The Canada Dental Benefit (CDB) is a temporary measure to provide direct, up-front, tax-free payments to help cover out-of-pocket dental care expenses for children under 12 years of age who do not have access to private dental insurance and whose family income is less than $90,000 a year. The CDB provides payments of up to $650 for each eligible under 12 years of age, each year for two years. Parents and guardians can apply for the CDB if their child is under 12 years of age on December 1, 2022.Payments will be administered by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The CRA will use adjusted income to determine eligibility and the amount of benefit you will receive. You need to have filed the previous year’s taxes to be eligible.

The benefit will provide:

• $650 for each eligible child per year if the family’s adjusted income is under $70,000.
• $390 for each eligible child per year if the family’s adjusted income is between $70,000 and $79,999.
• $260 for each eligible child per year if the family’s adjusted income is between $80,000 and $89,999.

The CDB is only available for two periods. The first benefit period covers dental care your eligible child received between October 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023. The second benefit period runs from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024 and opens for registration on July 1, 2023.

You can apply to get the payment for each period per eligible child to a maximum of two payments provided you incur out-of-pocket expenses for dental care in each period. The start date for the first benefit period is December 1, 2022.