Skip to main content
Drained.ca
Calculate

Waste · The full story

CEBA: $49.1B Lent, $18B Forgiven or Not Expected Back by Our Count, and $3.5B to Businesses That Did Not Qualify

CEBA lent about $49.1B to 898,000 small businesses; by March 2025, $18B had been forgiven or set aside as not expected back, and the Auditor General estimates $3.5B went to 77,160 recipients who did not qualify.

By Published Updated Tap any number for its source

See it in the full count of federal waste

CEBA: what was lent, and what is not expected back

  • Lent, 2020 and 2021$49.1B
  • Repaid, by March 2024$28.1B
  • Forgiven or not expected back, Mar 2025$18B
  • Lent to recipients who did not qualify (AG estimate)$3.5B

Auditor General, Report 8, 2024; Public Accounts of Canada 2025

Lent

$49.1B

To 898,000 small businesses and not-for-profits.

Not expected back

$18B

Forgiven, or set aside as not expected back (an estimate), to March 2025.

To the ineligible

$3.5B

The Auditor General’s estimate.

What happened

Forgiven by March 2024 (AG): $12.4B Lent, 2020 and 2021 (AG): $49.1BAreas to scale
  1. Mar 2020Ottawa announces interest-free loans to small businesses, with part forgiven if the rest is repaid on time. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  2. Apr 2020The payroll stream opens on 9 April. Export Development Canada pays out through partner financial institutions, relying on what applicants attest. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  3. Dec 2020The loan rises to $60,000, with up to $20,000 forgivable. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  4. Dec 2021Applications have closed: 898,000 loans, $49.1B. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024

  5. Where CEBA’s lending stood, 31 March 2024

    Auditor General, Report 8, 2024, paragraph 8.50

  6. Oct 2022EDC tells recipients it has confirmed ineligible to repay by the end of 2023. By March 2024, $1.1B of theirs is still unpaid. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  7. 18 Jan 2024The deadline to repay and keep the forgiveness. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  8. Mar 2024$28.1B repaid, $12.4B forgiven, $8.5B still owed. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  9. Aug 2024Only 16,000 defaulted loans have gone to the Canada Revenue Agency for collection. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  10. Dec 2024The Auditor General reports that Finance, Global Affairs and EDC did not manage CEBA “with due regard for value for money”. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  11. Mar 2025$7.8B still owed; $5.4B of it set aside as not expected back. Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume I, note 20

Forgiveness was built in. The checking came later.

Who decided

Eligibility · CEBA · 2020 and 2021

Recipients who met the rules
91%
Recipients who did not
77,160
Lent to them
$3.5B
Auditor General, Report 8, paragraph 8.19 and Exhibit 8.7
  1. The Department of Finance, which designed CEBA. set the terms: interest-free loans with up to $20,000 forgiven on repayment, run by Export Development Canada on the government’s account. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  2. Export Development Canada, which ran it. relied “on applicant attestations and other limited pre-payment controls”, and did no checking after payment on the stream for non-deferrable expenses, the Auditor General found. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  3. Export Development Canada, as buyer. paid 91% of its outside-vendor spending on CEBA to one firm, Accenture, through non-competitive contracts: $209M by March 2024. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  4. The Department of Finance, after the audit. disagreed with the Auditor General’s call to close the accountability and oversight gaps, including over what EDC spent to run it. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024

EDC leaned on what applicants said, and for one stream it did no checking after payment.

What the money bought

Running CEBA · the bill

Administration, all in
$853.0M
Paid to Accenture, without competition
$209M
Collection contract, to 2028
$78.4M
Auditor General, Report 8, key facts and paragraph 8.54

The loans were meant to cover payroll, rent, insurance and utilities. The Auditor General found the money went out in a timely way for that, and that about 91% of recipients qualified. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024

It also bought a bill to run it: $853.0M, most of it to the lenders and to EDC. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024

And a collection effort that runs to 2032-33, with a $78.4M contract for Accenture to collect the loans. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024

It bought speed. On average, the banks paid borrowers within weeks.

