T3010 Schedule 3: How to Report Employee Compensation

Schedule 3 is the part of the T3010 that makes your charity's payroll partly public, and it is the section boards ask about most. It does not publish anyone's salary by name, but it does publish how many of your ten highest paid positions fall into each of a set of bands. This guide covers when Schedule 3 applies, what counts as compensation, how the bands work, and where the total has to agree with the rest of your return.

When does your charity have to complete Schedule 3?

You must complete Schedule 3 if you answer yes to question C9 at line 3400, which asks whether you had expenses for compensation of employees during the fiscal period. There is no dollar threshold and no minimum headcount.

One part time employee for one month triggers it. So does a single staff member paid through a payroll service. The question is whether you had employee compensation expense, not how much.

Contractors are a different matter. Payments to genuine independent contractors are not employee compensation and do not belong on Schedule 3. Whether someone is an employee or a contractor is a determination with its own test and its own consequences, and getting it wrong affects far more than this schedule.

If you had no employees at all during the period, answer no at C9 and skip the schedule.

What counts as compensation on Schedule 3?

Compensation is broader than salary and includes the employer's own contributions. Using the payroll gross rather than the full employer cost will understate this figure.

Compensation includes all of the following.

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The exclusion for expense reimbursements is the one to watch. A travel claim repaid to an employee is not compensation. An allowance that is not a reimbursement may be treated differently, and that distinction has payroll consequences of its own.

The inclusion of employer contributions is the one charities miss. If your reported compensation equals the sum of your T4 boxes, it is almost certainly too low.

How do the ten highest paid positions get reported?

You report the number of positions falling into each compensation band, not names and not individual amounts. Lines 305 to 345 hold the band counts.

The reporting is by position, not by person, and it covers your ten highest directly compensated positions during the fiscal period, regardless of the type of work. A programme lead can appear ahead of a manager if they were paid more.

Nobody is named. What becomes public is the shape of your payroll: how many of your top ten positions sat in each band. For a charity with four employees, only four positions are reported.

This is the section that generates board questions, and it is worth explaining in advance rather than at filing time. The disclosure is about bands and counts, and it is the same disclosure every registered charity makes.

What does line 300 actually ask for?

Line 300 is the number of permanent, full time, directly compensated positions, and it should represent the usual number over the period rather than a headcount on one day. Managerial positions are included.

The word "usual" is doing real work. If you ran with six full time positions for ten months and eight for two, six is the better answer. A snapshot taken on your year end date can misrepresent the year.

Part time and part year employees are reported separately. Line 370 is the number of part time or part year employees, seasonal staff among them, and line 380 is the total compensation expenditure for that group.

Note the asymmetry between the two groups. For full time positions you report a count at line 300 and band information for the ten highest paid. For part time and part year staff you report a count and one combined dollar figure, with no bands at all. A charity running a summer camp with thirty seasonal staff reports thirty at line 370 and their total compensation at line 380.

Keep a simple record through the year of positions filled and months worked. Reconstructing it from payroll registers in month seven is avoidable work.

Where does the total have to agree with the rest of the return?

Line 390 is your total compensation expenditure for the period. If your charity completes Schedule 6, transfer that figure to line 4880. CRA's guide states the transfer, with the qualifier that it applies where Schedule 6 is being completed.

This is not a universal tie-out. A charity reporting through Section D has no line 4880, because Section D carries only lines 4860, 4810 and 4920 on the expenditure side. Schedule 3 still applies to a Section D filer, but there is no corresponding line to transfer the total into.

Where Schedule 6 is completed and line 390 and line 4880 disagree, the return is internally inconsistent and it is visible to anyone reading it.

The tie-out also runs the other way, into your functional split. Compensation sits inside line 4950, and the portion of it that supported charitable programmes, administration and fundraising has to be allocated across lines 5000, 5010 and 5020.

Allocate compensation among the applicable functional categories according to the work actually performed, on a reasonable and consistent basis. CRA specifically contemplates a single salary being split across functions, so an executive director who fundraises and runs programmes is divided rather than assigned whole.

One narrow exception applies to the schedule itself. Certain religious organisations that existed on 31 December 1977, have never issued official donation receipts and have never received gifts from a receipting registered charity may be exempt from completing parts of Schedule 3, including lines 380 and 390, but only with written confirmation from the Charities Directorate.

What are the common Schedule 3 errors?

Reporting salary only, snapshotting headcount, and letting line 390 drift from line 4880 where Schedule 6 applies. All three are avoidable with a payroll summary built once a year for this purpose.

A fourth error is answering no at C9 because the charity thinks of its staff as contractors without having tested the classification. If someone works set hours under your direction using your resources, the label on the invoice does not settle the question.

A fifth is including expense reimbursements in the compensation figure, which inflates Schedule 3 and, for a Schedule 6 filer, line 4880 with it.

A sixth is treating line 370 as a count of individuals rather than of part time and part year employees compensated during the period. Someone who worked two separate seasonal contracts in one year is still one employee.

The fix is a single reconciliation that starts from your payroll system's full employer cost, removes reimbursements, and ties to the ledger. Once built, it is a repeatable annual step and part of what a charity bookkeeping engagement should produce at year end.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Schedule 3 publish individual salaries?

No. It publishes the number of positions in each compensation band among your ten highest paid positions. No individual is named and no individual amount is shown. The disclosure is identical in form for every registered charity.

Do we report our contractors on Schedule 3?

No, provided they are genuine independent contractors. Schedule 3 covers employee compensation. If a worker's classification is uncertain, resolve that first, because it affects source deductions and T4 reporting as well as this schedule.

We only pay honoraria. Does Schedule 3 apply?

Honoraria are named in CRA's definition of compensation, so if they were paid to employees they belong here and question C9 should be answered yes. Whether a particular honorarium is employment income, a T4A amount or a reimbursement is a separate determination worth settling before filing.

How do we count a position that was vacant for part of the year?

Line 300 asks for the usual number of positions compensated during the period. A position vacant for most of the year is not part of your usual complement. Judgment applies, and the basis you use should be consistent year to year.

What if line 390 does not match line 4880?

Fix it before filing. Where a charity completes Schedule 6, CRA's guide has the Schedule 3 total transferred to line 4880. If you report through Section D instead, line 4880 does not exist and there is nothing to match.

Do volunteers appear anywhere on Schedule 3?

No. Schedule 3 covers compensation. Unpaid volunteers are not compensated and do not appear. If a volunteer receives payment beyond genuine expense reimbursement, that payment needs to be characterised properly before you decide where it goes.

Compensation reporting interacts with payroll classification, taxable benefits and source deductions, all of which have their own rules. This article covers the T3010 disclosure only, as at August 2026, and is not payroll or tax advice.