Three accounts. One right order.

The FHSA, TFSA and RRSP all shelter your investments from tax — but they pay you back at different moments, and the right order depends on your income. Filled in the right sequence, the order itself can be worth thousands a year. Watch the terraces as you scroll.

00Step 0 — Before everything

Take the full employer match first

If your workplace RRSP or pension matches what you put in, contribute enough to capture the full match before any of the accounts that follow. A match is an instant 100% return — it is part of your pay, and missing it is leaving money behind. Nothing further down this page beats free money.

01First — FHSA

If a first home is the goal

A tax deduction when money goes in, and a tax-free withdrawal when you buy a qualifying first home. No other account does both.

$8,000 of room a year, $40,000 lifetime — and room only starts counting once the account is open. Don't buy in the end? The balance rolls into your RRSP without using RRSP room. One eligibility catch: you qualify only if you did not live in a home owned by you or your spouse or common-law partner in the year you open the account or the four years before it.

02Second — TFSA

The flexible one

No deduction going in — but every dollar of growth and every withdrawal is tax-free, forever, with no deadline and no effect on government benefits.

Just as important, the money stays yours to reach: withdraw it for a car, a career break, a business idea, and the room returns the next January. That's why the TFSA goes ahead of the RRSP at most incomes — it can fund a short-term goal without giving up long-term growth.

03Third — RRSP

The refund engine — stronger as you earn

Contributions cut this year's tax bill at your marginal rate, and that rate is the whole story: a deduction is worth about 20¢ on the dollar at a modest income, but 43.41¢ once you're earning around $120,000 — and up to 53.53¢ at the very top. Withdrawals are taxed in retirement, ideally at a lower rate.

So while your income is lower, the RRSP waits its turn — its room carries forward until age 71 and grows more valuable as your pay climbs. The planner below moves it ahead of the TFSA only when your rate reaches 43.41%. New room is 18% of last year's earned income, capped at $33,810 for 2026 — and at any income, the move that makes it work is reinvesting the refund.

Tool Nº 1 · The contribution planner — split your money between the accounts for 2026 and estimate the Ontario tax refund that split creates.

Open the tool →

The reality check · What Canadians actually do

The room is there — almost nobody uses it all

Before you worry about advanced strategies, look at how much of the basic room goes unused across the country:

1.6M of 18.4M TFSA. Of 18.4 million TFSA holders in 2023, only about 1.6 million had used their full contribution room — fewer than 1 in 10. The average holder still had $49,596 in unused TFSA room.

1 in 4 RRSP. Only about 1 in 4 eligible Canadians contributes to an RRSP in a given year — the rest of that room simply carries forward, unused for now.

484,320 FHSA. That's how many Canadians contributed in 2023, the FHSA's first year — and the median contribution was the full $8,000 annual amount. A strong start, still a small slice of everyone eligible.

Almost nobody maxes even one account — using the full room of every account is rare. Which is exactly why the order you fill them in matters.

Sources: CRA TFSA statistics, 2023 contribution year, as reported by Money.ca and Investment Executive; Statistics Canada tax-filer data (RRSP); Statistics Canada (FHSA, 2023).

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Next · Chapter 02Grow — now the money starts to move.