IFRS 16, effective for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2019, fundamentally changed lease accounting for lessees reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards, including all publicly listed Canadian issuers. The standard eliminated the distinction between operating and finance leases for lessees and replaced it with a single on-balance-sheet model: lessees must recognize a right-of-use asset and a corresponding lease liability for essentially every lease with a term longer than twelve months. The practical effect for tenants with significant commercial real estate footprints was a material increase in reported assets, liabilities, and leverage ratios compared to pre-IFRS 16 reporting.
The initial measurement of the lease liability is the present value of future lease payments discounted at the rate implicit in the lease, or, if that rate cannot be readily determined, at the lessee's incremental borrowing rate. The incremental borrowing rate is what the lessee would have to pay to borrow, on a collateralized basis, over a similar term, the amount necessary to obtain an asset of similar value in a similar economic environment. The right-of-use asset is initially measured at the same amount as the liability, adjusted for any prepayments, initial direct costs, and estimated dismantling or restoration costs.
Subsequent measurement is mechanical. The lease liability accretes interest and is reduced by cash payments, while the right-of-use asset is amortized on a straight-line basis over the shorter of the lease term or the asset's useful life. The resulting income statement pattern is front-loaded: interest expense is higher in early years and declines, while amortization is constant, so total expense is highest at the beginning of the lease and declines over time. This is a material difference from legacy IAS 17 operating lease accounting, which recognized straight-line rent expense, and it also affects reported EBITDA — interest expense sits below the EBITDA line, so reported EBITDA under IFRS 16 is higher than it was under IAS 17.
Two important practical exemptions reduce the burden. Short-term leases (twelve months or less with no purchase option) and leases of low-value underlying assets (think office furniture, tablets, small equipment) can be kept off balance sheet with straight-line expense recognition. Variable lease payments that depend on an index or rate are included in the liability, but payments linked to sales or usage are generally expensed as incurred. IFRS 16 also requires detailed disclosures, including a maturity analysis of lease payments and qualitative information about the entity's leasing activity. For a commercial real estate tenant, the transition to IFRS 16 often required months of lease abstraction work before the first reporting period under the new standard.
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