Form 13A in Ontario is the Certificate of Financial Disclosure you prepare for family court to confirm that you have given the other party the financial documents backing up your Financial Statement. It works as a signed checklist: each document you handed over is listed by description and date, and your signature at the bottom certifies the list is accurate. Rule 13 of the Family Law Rules (O. Reg. 114/99) governs the form, and you complete it after your Financial Statement (Form 13 or Form 13.1) and the supporting documents are ready to go.
When You Need to Prepare One
You need a Certificate of Financial Disclosure any time your case involves a claim for child support, spousal support, or equalization of net family property under Part I of the Family Law Act. It is also required on a motion to change an existing support order or support agreement.
Form 13A does not stand on its own. It travels with the financial documents it lists, and its job is to tell the court you actually delivered those documents to the other side. If you update your Financial Statement later in the case, before a settlement conference or trial management conference, you prepare and serve a fresh Form 13A listing anything new or corrected.
What Documents Go on the Checklist
The documents you have to gather depend on whether the case is support only or also includes a property claim. Rule 13 sets separate lists for each.
Support-Only Cases
For a support claim, you serve the income and financial information required by subsection 21(1) of the Federal Child Support Guidelines along with your Financial Statement. In practice that means your personal income tax returns and notices of assessment or reassessment for the three most recent taxation years, plus proof of current income — recent pay stubs if you are employed, or profit-and-loss statements if you are self-employed. If you lost a job within the past three years, include your Record of Employment or other proof of termination and a statement of any ongoing benefits from the former employer. If you are claiming special or extraordinary expenses for a child, include receipts or other proof of the costs.
Property Claims
When your case includes equalization of net family property, the disclosure list grows. Within 30 days after your Financial Statement was due, you must serve the following:
- The statement issued closest to the valuation date for every bank account, pension, RRSP, and other savings or investment you held on that date.
- A copy of any application you made to obtain a valuation of your pension benefits as of the valuation date.
- The MPAC assessment for any Ontario real estate in which you had an interest on the valuation date, for the year the valuation date falls in.
- A statement showing the face amount, cash surrender value, and named beneficiary of any life insurance policy you owned on the valuation date.
- If you are a sole proprietor or self-employed, financial statements for the business and your personal income tax returns, with all filed materials, for each of the three years before the valuation date.
- If you hold a partnership interest, the partnership agreement plus your personal tax returns and the partnership’s financial statements for each of the three years before the valuation date.
- If you hold shares in a privately held corporation, the corporate financial statements and tax returns for the relevant period.
Redact Before You Serve
Before any financial document leaves your hands, black out account numbers and other sensitive identifiers. That includes Social Insurance Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and account numbers for mortgages, lines of credit, and other loans. The court requires the redaction to keep this data out of an openly accessible file.
Filling Out the Form
Download the fillable Word version or the PDF from the Ontario Court Forms website under the Family Law Rules Forms section. Both are free. Start with the header: court name, court file number, and the parties’ names exactly as they appear on the originating application.
The body of the form has three parts, and you only complete the ones that match the claims in your case:
- Part A covers your sources of income, from tax returns and employment income through self-employment, partnership, corporate, trust, pension, support, benefit, investment, and rental income.
- Part B covers special and extraordinary expenses claimed under section 7 of the Federal Child Support Guidelines, such as childcare, health insurance premiums, and educational expenses.
- Part C covers equalization of net family property — assets and liabilities at the valuation date, and assets, liabilities, and excluded property at the date of marriage.
Each section has a table with columns for document number, document description, and date of the document. For every document you served, add a row with a short description and the date on the document itself. A support-only case will leave Part C blank.
At the bottom, you sign a certification that you have provided the listed documents to the other party. Unlike the Financial Statement, Form 13A does not have to be sworn in front of a commissioner. Your signature alone finishes it.
Serving and Filing
Serve Form 13A together with the financial documents it lists. In a support-only case, that goes out at the same time as the Financial Statement. In a property case, you have up to 30 days after the Financial Statement was due to serve the supporting documents and the certificate.
How to Serve It
Regular service under the Family Law Rules allows any of the following:
- Mail to the other party’s lawyer, or to the party directly if they are self-represented
- Same-day or next-day courier
- Fax
- Deposit at a document exchange
- Electronic document exchange, with the other party’s consent or on a court order
Keep proof of how and when you served the documents. You will need it if the other side later denies receiving them.
Deadlines Before a Conference
Once served, Form 13A has to be filed with the court before your next conference. Rule 13(5.0.2) sets different deadlines depending on your role:
- If you are the applicant or moving party, file at least six days before the case conference.
- If you are the respondent or other party, file at least four days before the case conference.
Where to File
You can file online or in person at the courthouse. Ontario currently uses two online portals. For the Toronto region, use the Ontario Courts Public Portal at courts.ontario.ca, which as of October 2025 replaced the Family Submissions Online portal for Toronto-area courthouses. For every other region, use the Family Submissions Online portal through the Justice Services Online website. If you file in person, bring the original for the court file.
What Happens If You Do Not Disclose
Rule 13(17) gives the court direct authority when a party misses a required disclosure. The court can order you to provide the documents, and when it does, it must also order you to pay the other side’s costs. Rule 1(8.1) adds broader powers for non-compliance, including striking out documents you have filed or drawing negative inferences from what is missing.
Incomplete disclosure can also stall the case itself. A judge may refuse to run a case conference or settlement conference until your disclosure obligations are met, which pushes your matter further down the calendar. If the other party can show that information was deliberately withheld, consequences escalate, up to a possible contempt finding. The checklist on Form 13A is only as useful as the disclosure behind it, and a judge who sees a mismatch between the two will remember it.