Ontario Chart of Accounts for Xero with HST Codes (Free)

This is a chart of accounts built for an Ontario business running on Xero, with the HST treatment carried on every account using Xero’s real Canadian rate names. Ontario is the simplest of the big provinces to code: one harmonized 13% line covers both the federal and provincial parts, it appears as a single tax on invoices, and the whole amount is generally recoverable as an input tax credit when the purchase is for commercial activity.

What you get

• A readable CSV listing each account with its class, its default Xero tax code, the other codes that legitimately show up on that account, and a one-line reason.
• A Xero import CSV in the chart-of-accounts import format, with ON - HST on Purchases, ON - HST on Sales, and the 0% rates already sitting in the Tax Code column.

Do this first: add three 0% rates

Xero’s Canadian edition ships with the provincial purchase and sale pairs only. For Ontario that means ON - HST on Purchases and ON - HST on Sales exist on day one, but nothing for the zero-rated, exempt, or outside-scope cases. Before importing, go to the Tax menu, open Tax settings, then Tax rates, and add three custom rates at 0%: Zero Rated, Exempt, and Out of Scope. A custom rate can apply to both sales and purchases, so three rates cover both sides. Skip this step and Xero will reject the rows that reference them.

The distinction is worth the two minutes. Zero-rated and exempt both mean no tax on the line, but they are different answers to the input-tax-credit question: zero-rated supplies keep your ITCs intact, exempt ones do not, and the CRA cares which story your return tells.

The Ontario defaults this chart encodes

• 13% HST both ways: sales income defaults to ON - HST on Sales, and most cost accounts default to ON - HST on Purchases with a full ITC.
• Meals and entertainment default to 13% but the account note flags the rule that surprises people: only half the HST is claimable for most businesses.
• Bank fees are exempt financial services, and insurance is exempt from HST but usually carries Ontario’s separate 8% RST, which is a cost, not a credit.
• Commercial rent is taxable at 13% while residential rent is exempt, so the rent account defaults to the taxable side with exempt as the listed alternative.
• Wages, drawings, depreciation and other non-supplies sit on Out of Scope.

Place of supply keeps the other provinces relevant

The 13% default is an Ontario assumption, not a rule. GST/HST follows the buyer’s province for sales and the delivery province for goods, so an Ontario company invoicing a Calgary client charges 5% GST, and Xero’s seeded AB - GST on Sales rate is the right pick for that line. The readable CSV’s “other codes” column exists exactly for this: the default covers the common case, the alternatives remind whoever codes the books which exceptions are legitimate on that account.

How to use it

1. Create the three custom 0% rates described above.
2. Adjust account names and numbers to the business; keep the tax defaults.
3. Import via Accounting, then Chart of accounts, then Import, ideally into a demo org first.
4. Hand the readable CSV to whoever codes transactions as the house coding sheet.

The chart imports correctly once; keeping every transaction on the right code afterwards is the ongoing work. Hubdoc remembers how you coded a recurring supplier. ExpenseFlow reads each receipt or bill, applies the correct Canadian treatment for the supply, including the exempt and zero-rated cases and the buyer’s-province rate, then posts it to Xero against the right account. Dext applies per-supplier rules so repeat purchases land consistently.

Numbering is range-based: assets in the 1000s, liabilities 2000s, equity 3000s, revenue 4000s, cost of sales 5000s, and operating costs 6000s, with gaps left so new accounts slot in without renumbering.

On QuickBooks instead? Use the Ontario chart of accounts for QuickBooks. For the rate list itself, see the Ontario Xero tax rates reference.