Yes, dietitian fees paid in Ontario count as an eligible medical expense with the CRA. Here is how the credit actually works, the threshold that catches people out, what insurance reimbursement does to your claim, and how much it realistically gives back.
Yes. Fees you pay a Registered Dietitian in Ontario can be claimed as an eligible medical expense on your Canadian tax return. The Canada Revenue Agency publishes a list of authorized medical practitioners for the purposes of the medical expense tax credit, and dietitian appears on that list with a yes beside Ontario. I checked that page on 2026-08-07, along with the CRA's guidance for lines 33099 and 33199 and the CRA's income tax folio S1-F1-C1 on the medical expense tax credit, and everything below reflects what those sources said on that date. There is an important catch, and it is the reason so many people come away confused. This is a tax credit, not a deduction, and it only starts to do anything once your total medical expenses pass a threshold based on your income. So the honest answer is yes, it counts, and no, it is usually not the thing that makes care affordable on its own. Reviewed by Lauren Hofstee, RD, on 2026-08-07. This is general information, not individualized medical or nutrition advice, and it is not a substitute for medical monitoring. It is also not tax advice, and I am not an accountant. For anything specific to your return, ask a tax professional or the CRA directly.
Nobody searches for this because they enjoy tax trivia. People search for it at the exact moment they are trying to work out whether they can actually do this. They have found someone they might want to work with, they have seen a fee, they have done the mental arithmetic on how many sessions that is, and they are looking for anything that brings the number down. I would rather answer that question honestly than sell you on a tax break that turns out to be smaller than you hoped. Getting support with food should not require you to become an expert in the Income Tax Act first, and it should not depend on a credit you will not see until next spring. So this page does two things. It explains the tax piece properly, with the real rules and real numbers. And it points you toward the things that change affordability more than the credit does, which are usually your extended health coverage, session frequency, and whether a publicly funded option fits your situation.
The CRA maintains a page called authorized medical practitioners for the purposes of the medical expense tax credit. It is a table of professions down one side and provinces and territories across the top. When I checked it on 2026-08-07, the row for dietitian showed yes for Ontario, along with most other provinces. That is what makes the fee eligible. The rule behind it, set out in the folio, is that whether someone counts as an authorized practitioner depends on the laws of the jurisdiction where the service is given. In Ontario, dietitians are a regulated health profession, and the title Registered Dietitian is protected. That is exactly why the profession appears on the CRA's list for this province. One practical implication for virtual care. Because eligibility follows the jurisdiction where the service is provided, working by video with a dietitian who is registered in Ontario, while you are in Ontario, is straightforward. I am registered with the College of Dietitians of Ontario and I work with people across the province, and you can check any dietitian's registration on the College's public register before you pay anyone anything.
This is the single biggest source of disappointment, so it is worth being clear. A deduction reduces the income you are taxed on. A credit reduces the tax you owe, by a set percentage of the eligible amount. The medical expense tax credit is a non refundable credit, and the folio explains that it is calculated using the lowest federal tax rate, which has been 15 percent for years after 2006. So for every hundred dollars of eligible expense that actually makes it into the claim, you are looking at roughly fifteen dollars off your federal tax, plus a provincial amount claimed separately on line 58689 of Form ON428. Non refundable matters too. The credit can bring your tax owing down, but it will not create a refund on its own if you owe nothing to begin with. If your income is low enough that you already pay no federal tax, this credit does nothing for you, which feels unfair and is worth knowing before you build a budget around it. There is a separate refundable amount for some lower income working people, and I come back to that further down. Now the part people miss. You do not claim your medical expenses from the first dollar. You claim the amount by which your total eligible expenses exceed a threshold, and the threshold is the lesser of two figures. The CRA's guidance for line 33099, checked on 2026-08-07, gives those two figures for the 2025 tax year as 3 percent of your net income from line 23600, or 2,834 dollars. You use whichever is smaller. So if your net income is 50,000 dollars, 3 percent is 1,500 dollars, which is less than 2,834, and 1,500 is your threshold. Only expenses above that go into the claim. If you spent 1,200 dollars on dietitian sessions in the year and had no other medical expenses, you would be under the threshold and the claim would come to nothing. If you spent 2,400 dollars, the amount entering the claim is 900 dollars, and the federal credit at 15 percent is about 135 dollars. That is real money and worth claiming. It is also not the thing that decides whether you can afford care. This is why the threshold is the first thing I mention rather than the last.
