establishment is in the province, or if the vehicle is most often assigned, stored, repaired or otherwise checked here. The licence covers every Canadian province and every US state except Alaska and Hawaii; the District of Columbia, the three territories and Mexico are not members, so trips there follow their own fuel tax rules.

Quebec charges for both the licence and the decals, which not every jurisdiction does: Ohio, for example, charges for neither. For 2026, the annual IFTA licence costs $70, and decals cost $14.10 per pair. One licence covers the whole fleet, but you need a pair of decals for every qualified vehicle operated outside Quebec, so the decal cost grows with fleet size while the licence fee stays flat.

Budget for this if your fleet is used to filing in a jurisdiction that charges for neither the licence nor the decals. When a Quebec-based carrier adds qualified vehicles, the per-pair decal cost grows with it, so IFTA credentials are not a fixed, one-time expense.

A Quebec carrier that sends a vehicle outside the province only now and then, without running regular interjurisdictional routes, may not need a full IFTA licence for that vehicle. A certificate for occasional trips covers that narrower case. It is a Revenu Québec document, obtained before each trip from an authorized organization such as the Commission des transports du Québec, and it stays in the vehicle.

Before you assume every vehicle that ever crosses the Quebec border needs full IFTA credentials, check which case applies: regular cross-border operation, which needs the full licence, or infrequent trips, which can run on a trip certificate. GPS trip history shows which category each vehicle falls into, based on how you use it.

The basics for a Quebec-based carrier in one table. Fees are those in effect at the time of writing; confirm them with Revenu Québec before each renewal.