Down payment sources
Nothing is assembled yet. This is what has to be on the table on closing day.
Add what you have in each account and this becomes a plan rather than a number.
Typical figures
Needed on closing day
The down payment is only part of it. Closing costs are due the same day, and the credits that arrive that day reduce the bill — the ones that arrive at tax time do not.
Cheapest money first
Drawn in this order because each source costs more than the one above it. Nothing below is touched until everything above is used.
First Home Savings Account — deductible going in, tax-free coming out for a first home. The only account that is both. Room is $8,000 a year up to $40,000 in total, and it starts the year you open the account, not the year you arrive in Canada — so opening one costs nothing and starts the clock.
“First-time” is narrower than it sounds: the CRA counts a home you owned and lived in during its look-back period, wherever in the world it was. Check the CRA definition before you rely on either account.
Already taxed. Nothing further to pay to use it.
Not taxable in Canada. Your lender will want a signed letter saying it is a gift, not a loan.
No tax on withdrawal, but you must repay it over 15 years. Miss a payment and that part is added to your income. It stacks with an FHSA: you can draw on both for the same purchase.
No tax to withdraw. The contribution room comes back, but not until the next calendar year.
Selling realises a capital gain. Half of it is added to your income and taxed at your marginal rate — which is why it is last.
The Home Buyers' Plan is a page of its own: what the refund is worth, and what fifteen years of repayment costs.
Nothing here costs you tax or creates an obligation.
Add a monthly saving rate to see when the shortfall closes.
What monthly saving reaches, and when. If the target is out of reach at this rate the answer is no month at all, not a rounded-up one.
Add what you have in each account and this becomes a plan rather than a number.
What you need, and what each account covers
The target first, then the accounts drawn against it in the order they are drawn — cheapest money first, so the reader can see which balance the shortfall actually turns on.
- Down payment
- $45,426
- + Closing costs
- $16,160
- = Needed on closing day
- $61,586
- − Drawn from your accounts
- $0
- = Still to find
- $61,586
Not modelled here
2 things this page does not model. Nobody publishes a figure for them, so they are named here rather than guessed at.
- Where the money came from, and how long it has been there. A lender will ask for statements covering the period before closing, and anything that arrived recently from outside your own accounts has to be explained — a gift needs a signed letter, money sent from another country needs a paper trail. How far back each lender looks is its own policy and none of them publish it, so no period is named here.
- One buyer’s limits. The Home Buyers’ Plan maximum and the FHSA balance above are applied once, as a single buyer’s. If two of you are buying, each of you may have your own room — but whether the second buyer is also a first-time buyer is something this calculator never asks, so it does not double anything on your behalf.
What you have saved
Every figure that carries a sourcing record names where it came from: a dated published source, an estimate we disclose, or nothing at all where nothing is published.
Rules last verified 2026-08-24