Down payment sources
Assembled from your accounts
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.
Already taxed. Nothing further to pay to use it.
No tax on withdrawal, but you must repay it over 15 years. Miss a payment and that part is added to your income.
No tax to withdraw. The contribution room comes back, but not until the next calendar year.
Not taxable in Canada. Your lender will want a signed letter saying it is a gift, not a loan.
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 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