Change of Address After a Move in Ontario: What Has a Legal Deadline

A move turns one address into a long list of separate address changes, and only a few of them carry a deadline set out in law: six days for two of them, thirty for another. The rest get put off quietly until a renewal notice, a benefit payment or a voter card lands at the house you no longer live in. This is the change of address in Ontario sorted by what actually forces your hand: what the law gives you six days for, what it gives you thirty, what one online form reaches and what it never touches, and what can genuinely sit on the list until November.

Which address changes carry a deadline in law

Two of them come straight out of the driving legislation. Under Ontario Regulation 340/94, the regulation under the Highway Traffic Act that governs drivers' licences, "the holder of a driver's licence who changes their address shall, within six days after the change, send by registered mail or have filed with the Ministry a notice in writing, or electronically in a format designated by the Ministry, of the change." The vehicle permit has its own six-day rule in section 9 (2) of the Highway Traffic Act itself, aimed at the owner or plate holder rather than the driver. ServiceOntario states the health card requirement as thirty days.

The useful part of that table is the right-hand column, because it is where an address change stops being a five-minute task. A driver's licence, an Ontario Photo Card and a health card all sort themselves out without you leaving the house. The vehicle permit does not. ServiceOntario lists no delivery for it: you have to visit a centre in person to pick up the new permit and exchange the old one, and the page warns that a replacement fee may be charged if you do not bring the existing permit with you. Find out where the paper ownership actually is before the six days start running, because the counter visit has to fit somewhere in that week.

One sign-in covers a lot of ground. A ServiceOntario Account changes the address on the driver's licence, the vehicle permit, the health card, the Ontario Photo Card and an accessible parking permit in the same session, which is the whole provincial column done in one sitting. That one session clears both six-day deadlines and the thirty-day one together, which is why it is worth doing before the boxes are unpacked rather than after.

What the provincial change does not reach

Two of these gaps are stated outright on the agencies’ own pages, in wording specific enough to be worth quoting. Both have consequences that only show up months later.

• Provincial Offences Court records. ServiceOntario's page is blunt: changing your address through ServiceOntario "does not update your address with the Provincial Offences Court," and if the court does not have your current address and fines are not paid on time, "enforcement actions — such as licence suspension or plate denial — may still proceed based on other information on file." If you have an outstanding ticket or an unresolved matter, contact the local Provincial Offences Court directly.
• The Canada Revenue Agency. The CRA's own page states that "the CRA will not share your change of address or other personal information with other government departments" That sentence is about outbound sharing, and the CRA page is equally clear on the inbound side: you have to contact each department that provides services to you and give them your new information yourself.
• Your insurer, your employer's payroll, your bank, your children's school board. None of these appear anywhere on the provincial list, because none of them are provincial records. Ask your broker what your policy requires you to report and how quickly, rather than assuming the licence change reached them.
• The municipal voters' list. A separate register run by a separate level of government, with its own timetable. It matters more than usual this autumn, and it gets its own section below.

Three ways to update the CRA, with honestly different speeds: signing in to a CRA account changes it immediately, phoning changes it once an agent verifies you, and Form RC325 by mail takes four to six weeks to process. You also cannot change your address while filing through NETFILE. If a benefit or credit payment is involved, the four-to-six-week route is the one to avoid.

The voters' list has a date on it right now

Ontario's municipal elections are on Monday 26 October 2026, and the address on your driver's licence has nothing to do with whether you get a ballot at the right place. The municipal voters' list is prepared and certified by the municipal clerk under section 28 (1) of the Municipal Elections Act, 1996, and the window to fix your own entry is set by section 24 (1): "during the period that begins on September 1 and ends at the close of voting on voting day," a person may apply to the clerk to have their name added, removed or their information amended.

The route changed in August. Elections Ontario's Register to Vote page had a deadline of 12 August 2026 for this election; the Town of Oakville's voters' list page now states plainly that you need to check or update your voter information directly with the municipality instead. So if you moved into Oakville, Mississauga, Milton or Burlington this summer and assumed the provincial address change handled it, the assumption expired a month ago.

1. Oakville runs an "Am I On the List" tool that confirms your information, adds your name or updates your address. Government-issued identification is needed to make the change online; the Clerk's Department takes it by phone on 905-815-6015.
2. Mississauga has its Voter Registration Portal open at mississauga.ca/vote for the same three jobs — check, add, update — and says voter notification cards go out by mail in September 2026.
3. Milton, Burlington and every other municipality run their own list under the same Act. Start at that municipality's election page; the clerk's office is the authority for your entry on that list.
4. School support is the entry that catches people out on the ballot itself. Your school support designation decides which school board trustee candidates appear on your ballot, it is shown on your Property Assessment Notice, and it is changed through the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, not the town.

