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CSV pairing each account with its default QuickBooks Quebec code and the exceptions that matter.
Download chart of accounts (CSV)Also available
Quebec compresses two full value-added taxes into one bookkeeping routine: same base, same recoveries, one administrator, one return. QuickBooks Online provisions the whole code vocabulary on day one, so the chart of accounts is where the real setup happens, deciding which code each account speaks by default. This one decides for you, in Quebec’s terms.
The vocabulary and its economics
- GST/QST QC (14.975%): the everyday code, 5% federal plus 9.975% provincial on the same base, both recoverable for registrants. Most cost accounts and Quebec-facing revenue default here.
- GST (5%): the out-of-province code, for suppliers who are not QST-registered and bill federal tax alone.
- QST QC (9.975%): the provincial-only code, mostly for self-assessed QST.
- Z, E, Out of scope: the zeros, groceries and exports, exempt financial and insurance supplies, and the non-supplies of payroll and permits.
Because both components recover, Quebec avoids BC’s goods-versus-services anxiety entirely; the coding question here is not “which tax applies” but “which supplier billed what.”
The accounts that break the wash
Four places where recovery stops, each with its own account and note. Meals and entertainment: both the ITC and the ITR halve for most businesses, a double haircut worth seeing on one line. Club memberships: zero recovery under either tax. Insurance: exempt from GST and QST, but carrying Quebec’s own premium tax at the QST-harmonized rate as unrecoverable cost. Motor vehicles: capped recoveries on passenger vehicles plus personal-use apportionment, flagged where the fuel and repairs land.
The dual-number habit
Invoicing from Quebec means two registrations, GST and QST, and both numbers belong on every invoice you issue; your customers’ recoveries depend on them, and Revenu Quebec looks for them. The mirror-image habit on purchases: a supplier charging 14.975% should display both numbers too, and a foreign platform charging tax without proper registration is charging you something you cannot recover, fixed by registering your numbers with them.
Standing it up
- Enable sales tax; the Quebec set provisions automatically.
- Import the chart under Settings, Import data, Chart of accounts; QuickBooks codes at the line, so the readable CSV becomes the standing coding sheet.
- Reconcile the combined GST/QST liability to the Revenu Quebec return each period; one filing, one tie-out.
- Keep the supplier map current: 14.975% vendors, 5% vendors, and the foreign ones needing your numbers.
- Sweep the exception accounts before filing; meals and clubs are where Quebec returns quietly overclaim.
Payroll runs deeper here than elsewhere, with Quebec-specific source deductions alongside federal ones, all out of scope for consumption taxes but worth their own liability account, which this chart provides.
Companies expanding into Quebec from the rest of Canada should treat this chart as the landing pad rather than adapting their home file by feel. The mechanical differences are quick, new codes, new liability account, Revenu Quebec instead of the CRA as the filing counterpart, but the judgment differences hide in the notes: the supplier map (who bills the pair, who bills 5%), the stereo recovery cuts, the premium tax on insurance, and the dual registration numbers customers will expect on invoices from day one. An afternoon with this chart and its readable CSV is cheaper than a first-quarter cleanup.
The daily reality is documents, and dual-tax documents reward automation. Dext holds recurring suppliers to rules. ExpenseFlow reads each bill and receipt, tells combined-tax invoices from GST-only ones, applies the half- and no-recovery rules on the exception accounts, and posts coded entries into QuickBooks against this chart. Hubdoc files the paper against the trail Revenu Quebec may one day walk.
On Xero instead? That build, with the custom rates Xero needs for Quebec, is at Quebec chart of accounts for Xero. The code list is documented in the Quebec QuickBooks sales tax reference.