FHSA Savings and Contribution Room Calculator Canada 2026

The First Home Savings Account is a registered account for first-time buyers that combines the best half of each of the other accounts. Contributions are deductible from your income like an RRSP, and a qualifying withdrawal for a first home comes out completely tax-free like a TFSA, growth included. That is why, when a first home is the goal, it usually gets funded before a TFSA or an RRSP. It launched in 2023, so nobody has room from earlier years.

$8,000 per year and $40,000 over the lifetime of the account. Unused annual room carries forward, but only up to $8,000, so the most you can contribute in a single year is $16,000 — and only after skipping a full year's room. Contributions and direct RRSP-to-FHSA transfers both count toward the limits; investment growth does not, so the account can be worth well over $40,000 by the time you buy.

Room starts in the year you open your first FHSA, not the year you became eligible. Open an account in December and you get that full $8,000 for the year; wait until January and the year is simply gone. This is the opposite of how TFSA room works, and it is the most valuable thing to know about the account: opening one with a small deposit, or none at all, starts the room accruing. That is why the calculator asks for your opening year first.

You qualify if you are a Canadian resident aged 18 or older with a valid SIN and you did not live in a home you or your spouse or common-law partner owned in the current year or the four preceding calendar years. Having owned a home longer ago than that no longer disqualifies you. Eligibility is tested when you open the account and again when you withdraw, so a change in circumstances between those points matters.

The participation period ends on December 31 of the earliest of three dates: the 15th anniversary of opening your first FHSA, the year you turn 71, or the year after your first qualifying withdrawal. When it ends, whatever is left has to move out. An account opened at 25 must be resolved by 40 — long, but not indefinite, which matters if home ownership is a distant plan.

Nothing is lost. Unused FHSA money can be transferred to an RRSP or a RRIF tax-free, and unusually the transfer does not use up any RRSP room. You keep the deduction already claimed and the growth stays sheltered; it simply becomes retirement money taxed on withdrawal instead. Taking the money as cash makes the whole amount taxable income, so the transfer is nearly always the better exit.

You need to be a first-time buyer at the time of withdrawal, a Canadian resident, and hold a written agreement to buy or build a qualifying home with an acquisition or completion date before October 1 of the following year, intending to occupy it as your principal residence within a year. Meet those and the withdrawal is tax-free with nothing to repay. Miss them and the amount is taxable income, which is why the order matters: agreement first, withdrawal second.

Yes. You can use both for the same purchase, stacking a tax-free FHSA withdrawal with an RRSP Home Buyers' Plan withdrawal of up to $60,000. The difference is repayment: FHSA money is yours outright, while the HBP is a loan from your own RRSP that must be repaid on a 15-year schedule or added to your taxable income.

The CRA charges 1% per month on the highest excess amount for each month it stays in the account, the same mechanism as a TFSA over-contribution, and there is no $2,000 cushion like an RRSP. Withdraw the excess to stop the charge. The usual causes are forgetting that an RRSP-to-FHSA transfer counts against the limits, or assuming carry-forward room accrued before the account existed.

Not necessarily. An FHSA deduction can be carried forward and claimed in a later year, though unlike an RRSP contribution it cannot be applied to a prior year — there is no 60-day rule here. If you are a student or in a low-income year now and expect a much higher income later, contributing now to start the room while saving the deduction for the higher-rate year is often the stronger play.