Because of the threshold, the credit rewards totalling rather than itemising one line. Dietitian fees sit alongside all your other eligible medical expenses for the same period, and for a lot of people it is the pile together that clears the bar, not any single item. The CRA publishes a list of common medical expenses that says whether each one is eligible and whether you need supporting documents. Prescription medication, dental work, eyeglasses and contact lenses, and fees paid to other authorized practitioners commonly appear in these totals, and the CRA's authorized practitioner table also shows yes for Ontario for psychologists, psychological associates and social workers, which matters if your care team includes therapy as well as nutrition. Premiums you pay yourself for private health coverage can also come into it in some situations. Rather than guess from a blog, including this one, read the CRA's own list of common medical expenses for the year you are filing, or hand your receipts to whoever prepares your return and let them sort it. My point is narrower: keep the receipts, including the ones that feel too small to bother with.
Most people assume the claim runs January to December. It does not have to. The CRA's line 33099 guidance says you can claim expenses paid in any twelve month period ending in the tax year, as long as you did not already claim them the previous year. That flexibility is genuinely useful for care that starts partway through a year. If you began working with a dietitian in September and are continuing into the spring, a twelve month window ending in the later tax year can capture both stretches in one claim instead of splitting them across two returns and falling under the threshold twice. There is no need to be clever about it in the moment. Just keep dated receipts and let the person preparing your return choose the window. The rule to hold onto is simply that expenses go into one claim only, once, and the twelve months must end in the year you are filing for.
If your extended health plan reimbursed part of a session fee, that reimbursed part is not yours to claim. The CRA's guidance is explicit that you can only claim the part of an expense that you have not been and will not be reimbursed for. The exception it gives is where the reimbursement was included in your income, for example as a taxable benefit shown on a T4, and was not deducted elsewhere on the return. So if a dietitian session costs 150 dollars and your plan pays back 120, the amount that can go toward the medical expense credit is the 30 dollars you actually carried, not the full 150. The same logic applies to amounts paid out of a health spending account funded by an employer. This is not a reason to skip claiming, and it is not a reason to skip using your coverage. Insurance reimbursement is almost always worth far more than the credit on the leftover portion. It just means the two do not stack the way people sometimes hope. If you are still working out what your plan covers, what a dietitian costs in Ontario walks through session fees, coverage questions worth asking your insurer, and the lower cost and no cost routes that exist in this province.
Medical expenses for you, your spouse or common law partner, and your children under 18 are combined and claimed on line 33099, and expenses for certain other dependants go on line 33199 with the threshold calculated using that dependant's net income. The CRA includes a tax tip on the same page worth acting on: compare what each of you could claim, because it is often better for the spouse or common law partner with the lower net income to make the claim. The reason is the threshold. Three percent of a smaller income is a smaller bar to clear, so more of the total makes it into the credit. If you are supporting an adult child or another dependant through eating disorder care, or paying for a teenager's sessions, the dependant rules are where to look, and this is a good example of a five minute question for a tax preparer that can be worth more than an hour of reading.
The folio is specific about this, and it is easy to get right if you know in advance. A receipt should show the purpose of the payment, the date it was paid, the patient the payment was made for, and the practitioner who gave the service. It also states plainly that a cancelled cheque is not an acceptable substitute for a proper receipt, and that proof of payment may be requested in addition to receipts. In practice, any properly issued receipt from a private practice dietitian in Ontario will carry the client name, the date, the service, the amount, and the dietitian's name and registration details. If yours does not, ask for a corrected one. It is a routine request and nobody minds. Keep them somewhere you will find them in April, because the credit is claimed on your return rather than filed with it, and the CRA can ask for the documentation later.
The main medical expense credit is non refundable, which limits how much help it is to someone with little or no tax owing. There is a second, separate amount described in the CRA's folio, the refundable medical expense supplement under section 122.51 of the Income Tax Act, aimed at people with lower incomes who have significant eligible medical expenses and some employment or self employment income. Refundable means it can come back to you even if you owe no tax. It has its own eligibility rules and its own calculation, and I am not going to reproduce them here because they change with indexation and because getting it wrong on a page like this would be worse than not mentioning it. What I would say is this. If money is tight and you are paying out of pocket for care, tell whoever prepares your return that you have medical expenses, and ask specifically about the refundable supplement. Free tax clinics run in many Ontario communities and can handle exactly this kind of question.
