On October 21, 2026, the Canada Revenue Agency published its first detailed two-year census of the First Home Savings Account, laying bare the arithmetic of Canada’s newest registered tax shelter. Inside the statistical ledger covering the 2023 and 2024 tax years, the numbers document an extraordinary rush of private capital into government-sanctioned shelters: 1,455,280 Canadians accumulated $8.08 billion in registered accounts, pouring $6.47 billion in fresh tax-deductible deposits into the system in 2024 alone. Yet behind the sheer velocity of the accumulation sits an austere operational reality. Only 146,400 account holders withdrew money to purchase a home that year, taking out an average of $12,034.
The empirical record shows a program operating on two distinct tracks. For more than 1.3 million Canadians, the First Home Savings Account has become an extraordinarily efficient instrument for parking cash and lowering current taxable income. For the minority who managed to deploy their balances into actual real estate transactions, the sums retrieved represent a modest fraction of the capital required to secure a residential mortgage in Canada’s urban centres.
The Rush to Shelter
When Parliament passed Bill C-47 in the spring of 2023 to enact section 146.6 of the Income Tax Act, the statutory proposition was unprecedented in federal taxation. The First Home Savings Account combined the upfront tax deductibility of a Registered Retirement Savings Plan with the tax-free growth and withdrawal privileges of a Tax-Free Savings Account. A qualifying first-time homebuyer could deposit up to $8,000 annually toward a lifetime limit of $40,000, deduct every dollar from current taxable income, and withdraw the principal and all accumulated investment earnings completely tax-free upon purchasing a home.
The response from Canadian taxpayers was immediate. In the final nine months of 2023 following the April launch, 746,290 individuals opened 817,740 accounts. Those early participants contributed $3.05 billion, leaving the program with a year-end fair market value of $2.81 billion. Just 34,410 individuals withdrew funds for a home purchase before that inaugural calendar year closed, removing $268.4 million at an average of $7,800.
By the end of 2024, the baseline doubled. The total roll of account holders expanded by 708,990 people to reach 1,455,280 across 1,680,490 separate accounts. Total fair market value held in the accounts surged by 186.9% to reach $8,075,098,000. During the 2024 tax year alone, 1,038,540 individuals deposited $6,470,717,000 into their accounts, generating an average annual contribution of $6,231 against the statutory $8,000 annual ceiling.
The liquidity was moving exactly as finance officials envisioned. Canadians were opening accounts at retail banks and brokerage desks, claiming upfront deductions, and building cash cushions. But the operational pipeline from cash contribution to completed real estate closing told a much narrower story.
The Down Payment Arithmetic
In 2024, total withdrawals for qualifying home purchases rose to $1,761,791,000 across 146,400 account holders. While that marked a sixfold increase in total dollar volume compared to the partial launch year of 2023, the national average withdrawal amounted to $12,034 per buyer.
In the context of the Canadian housing market, that number highlights a substantial structural gap. The national aggregate home price reported by the Canadian Real Estate Association hovered above $700,000 throughout 2024, while benchmark detached homes in the Greater Toronto Area and Metro Vancouver routinely traded between $900,000 and $1.2 million. Under federal mortgage regulations established by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, a homebuyer purchasing an $800,000 property requires a minimum down payment of $55,000. A home priced at $1 million or above requires a full 20% down payment, or at least $200,000 in unencumbered cash.
Against these underwriting thresholds, an average withdrawal of $12,034 does not assemble a down payment. In major metropolitan markets, it covers provincial and municipal land transfer taxes, title insurance, appraisal fees, and legal disbursements.
Decades earlier, as documented in The Fixed-Rate Mortgage Was a Trap Lenders Could Not Escape, federal authorities attempted to unfreeze housing markets by reshaping the financial instruments themselves, inventing variable-rate structures when fixed lending seized up under high inflation. With the First Home Savings Account, Ottawa attempted to solve the affordability barrier through retail tax deferrals. Yet even after two full tax years where participants could have accumulated up to $16,000 in cumulative statutory contribution room, the empirical average withdrawal captured barely three-quarters of that allowable ceiling.
The Ledger of Tax Brackets
The Canada Revenue Agency microdata disaggregates all account holders and transactions across the five federal income tax brackets, offering the first definitive breakdown of which economic cohorts are utilizing the shelter.
Tax filers in the lowest federal income tax bracket, earning taxable income of $55,867 or less, account for the absolute majority of all account holders. In 2024, 802,620 individuals in this entry bracket held First Home Savings Accounts, representing 55.2% of the national total. Together, they held $3.76 billion in fair market value and deposited $3.05 billion during 2024, averaging $5,636 per contributing holder.
However, these lower-bracket participants were the least likely to convert their savings into real estate. Only 54,640 account holders in the lowest bracket withdrew funds to purchase a home in 2024. That represents an execution rate of just 6.8% of the cohort. Those who did withdraw took out an average of $11,273.
The true transactional engine of the program was the second federal bracket, covering taxable incomes between $55,867 and $111,733. Comprising 36.3% of all account holders (527,820 individuals), this group held $3.36 billion in assets and deposited $2.68 billion in 2024. More importantly, this bracket delivered the plurality of all successful homebuyers. A total of 69,720 individuals in this middle bracket made qualifying withdrawals, accounting for 47.6% of all withdrawals nationwide and taking out $856.2 million at an average of $12,280 per purchase.
Combined, Canadians earning $111,733 or less represent 91.5% of all account holders and 88.6% of all dollars deposited into the program.
At the upper end of the income scale, high earners used the vehicle with surgical precision. Tax filers earning between $111,733 and $173,205 held 91,390 accounts (6.3% of the total), contributing $523.3 million with an average deposit of $7,555. In that bracket, 15,830 buyers withdrew $205.1 million, averaging $12,957.