Their figure, and the full cost

Their first booking, against forgiveness and the allowance

  • Forgiveness booked as a cost, 2020-21$13.1B
  • Forgiven, Canada Account, to March 2025$12.6B
  • Set aside as not expected back, Mar 2025 (estimate)$5.4B
  • Forgiven or not expected back, our count$18B

Public Accounts of Canada 2021 and 2025

Their figureThe government’s figure: in 2020-21 it booked $13.1B as the expected cost of forgiveness, and carried the rest of CEBA as loans, money to come back.

The full costForgiveness came in close to that booking: $12.6B by March 2025. What the booking never held is the allowance: $5.4B of what is still owed, set aside as not expected back. Our count of the two: $18B, about 37% of the lending.

Forgiven or not expected back, Mar 2025: $18B Lent, 2020 and 2021: $49.1BAreas to scale
The bridge
  1. The loans sit on Ottawa’s books in Export Development Canada’s Canada Account, which EDC runs for the government. Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume I, Table 9.12
  2. Forgiven: $12.6B from 2020-21 to 2024-25, the whole Canada Account line in the Public Accounts’ records of debts forgiven. Its first four years match the Auditor General’s CEBA count. Public Accounts, debts forgiven, open data
  3. Still owed at 31 March 2025: $7.8B. Of it, $5.4B (69%) is set aside as not expected back, and $5.0B is in default. Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume I, note 20
  4. Left out: write-offs, $100.0M to March 2024 by the Auditor General’s count, and the $853.0M it cost to run. So $18B is a floor. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024

What the full measure cannot reach yet: how much forgiveness has been recovered from recipients who did not qualify, and the final loss once collection ends in 2032-33.

Their best case

What EDC and the Auditor General report

Ineligible applications its checks stopped
108,000
Their loan value
$5.5B
Repaid with partial forgiveness or written off, Mar 2024
83%
Auditor General, Report 8, 2024: EDC’s response and paragraph 8.50

Put as they would put it, in their own words.

  1. Export Development Canada, 2024. Its checks before funding stopped about 108,000 ineligible applications, worth about $5.5B, it told the Auditor General. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  2. The Auditor General, 2024. found the money went out in a timely way, that the checks on the payroll stream, which most recipients used, were “almost 100% accurate”, and that 83% of the money lent was “repaid with partial forgiveness or written off” by March 2024. That share and our count overlap: both hold the forgiven money. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  3. The Public Accounts, 2025. The loans were “provided to help these entities navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and remain resilient”. Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume I, note 20

Our read

CEBA: what was lent, and what is not expected back

  • Lent, 2020 and 2021$49.1B
  • Repaid, by March 2024$28.1B
  • Forgiven or not expected back, Mar 2025$18B
  • Lent to recipients who did not qualify (AG estimate)$3.5B

Auditor General, Report 8, 2024; Public Accounts of Canada 2025

The best case is real. CEBA was fast, about 91% of recipients qualified, and $28.1B of the $49.1B lent had been repaid by March 2024, by the Auditor General’s count.

But the first booking held only the forgiveness. Add what is set aside as not expected back and the count is $18B, against $13.1B booked at the start. Our read: Ottawa paid first and checked later, and for the non-deferrable stream it did no checking after payment.

Our read, too: $3.5B to recipients who did not qualify is not a rounding error. EDC agreed only in part: it would weigh ways to win the forgiveness back, but would find every ineligible recipient only if those ways proved viable.

Lent fast, checked late. 37% is forgiven or not expected back.

Still open

  • What the loss will finally be. The allowance is an estimate, and the Public Accounts warn of “limited historical experience” with these loans. Collection is expected to last until 2032-33, the Auditor General reports.
  • Forgiveness for those who did not qualify. The Auditor General asked EDC to work with Finance on ways to recoup it. EDC agreed in part, and both set 31 March 2025 to finish. That examination would show whether any came back.
Forgiven or not expected back, by our count: $18B

The next read

CEBA was the business side. The benefits paid to people tell the same story.

COVID benefits

The receipts

  1. Auditor General, Report 8, CEBA, Dec 2024
  2. Public Accounts of Canada 2021, Volume I, note 5
  3. Public Accounts, debts forgiven, open data
  4. Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume I, Table 9.12
  5. Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume I, note 20
  6. Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume I (PDF)
  7. EDC, Canada Account annual report 2024-25

What changed

  • PublishedPublished: the CEBA loans, what came back, and what is forgiven or not expected back.