Down Payment Savings Calculator

What the Down Payment Savings Calculator does

It works out the month you will actually be ready to buy — measured against everything you need at closing, not just the down payment. Closing costs are cash, they cannot be added to the mortgage, and saving only for the down payment is the most common way a buyer who "has enough" still cannot complete.

It also counts what you already have properly. If you are a first-time buyer with an RRSP, the Home Buyers’ Plan lets you withdraw it tax-free — so it is money in hand, not a line item to admire. Treating it as "room available" while leaving it out of the timeline tells you to go and save an amount you have already saved.

• The full amount needed: minimum down payment plus land transfer tax, legal, title and premium tax
• Your ready date in months, with the RRSP you can actually withdraw counted toward it
• Combined FHSA and Home Buyers’ Plan room, doubled if you are buying together
• What reinvesting your FHSA refund is worth, within both the annual and lifetime caps
• Four levers, each priced in months off your date

FHSA, HBP, or ordinary savings

These three are not interchangeable, and the order matters.

The **FHSA** is the best of the three for a first home and it is not close. Contributions are deductible on the way in, like an RRSP, and qualifying withdrawals are entirely tax-free on the way out, like a TFSA. There is nothing to repay. You get $8,000 of room a year up to $40,000 in a lifetime, per person — and the room only starts accruing once the account exists, which is the argument for opening one before you have anything to put in it.

The **Home Buyers’ Plan** lets you take up to $60,000 out of an existing RRSP tax-free. It is genuinely useful, particularly if you have been contributing for years, but it is a loan to yourself: repay it to the RRSP over 15 years or the missed portion is added to your taxable income. And money must sit in the account 90 days before it can come out this way, which catches people who top up shortly before closing.

**Ordinary savings** come from money already taxed, and the growth is taxed again along the way. They are the fallback once the registered room is used, not the starting point.

• FHSA: deductible in, tax-free out, nothing to repay — use it first
• FHSA room only starts once the account is open, so open one early
• HBP: tax-free now, but repaid over 15 years or it becomes income
• HBP needs the money to have been in the RRSP for 90 days
• Both double for a couple, because you each have your own room

The refund most people leave on the table

An FHSA contribution reduces your taxable income, so it generates a refund at your marginal rate. At 43%, putting in $8,000 comes back as roughly $3,440 the following spring.

Most people spend it. Putting it back into the savings pot instead is free acceleration — it is your own money returning, so it costs nothing to redirect, and every year it compounds along with the rest. This page shows exactly how many months it takes off your date.

It is bounded, though, and the bound matters. Contributions are capped at $8,000 a year and $40,000 across your lifetime, per person, and anything already in the account counts against that. A projection that lets the refund accrue indefinitely overstates the benefit on any timeline longer than a few years. Both caps are enforced here.

• A contribution generates a refund at your marginal rate the following spring
• Reinvesting it costs nothing — it is money coming back to you
• It compounds, so the benefit grows on a longer timeline
• Capped at $8,000 a year and $40,000 lifetime per person
• Contributions already made count against the lifetime cap

How this is actually calculated

The required amount starts with the tiered minimum down payment — 5% of the first $500,000 and 10% above that — then adds land transfer tax with the first-time buyer rebate applied, typical legal and title fees for your province, and the provincial tax on your default insurance premium where that applies. All of it comes from the same shared engines the other calculators on this site use, so the numbers agree wherever you see them.

Your balance is then projected month by month: growth applied, contribution added, checked against the target. What you already have includes your ordinary savings, your FHSA, any documented gift, and the portion of your RRSP that can actually be withdrawn under the Home Buyers’ Plan — capped at the programme limit, with anything above it excluded and reported separately.

The refund projection tracks how much of each month’s saving falls inside the FHSA’s annual room and its remaining lifetime room, applies your marginal rate once a year, and adds it back. The levers rerun the whole projection with one change at a time, so each is priced in months against the same baseline rather than estimated.

• Required = tiered minimum down payment + land transfer tax + legal + title + premium tax
• Monthly: balance × (1 + return ÷ 12) + what you saved
• HBP contribution = min(your RRSP, the programme limit for your household)
• FHSA refund = contributions within both caps × your marginal rate, once a year
• Ready date = the first month the balance reaches the required amount

Using your results well

Open an FHSA now if you have not, even with a small amount. The room only starts accruing once the account exists, so an empty account opened this year is worth more than a funded one opened next year.

If you plan to use the Home Buyers’ Plan, respect the 90-day rule. Money contributed to an RRSP and withdrawn too soon does not qualify, and that timing failure is discovered late, when nothing can be done about it.

Then check the levers. The $200-a-month row is usually the one within your control; the lower-target-price row is often the one that moves the date most, because a smaller price cuts both the down payment and the land transfer tax at once. And recheck the whole thing whenever your target price moves — a $50,000 change in what you are shopping for moves the finish line more than most people expect.

• Open an FHSA early — the room starts with the account, not the deposit
• Respect the 90-day RRSP hold before any Home Buyers’ Plan withdrawal
• Reinvest the FHSA refund rather than spending it
• A documented gift needs a signed letter, or a lender will not count it
• Confirm your real contribution room on your notice of assessment