Box 20 ↓
The CRA warns: Box 20 “may or may not reflect your adjusted cost base.” Most Canadians file using this number anyway, and overpay.
Three steps from broker export to filing-ready report.
ActiveACB is an adjusted cost base calculator for Canadian investors. It reads the trade history your broker already exports, rebuilds the ACB of every security you have held across all of your accounts, and turns the result into the proceeds, adjusted cost base, outlays, and gain or loss that Schedule 3 asks for on each disposition.
The engine applies the rules a spreadsheet makes you remember. Identical securities pool under section 47 no matter which account they sit in. Sales at a loss are checked against the 61-day superficial loss window, including repurchases in a TFSA or RRSP. Every US dollar trade converts at the Bank of Canada rate for its own date. Return of capital and reinvested distributions from more than 200 Canadian ETFs adjust the pool from verified issuer data, and splits, mergers, standard cost-base spinoffs, and option assignments are applied automatically, with anything the export cannot settle flagged for review.
It works from Interactive Brokers, Questrade, and Wealthsimple exports natively, and from any other broker's CSV or XLSX through the column mapper. Your first calculation is free, and the adjusted cost base guide explains every rule the calculator applies, with worked examples you can check by hand.
Yes. Every ActiveACB account gets one free calculation with full results on screen, so you can check your own numbers before paying anything. Paid season access adds PDF and XLSX downloads, unlimited recalculations, and multi-file uploads. See pricing.
Book cost is a performance figure. It usually ignores superficial losses, return of capital, reinvested distributions, and trades in your other accounts, and the CRA says the cost figure on a T5008 may not reflect your adjusted cost base. The book cost vs ACB guide lists the eleven ways they diverge.
Yes. Return of capital reduces your ACB and a reinvested (phantom) distribution increases it. ActiveACB applies both from verified issuer data for more than 200 Canadian ETFs, and you can look any fund up in the ETF tax factor lookup.
Interactive Brokers (Flex Query XML), Questrade (Activity Report XLSX), and Wealthsimple (activity CSV) are parsed natively. RBC Direct Investing, TD Direct Investing, BMO InvestorLine, CIBC Investor's Edge, Scotia iTRADE, and any other broker work through the column mapper with a trade-history CSV or XLSX. The export guides show the exact steps for each broker.
Currently supported
Any other broker · via the column mapper
Map your file’s columns once and the engine runs the full calculation. See how it works, or send us a sample export and we’ll make sure the column mapper handles it.