If you came here hoping the tax credit would close a gap, I want to be useful rather than tidy about it. The things that change affordability most, in the order I usually see them matter, are these. Whether your extended health plan covers a Registered Dietitian, and how much per year, because that is often several hundred dollars and sometimes more. Whether you can space sessions out, since fewer, well spaced sessions with work happening in between is a legitimate way to work and not a lesser version of care. Whether a publicly funded option fits, because Family Health Teams, Community Health Centres and some hospital programs in Ontario offer dietitian care at no charge to the person receiving it, and eating disorder programs exist across the province. And whether the person you are considering will talk to you honestly about all of the above before you book. You can read about how I work on the about page, and if a hospital or community program is likely the better fit for you, Ontario eating disorder support lays out what exists and how people get in. If video sessions are new to you, virtual nutrition counselling in Ontario covers how they actually run.
So, to gather it up. Dietitian fees paid in Ontario are an eligible medical expense with the CRA, confirmed on the CRA's own authorized practitioners list as of 2026-08-07. The credit is worth roughly 15 percent federally on the amount above your threshold, plus a provincial amount, and your threshold is the lesser of 3 percent of net income or 2,834 dollars for the 2025 tax year. Only what you were not reimbursed for counts. Keep dated receipts that name you, the service and the dietitian, consider a twelve month window that captures your whole stretch of care, and let the lower income spouse claim if that applies. Do all of that and you will get back something real, and probably less than you hoped. If the fee itself is the thing you are trying to solve, that is a conversation rather than a calculation. I offer a free intro call, and you are welcome to use it to ask about cost, coverage, spacing and whether a publicly funded program would serve you better than I would. There is no pressure in it, nothing to prepare, and if I am not the right fit I will tell you so and point you somewhere that is.
They are claimable, though credit is the more accurate word than deduction. The CRA lists dietitian as an authorized medical practitioner for the purposes of the medical expense tax credit, with a yes beside Ontario, checked on 2026-08-07. That makes the fee an eligible medical expense rather than a deduction from income. The medical expense tax credit is non refundable and calculated using the lowest federal tax rate, 15 percent for years after 2006 according to CRA folio S1-F1-C1, applied to the amount by which your eligible expenses exceed your threshold. A provincial amount is claimed separately on line 58689 of Form ON428.
Roughly 15 percent federally, plus a provincial amount, on the portion above your threshold rather than on everything you spent. For the 2025 tax year the threshold is the lesser of 3 percent of your net income or 2,834 dollars, per CRA guidance for line 33099 checked on 2026-08-07. A worked example: with net income of 50,000 dollars, the threshold is 1,500 dollars. If your total eligible medical expenses for the period are 2,400 dollars, the claim is 900 dollars, and the federal credit is about 135 dollars. If your total is below 1,500 dollars, the claim comes to nothing.
Only the part you were not reimbursed for. CRA guidance states you can claim just the portion of an expense that you have not been and will not be reimbursed for, with an exception where the reimbursement was included in your income, such as a taxable benefit on a T4, and was not deducted elsewhere on your return. So if a 150 dollar session was reimbursed at 120 dollars, the 30 dollars you carried is what can go toward the credit. Using your coverage is still almost always worth more than the credit on the remainder.
One that shows the purpose of the payment, the date it was paid, who the patient was, and the practitioner who provided the service. CRA folio S1-F1-C1 sets out those requirements and notes that a cancelled cheque is not an acceptable substitute for a proper receipt, and that proof of payment may also be requested. Any properly issued receipt from an Ontario private practice will include the dietitian's name and registration details. If yours is missing something, ask for a corrected copy. It is a routine request.
Not for eligibility, as long as the dietitian is registered where the service is provided. CRA folio S1-F1-C1 explains that whether someone is an authorized practitioner is determined by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the service is rendered. Dietitians are a regulated profession in Ontario and dietitian shows as yes for Ontario on the CRA's authorized practitioners table, checked on 2026-08-07. You can confirm any dietitian's standing on the public register kept by the College of Dietitians of Ontario before you pay for anything.
Often yes, though the mechanics differ. Expenses for you, your spouse or common law partner and children under 18 are combined on line 33099. Expenses for certain other dependants are claimed on line 33199, with the threshold worked out from that dependant's net income. CRA guidance for those lines, checked on 2026-08-07, also suggests comparing spouses and having the one with the lower net income claim, since 3 percent of a smaller income is a smaller threshold to clear. If your family situation is at all complicated, this is a good question for a tax preparer rather than a website.
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