Worth knowing before you panic about it: Mississauga states that you can still vote if you are eligible and not on the voters' list, but that you may need to complete extra steps at the voting location. Being on the list is what gets you the notification card and what Mississauga says can make the process quicker at the counter; eligibility itself is decided separately.

Mail forwarding is a bridge, and it has a lead time

Canada Post Mail Forwarding redirects mail from the old address to the new one. It does not change your address with anybody — it buys you the months in which you find out who still has the old one. The catch that ruins moving day is the lead time: the service can begin as early as five days after purchase for residential customers online, or three days if you buy it at a post office. Buy it the week before the move so it is already running on possession day.

Up to four residents' names are included in the base fee, with up to four more available for the per-name price. For a household of four adults with different surnames, that detail decides whether the service works at all.

• Parcels are not forwarded. Canada Post is explicit: "If you're expecting parcel deliveries, you must advise the sender(s) of your new address - even when you have the Mail Forwarding service in place." Prepaid envelopes are also excluded.
• Newspapers and flyers delivered by other parties are not forwarded, so a subscription you want to keep needs its own address change.
• Personal mail delivered to a business or institution is not forwarded — an office building, hospital, nursing home or hotel. Nor is mail at an address shared by more than two businesses, or a privately administered mailbox.
• Identification is required. Buying online needs a Canada Post account and government-issued photo ID, and if your identity cannot be verified online you finish the order at a post office with a barcode.

The order that works around a moving date

1. 1Two weeks out — buy the mail forwardingPick a start date on or just before possession day and buy it early enough to clear the five-day lead time. This is also the moment to write the list of everyone who sends you paper, because the forwarded envelopes that arrive over the following months show you exactly who still has the old address.
2. 2Moving week — change nothing, keep everythingDo not start filing address changes in the middle of a move. Keep the moving invoice and the receipts instead; if the move was for work or study they may be deductible, and that is covered below. If the loading day itself is the problem, the timing pieces are in our notes on moving on the 1st of the month and on an autumn move in the GTA.
3. 3Within six days of the address changing — licence and permitOne ServiceOntario Account session does the driver's licence, vehicle permit, health card and photo card together. Book the in-person trip for the vehicle permit at the same time, and put the current paper permit in your pocket so no replacement fee applies.
4. 4Within thirty days — the health card, if it was not done aboveOnly a health card with an address printed on it needs a counter visit. Everything else was already handled in the same online session, which is the argument for doing all five records at once rather than one at a time.
5. 5The first quiet evening — the ones with no deadline and real consequencesThe CRA, the bank, the insurer, payroll, the utility accounts and any subscription that ships a physical thing. None of these carry a legal clock; all of them carry a real cost when a payment, a policy document or a tax slip goes to the wrong house.
6. 6Before 26 October this year — the municipal voters' listGo to the municipality's own voter tool for this one. Confirm the address and the school support designation while you are in there, because they decide different parts of the same ballot.

What genuinely can wait, and what to stop doing

Not everything on a moving checklist deserves the week after a move. The Outdoors Card has no address on the card and no new card is issued; the accessible parking permit is the same. An OSAP address is changed by signing in to the OSAP account and has no external deadline. A magazine subscription and a loyalty programme cost you nothing if they arrive late.

• Do not pay anyone to file address changes for you. Every provincial record above is free to change, and ServiceOntario says so in the cost column of its own page: the licence, the permit, the health card, the photo card, the Outdoors Card, the accessible parking permit and OSAP are all free.
• Do not re-do the licence because the card has not arrived. The record changes when you submit it; the plastic takes four to six weeks. A second application does not make it faster.
• Do not treat mail forwarding as the change itself. It expires. Anything still being forwarded in month ten is something you never actually updated.
• Do not skip the walk-through at the old address. Whatever the lease or the sale agreement requires is a separate job from the paperwork, and what landlords and buyers actually check is the honest version of that list.

If you moved for work, the moving invoice is a tax document

This is the one piece of moving-day paper worth filing carefully. Under CRA line 21900, moving expenses can generally be claimed if you moved to a new home to work or run a business from a new location, or to study full time in a post-secondary programme — and if the new home is at least 40 kilometres closer to the new work location or school by the shortest public route. The move generally has to be from one place in Canada to another, and you must establish the new home as the place where you normally live.

Read the test carefully, because it is easy to measure the wrong thing: it compares the distance from the old home to the new work location with the distance from the new home to the same work location, and the gap between those two has to be at least 40 kilometres. The distance between the two houses is not what counts. Measure both routes before you assume either way, and keep the invoice regardless — it costs nothing to file and it cannot be recreated later. If you want the invoice itemised a particular way, say so when you book rather than after the truck has gone.