RRSP Home Buyers' Plan (HBP) Calculator

The Rules

The limit is $60,000 per person, raised from $35,000 for withdrawals made after April 16, 2024, so a couple can take $120,000 between them. You count as a first-time buyer if you did not live in a home you or your spouse owned in the current year or the four calendar years before it; the plan also opens to someone who has separated from a spouse or common-law partner in the last four years. The money must have been in the RRSP for 90 days before the withdrawal, so a last-minute contribution for the refund does not work, and you must buy or build the home by October 1 of the year after the withdrawal and move in within a year of that.

Repayment runs over 15 years, a fifteenth of the withdrawal each year, starting in the second year after the withdrawal: taken out in 2026, the first repayment is due for 2028 and the last for 2042. Withdrawals made from 2022 to 2025 were given three more years before the first repayment. A repayment is an RRSP contribution you designate as such on your tax return; it uses no contribution room and gives no deduction. Any year you repay less than the amount due, the shortfall is added to your income for the year and taxed at your marginal rate, which is the cost the calculator shows for a missed year. You can repay faster at any time.

Home Buyers' Plan or FHSA: Which First

Since 2023 a first-time buyer can use both on the same home. The FHSA is the better source for every dollar it holds: the withdrawal is tax-free and is never repaid, so it is taken first above. The RRSP comes next, because the plan's withdrawal is also tax-free but every dollar has to go back in over 15 years, and the money is out of the market for as long as it takes to repay. Savings outside both come last, unless they are in a TFSA you would rather keep for emergencies. Our FHSA planner works out how much the account can hold by the time you buy, and the FHSA guide compares the two accounts in full.

Is the Plan Worth Using

The withdrawal is an interest-free loan from your own retirement savings: what it costs is the growth the money would have earned in the RRSP while it is out, which is usually less than the interest on a larger mortgage or the mortgage insurance a smaller down payment brings. Taking the full amount and reaching 20% down avoids the insurance premium altogether, and each 5% step below that moves the premium down a tier, which our down payment calculator shows by price. The plan makes less sense when the repayments would crowd out new RRSP or FHSA contributions, since those carry a deduction and the repayments do not.