Quick answer: Tithe on gross income if you can. Gross giving honours the first-fruits principle: you give off the top, before CRA, CPP, and EI take their share. Tithing on net is not sin, and God is not auditing your percentage. Pick the number that lets you give with a clear conscience and a glad heart, then start. In Canada your church receipts earn a donation credit either way, which lowers the real cost of giving from gross.
You have looked at your paycheque and wondered whether to tithe on gross or net income. The gross number is one thing. The figure that actually lands in your bank account is a good deal smaller after CRA, CPP, and EI have pulled their share. Somewhere in the back of your mind you have wondered: which of these is the 10% supposed to come from?
It is a fair question. It is also, I think, a question that reveals more than a math problem. How you carry it says something about where you are standing when you come to God with your wallet open.
Stay with me here.
I have sat with this question myself, and I have heard some version of it from more men than I can count, usually with an apology attached. There is a specific kind of shame that comes with what feels like a stingy question about something sacred, and the man who asks it is usually the one trying hardest to get this right.
Most of what gets written on the topic is either triumphalist ("tithe on gross and God will bless you even more") or lawyerly ("your CPP contributions go to your future self, so technically..."). One is selling him something. The other is helping him wriggle out of something. Getting to an honest answer means asking a different question first.
See the actual numbers: Use the Wise and Faithful Tithe Calculator to compare gross vs net, with CPP, EI, RRSP, and your province factored in. To see the after-tax cost once the CRA's charitable credit is applied, run the same number through the charitable giving calculator.
Does the Bible Actually Say Gross or Net?
The Bible never uses the terms "gross income" or "net income." That distinction is a product of modern payroll, which did not exist in ancient Israel, so anyone who tells you Scripture settles this in either direction is importing a contemporary question into an ancient text.
What Scripture does say is worth reading carefully. Proverbs 3:9 says: "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops." The firstfruits principle runs consistently through the Old Testament. You give off the top, before you have worked out your own portion and long before you know whether the rest of the harvest will even come in. What Scripture is teaching here is sequence, and underneath that, trust.
In an agricultural economy, giving firstfruits was an act of faith. You gave before you knew whether prices would hold or whether the yield would even cover what it cost you to grow it. Apply that to a modern paycheque: the gross is what God provided through your labour, and the tax, CPP, and EI deductions are claims on that provision that settle afterward. Firstfruits points toward honouring God with what He gave before those claims are calculated.
That is the biblical case for tithing on gross income, and it is the stronger case.
It is also the one we landed on in our house, and the reason was not exegesis. Firstfruits simply felt more faithful. The conviction that settled it was personal: I could feel myself trying to weasel my way out, negotiating terms with God in the vocabulary of stewardship. So I defaulted to the more sacrificial thing.
Related: What Does the Bible Say About Money
The Case for Net Deserves a Fair Hearing
The argument for tithing on net carries genuine theological weight, and it deserves a hearing before we dismiss it.
It runs like this. You never actually received the gross amount. It went to the government before you ever touched it, and you cannot give what you did not receive. Your actual material provision, the money God placed in your hands to steward, is the net. CPP contributions in particular are your own deferred income, accruing toward your retirement, so tithing on them might mean you tithe on that money twice: once now, and again when you draw the benefit.
All of that carries real weight in Canada, where the gap between the two numbers is wide. The net argument is honest. I do want to name what I think is happening in most of us when we reach for it.
Why This Question Is Rarely About the Math
Behind every financial question is a deeper question about what we actually trust and what we are actually afraid of. The math stops here.
Most men who wrestle with gross versus net are afraid. They are looking at the mortgage and the daycare costs, and the mental math is not working out the way they hoped. Underneath the theological question is a hope that the right framework will solve the anxiety.
You cannot tithe your way out of fear. A man can give on gross and still lie awake terrified about money. Another gives on net with a glad heart and sleeps fine. What is happening in your chest when you run the calculation will outlast the calculation. If fear or shame around money is the real weight here, the gospel is the first place to take it.
The year my wife was on maternity leave, the number we gave got noticeably smaller. We tithed on her monthly leave payments, so the dollar amount dropped while the practice carried straight on. If you take one thing from this article, take that: you decide the percentage once, and then you let the amount be whatever your life is doing that year.
2 Corinthians 9:7 is hard to get around here: "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." Paul steps right past the gross versus net question and speaks entirely about the posture the giving comes from.
The word translated "cheerful" in the Greek is hilaros, which is where we get the English word "hilarious." God loves a hilarious giver. Someone who finds real delight in the act because the act expresses something true about who they believe God to be. No man arrives at that kind of delight by working out the smallest amount he can justify handing over. That delight tends to find the man who has been so undone by what he himself received that giving feels like a response.
How Big Is the Gap in Canada, Really?
Two approximate scenarios, using 2026 figures for an Ontario resident.
Scenario A: $65,000 gross income
After federal and Ontario provincial tax, CPP employee contributions (5.95% on earnings above the $3,500 exemption, about $3,660 at this salary in 2026), and EI premiums (1.63% of insurable earnings, about $1,060 here), take-home pay lands at roughly $50,600. 10% of gross is $6,500. 10% of net is approximately $5,050. The difference is roughly $1,450 a year, or about $120 a month.
Scenario B: $100,000 gross income
At this income you hit both 2026 ceilings: the CPP employee maximum of $4,646.45 (including the second-tier CPP2 contribution on earnings between $74,600 and $85,000) and the EI maximum of $1,123.07. Net take-home in Ontario lands at roughly $74,200. 10% of gross is $10,000. 10% of net is approximately $7,400. The difference is about $2,600 a year.
