Is Selling Stuff on Facebook Marketplace Taxable?
The peer-to-peer page on Canada.ca is the platform-economy note for people who sell to other people. The capital-gains guide describes personal-use property as items you own mainly for your own or your family's use, such as furniture and household goods, and it says many of those sales do not produce a taxable gain because the items fell in value. A business is defined, on CRA's definitions page, as any business, adventure, or concern in the nature of trade. Regular selling for profit is the pattern that crosses the line. The filing once you are across it is side-hustle taxes. Whether the platform files a slip is the reporting rules.
- Occasional sales of your own household goods are generally personal-use property. A loss on ordinary household goods is not something you claim. A gain, if you actually have one, is reported. Most used furniture does not have one.
- Buying items to resell, or selling often enough that it is a trade, is business income. Report it. The peer-to-peer page points that income to a T2125 and line 26000.
- Being under the platform's excluded-seller line does not make the income non-taxable. It only affects whether the platform must report you.
- Omnisend's 2026 report says Facebook Marketplace leads among Canadian online sellers, at 53 percent. Popular is not the same as invisible to CRA.
A clean-out versus a shop
Use two questions. Did you buy or make the item to sell it? And is the selling regular, organized, and aimed at profit? One winter of clearing a basement, at a loss on things you used, is the first pattern. Weekly sourcing, a spreadsheet, and prices set to clear a margin is the second. CRA's peer-to-peer news note says residents report income from all sources, including peer-to-peer transactions. That sentence is about income. A personal item sold for less than you paid is usually not income. Do not "report" a garage sale as a business loss to manufacture a deduction. The capital-gains guide says a loss on personal-use property is generally not claimable.
What to keep if you are unsure
Keep the listing, the payment, and what the item cost you if you still know. If the year starts to look like a shop, move it onto a T2125 and read the side-hustle tax article for GST/HST. If you are only clearing personal goods, you do not need a business number for the couch. You also do not need to describe the couch as a sole proprietorship on the advice of a video. The definitions page and the capital-gains guide are the two pages to sit with when a year is mixed: some personal, some bought to flip. Split them. Do not average them into one vague total.
Reselling as the actual plan is the flipping article. Delivery driving is a different tax file: rideshare and delivery.
Frequently asked questions
I sold $2,000 of old furniture. Do I owe tax?
If it was yours, you used it, and you sold it for less than it cost, there is usually no income and no claimable loss. If you bought it to resell, the profit is business income even if the total feels small. The dollars are not the test. The purpose is.
Does Marketplace send a slip to CRA?
Platforms have reporting rules, with an excluded-seller test for goods: fewer than 30 sales and $2,800 or less in the reporting period. That test is about the platform's report. It is not a rule that your profit is tax-free. Read the reporting article before you rely on the threshold.
What if I sell often but only my own things?
Frequency is a fact CRA looks at, along with whether you are in the nature of trade. A one-time move is an easier story than a standing shop of "my old stuff" that you keep replenishing. If you are replenishing, you are in business. Say so on the return.
Sources
- CRA: peer-to-peer sales in the platform economy
- CRA: capital gains, personal-use property
- CRA: definition of a business
- Omnisend side hustles report 2026
