Last checked: 2026-09-29
A card checkout is not, by itself, a CRA digital-economy category. This page names the Canada Revenue Agency glossary “Definitions under the digital-economy measures” (page details 2026-06-18), fetched 29 September 2026, together with the overview “GST/HST for digital-economy businesses”. It does not reprint a registration threshold, a tax rate, or a questionnaire answer. It is not tax, legal, or accounting advice. Recheck both CRA pages before you treat Stripe, PayPal, or a marketplace as the same kind of person.
The glossary says it gives plain-language explanations of terms used online and found in the Excise Tax Act, and that those explanations are not legal definitions. On that page, a digital platform includes a website, an electronic portal, a gateway, a store, a distribution platform, or a similar electronic interface. It does not include an electronic interface that solely processes payments. No platform or interface is currently prescribed as the other exclusion.
An excluded operator, in respect of a supply, includes a person that is solely a payment processor. It also includes a person that solely lists or advertises the property or service, or that solely redirects to a digital platform where the property or service is offered. A further excluded-operator test on the same page is a person that does not set the terms of the supply, is not involved in authorizing the charge, and is not involved in ordering or delivering the property or the service. This guide does not decide that any named checkout meets that three-part test. Recheck the glossary.
A distribution platform operator, in respect of a supply made through a specified distribution platform, is a person other than the supplier or an excluded operator. The glossary says that person either controls or sets the essential elements of the transaction, or, if nobody does that, is involved in collecting, receiving, or charging the consideration and transmitting all or part of it to the supplier. That is a marketplace-shaped role. It is not the same sentence as “an electronic interface that solely processes payments.”
Stripe Payment Links leave you as the merchant. That checkout does not, by itself, make the processor your distribution platform operator. A store that lists the product, sets the sale, and pays you later is answering a different glossary term. Payhip’s Canada sales-tax article describes Payhip as a digital platform operator from 1 July 2026; that claim is Payhip’s, on a different page, and it still does not answer whether you must register. The CRA overview says the digital-economy measures have been in effect as of 1 July 2021. The small-supplier tests for a Canadian resident selling their own download remain a separate question.
KeepCAD 2026 maps who is the merchant on a digital sale against who remits tax on the buyer’s purchase. The sales page keeps one Discover versus Stripe teaser. The rest of the tape is in the zip.
Sources: canada.ca “Definitions under the digital-economy measures” (page details 2026-06-18) and canada.ca “GST/HST for digital-economy businesses”, both fetched 29 September 2026. Recheck them. Not tax advice.