That is a real decision, made at a kitchen table by two tired people. A vague appeal to generosity that never grapples with what generosity costs is no answer at all.
One thing worth knowing before you decide: the extra giving is cheaper than it looks. In Ontario, every dollar of donation above the first $200 earns a combined federal and provincial credit of roughly 40%. On the $65,000 salary above, the extra $1,450 a year that gross giving costs you comes back to about $860 out of pocket once you file. The theology is still yours to settle. But the number you have been afraid of is smaller than the one on the page.
Related: The Complete Canadian Guide to Tithing
Why Malachi 3:10 Keeps Turning Up Here
Malachi 3:10 is the most weaponized verse in this conversation: "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse... and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it." For decades it has been used to promise that if you tithe on gross, God will send more money back.
Read in context, God is confronting a covenant people who had gone faithless in the basic acts of worship, bringing blind and lame animals to the altar. The test He extends is a call back to covenant fidelity, and the blessings are covenant blessings for Israel as a nation. I have made the longer case against that reading in The Prosperity Gospel Is a Lie.
It matters here for one practical reason. If you are choosing gross because you expect a return on it, you are making an investment, and it will not pay like one.
What I Would Do, Depending on How You Are Paid
My recommendation, offered as wisdom with some Canadian specificity built into it. None of it is law.
If you are a salaried employee with predictable income, tithe on your gross. The calculation is straightforward, and the act of giving before you work out your own needs is precisely the posture of trust the principle is meant to form in you over time.
If you are self-employed, freelance, or on commission, tithe on net profit after genuine business expenses, before personal income tax. This reflects the agricultural model, where the tithe came off the yield after the costs of producing it. Tithing on revenue in a capital-intensive business would produce a tithe that exceeds your actual income in any year with heavy costs.
A specific note on CPP. If you tithe on gross now, including your CPP contributions, that money has technically been tithed already. I hold no hard biblical conviction here, and I will tell you my own lean anyway: I would give on it again when it lands, because money arriving in your account is worth giving back on. That is a feeling, not a rule, and the same one guides the parallel question of whether to tithe on RRSP withdrawals.
What about giving beyond 10%? In Scripture the tithe is a floor to build from. As your income grows and your margin expands, ask whether God is calling you past it. What does a good life look like for you, honestly? Generosity belongs inside that answer.
The shape of the practice will outlast the precise calculation you land on. Give first, keep giving, and let the number move as your margin does. Plenty of men settle on a figure at twenty-five and never look at it again.
Related: The Christian Budgeting Guide for Canadians
Wherever you land on the percentage, the placement is the same. Giving is move 1 on the Steward's Map, the eight moves I teach in order. It goes first so that everything after it is decided against a number you have already given away.
Common Questions About Tithing on Gross or Net
Does Canada Revenue Agency treat charitable donations differently based on how I calculate my tithe?
The CRA has no opinion on your tithing calculation. Donations to registered Canadian charities qualify for the federal charitable donation tax credit either way. Donations up to $200 CAD earn a 14% federal credit in 2026, down from 15% after the lowest federal bracket rate was reduced. Amounts above $200 earn a 29% federal credit, or 33% if your income puts you in the top federal bracket, and every province adds its own credit on top. The CRA's guidance on claiming charitable tax credits is the authoritative reference. Keep your official donation receipts, and note that the tax software you use affects how much of that credit you actually capture.
What if I genuinely cannot afford to tithe right now?
This deserves a straight answer. Here it is. If your household is in financial crisis, carrying high-interest debt, or unable to meet basic needs, give something, even if it is well below 10%. God is not auditing your percentage during a season of difficulty. 2 Corinthians 8:12 is clear: "For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have." Build the habit and increase as your situation stabilizes. See also Can you tithe when you don't have much? for a fuller pastoral treatment.
Should a self-employed Canadian tithe on revenue or profit?
Profit after genuine business expenses. Revenue is not income. A contractor who bills $150,000 CAD and spends $70,000 on materials and subcontractors has earned $80,000. Tithing on gross revenue would produce a tithe that exceeds actual income in years with significant costs. Track your expenses carefully, and tithe on what you actually received.
One Thing You Can Do Tonight
Pull up your last three months of income. Calculate 10% of gross. Then calculate 10% of net. Look at the actual dollar difference, and then at what it costs after the donation credit comes off. Then ask yourself honestly: is the reason I lean toward net the theological argument, or is it the number?
What Is Harder Than the Calculation
Gross income, where it is practically possible, is the more faithful posture to give from. There is no sin in giving on net when it is done with genuine cheerfulness and intention. Whichever you land on, the tithe itself belongs to your local church first, and the giving beyond it can go wherever God leads you.
Writing the cheque is the hard part. Consistently. Year after year. Even when every line item is pushing back.
Most of us held back from generosity because we were afraid, and then went looking for a framework that would make the fear sound like theology. Afraid there would not be enough to go around, afraid we were already behind where we should be. That fear is real and it is human. It is also a statement about who we believe is actually in charge of our provision.
So before you settle this: are you being legalistic about 10%? Is a percent or two either way worth turning into a theological argument with the God who gave you all of it?
This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or tax advice. Consult a qualified Canadian financial professional before making any financial decisions.
Free: The Steward’s Map
Working out your giving? It is move 1 of 8, and move 8 is where the whole thing was headed.
The Steward's Map puts eight money moves in order on one page. Leave your email and I'll send the map with its fill-in worksheet, then The Steward's Weekly every Thursday morning.