In the top federal tax bracket, filers reporting taxable income of $246,752 or more held 12,170 accounts. While representing less than 1% of total participants, 9,770 of these high earners made deposits in 2024, averaging $8,537 each, which reflects maximum annual contributions alongside accumulated carry-forward room. A total of 2,330 top-bracket filers withdrew money to buy homes, taking out an average of $14,051.
The Provincial Divide
The geographic distribution of the First Home Savings Account closely mirrors the regional concentration of housing asset values across the country. Two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, account for nearly two-thirds of the entire program.
Ontario filers established 570,910 accounts, holding $3.15 billion in fair market value by the close of 2024. Ontario contributors deposited $2.48 billion into the program during the year, while 51,670 buyers withdrew $632.7 million to purchase homes, averaging $12,245 each.
In Quebec, 392,590 individuals held accounts containing $2.39 billion in assets. Quebec participants contributed $1.87 billion in 2024, and 41,350 account holders withdrew $515.6 million, recording an average withdrawal of $12,469.
British Columbia, despite enduring some of the highest purchase prices in North America, ranked third in total uptake. British Columbia residents held 218,010 accounts with $1.27 billion in market value. In 2024, 152,710 individuals made deposits totalling $983.5 million, while 18,380 buyers withdrew $224.2 million, averaging $12,196 per purchase.
Alberta followed with 147,590 account holders and $684.6 million in fair market value, contributing $621.2 million and recording 19,790 homebuying withdrawals totalling $226.0 million.
The remainder of the country accounted for a combined 8.7% of total participation. All four Atlantic provinces combined held 51,010 accounts with $226.0 million in assets, producing 6,070 home purchases. Manitoba and Saskatchewan together accounted for 69,590 accounts holding $309.9 million in assets, resulting in 8,510 home purchases. Across Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, 3,260 individuals held accounts with $18.2 million in assets, while 320 buyers withdrew $3.7 million.
The Statutory Defense
To evaluate these figures fairly requires examining the statutory architecture established by the Department of Finance. Under section 146.6 of the Income Tax Act, the First Home Savings Account was never conceived as an overnight purchase mechanism. It was deliberately designed with a 15-year statutory lifespan.
An eligible individual can open an account, contribute up to $8,000 annually, carry forward up to $8,000 in unused contribution room to a future calendar year, and allow investments to compound across fifteen years before being compelled to close the account. In the program’s second year of operation, a low withdrawal rate is not evidence of administrative failure; it is mechanical evidence that the vehicle is functioning as an accumulation fund. A prospective buyer who opened an account in late 2023 had accumulated at most $16,000 in legal contribution room by late 2024. Expecting an account holder to liquidate their vehicle after twelve or eighteen months misreads the multi-year savings timeline required to accumulate an equity stake.
Furthermore, the concentration of accounts in the lowest tax bracket reflects institutional access. More than 802,000 young Canadians earning under $55,867 have entered the registered savings system, establishing accounts and initiating savings habits early in their working lives. The statutory carry-forward rules allow them to preserve unused contribution room for future years when their marginal tax rates and earnings are higher, maximizing the value of future deductions.
The Fiscal Bill
The unresolved question documented by the Canada Revenue Agency tables is not whether Canadians like the program, but what the vehicle costs the public treasury while savings sit idle.
Every dollar contributed to a First Home Savings Account represents an upfront deduction against taxable income. With Canadians deducting $3.05 billion in 2023 and $6.47 billion in 2024, the federal treasury has effectively surrendered billions of dollars in current tax revenues to capitalize an $8.08 billion private asset pool.
If an account holder ultimately fails to purchase a home within the 15-year participation window, the statute contains a generous release valve. Under subsection 146.6(7), the individual can transfer the entire balance directly into a standard Registered Retirement Savings Plan on a tax-free basis, without consuming any of their existing RRSP contribution room. The capital is never retroactively taxed as income in the year it was deposited; it simply shifts into retirement savings, permanently preserving the original tax break.
The Canada Revenue Agency’s first census demonstrates that the First Home Savings Account succeeded rapidly in creating a new class of sheltered capital. More than 1.45 million Canadians moved billions of dollars beyond the reach of annual taxation. But as 1.3 million account holders remain in the accumulation phase, waiting for savings to compound against home prices that continue to outpace them, the record confirms that sheltering cash is straightforward. Converting that cash into homeownership remains an entirely different equation.
This investigation required extracting, cross-referencing, and disaggregating microdata across multiple Canada Revenue Agency tax tables to document the exact capital flows of Canada’s newest registered shelter. Hansard Files works through primary government records so readers can see the institutional facts behind national policy debates.
The federal record belongs to the public, and our complete archive remains free with nothing locked behind a paywall. Supporting paid memberships ($5 CAD per month or $50 CAD per year) fund the independent research time and technical capacity required to audit the official files.
Related Hansard Files Articles
Source Documents
Canada Revenue Agency. (2026, October 21). First Home Savings Account Statistics (2023 tax year). Table 1: FHSA by Province/Territory; Table 2: FHSA by Tax Bracket. Open Government Portal, catalogue 6d18e669-2df3-4a11-a818-d0a8f0e05b36.
Canada Revenue Agency. (2026, October 21). First Home Savings Account Statistics (2024 tax year). Table 1: FHSA by Province/Territory; Table 2: FHSA by Tax Bracket. Open Government Portal, catalogue 978d8d2c-d1a1-4c11-af39-323ee48a8967.
Department of Finance Canada. (2023). Income Tax Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. 1 (5th Supp.), Section 146.6 (First Home Savings Account), enacted via Bill C-47, Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1.