The RRSP → Home Buyers’ Plan play
Your RRSP contribution $60,000 · Your marginal rate 33.3%
The refund is the reason the manoeuvre exists. It is real cash, this year, at your marginal rate — and it is the only part of this that arrives quickly.
3. Wait 90 days
Order matters, and one of these steps has no exception. Doing them out of sequence does not delay the benefit; it removes it.
1. Contribute
Put money into an RRSP. Any RRSP room you have works — this does not need to be a special account.
2. Deduct
Claim the contribution as a deduction on your tax return. This is where the refund comes from.
3. Wait 90 days
The contribution must sit in the RRSP for at least 90 days before you withdraw it under the HBP. Withdraw sooner and that portion is not deductible.
This rule is absolute. There is no exception and no appeal — miss it and the withdrawal becomes fully taxable income.
4. Withdraw
Withdraw up to $60,000 tax-free under the Home Buyers’ Plan, using Form T1036.
5. Repay
Starting the second year after the withdrawal, repay an equal share of it each year for 15 years. Skip a payment and that amount is added to your income for the year.
90 days. Not approximately 90 days.
$4,000 per year for 15 years
The withdrawal is not a gift. One fifteenth of it goes back each year for fifteen years, starting the second year after you take it.
Repayment starts in year 2, not immediately.
Added to your income for each year missed $4,000 · Your marginal rate 33.3%
This is the part worth deciding on. A missed repayment year is added to your income and taxed, permanently — there is no way to put it back.
Whether the refund is worth fifteen years of obligation depends on facts this page is not given — your job security, your other savings, what else that money would have done. The three figures are here; the decision is yours.
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