3-way registered account comparison.
RRSP
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FHSA
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TFSA
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Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| Account | Treatment | After 15 years |
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Three accounts, three different tax deals
The RRSP, FHSA, and TFSA all shelter investment growth from tax, but they treat your contribution and your eventual withdrawal completely differently, and that is the whole game. An RRSP gives you a deduction going in and taxes everything coming out, so it is a bet that your withdrawal rate will be lower than your contribution rate. A TFSA gives you no deduction but never taxes a withdrawal, so the dollar you put in has already been taxed and is done forever. The FHSA is the rare account that does both: you get the deduction on the way in like an RRSP, and the withdrawal is tax-free like a TFSA, provided you spend it on a qualifying first home. That double benefit is why this tool almost always crowns the FHSA the winner when a home purchase is the goal.
The 2026 limits matter. The FHSA allows $8,000 per year up to a $40,000 lifetime maximum. The TFSA adds $7,000 of room for 2026. RRSP room is 18 percent of prior-year earned income, capped at $32,490. The FHSA is the smallest bucket, so the strategy is usually to fill it first, then move to the others.
Running $8,000 through all three
Suppose you have $8,000 of pre-tax money, a 40 percent marginal rate today, an expected 30 percent rate when you withdraw, a 6 percent return, and a 15-year horizon. Over 15 years a 6 percent return multiplies your money by about 2.397 times. Here is how each account ends up, matching the tool’s math exactly.
The FHSA wins because nothing is skimmed at either end. The RRSP beats the TFSA here only because the withdrawal rate (30 percent) is lower than the contribution rate (40 percent). Flip those two rates and the TFSA pulls ahead of the RRSP. The FHSA result assumes you genuinely buy a first home; if you do not, the balance rolls into your RRSP and the tax-free exit disappears.
Picking the right one for your situation
If you might ever buy a first home, open and fund the FHSA even before you are sure, because opening it starts your room accumulating and you have up to 15 years to use it. For pure retirement saving with no home in sight, the decision collapses to a bracket-arbitrage question between RRSP and TFSA: contribute to the RRSP when your current rate is clearly higher than your expected retirement rate, and lean TFSA when your income is modest now or you expect a comfortable retirement. A genuinely underrated tactic is to do both with one cash flow: contribute to the RRSP, then invest the resulting tax refund into your TFSA. That captures the deduction and shelters the refund permanently.
Bracket matters more than people expect. The model uses flat marginal rates, but in real life a large RRSP withdrawal in retirement can itself push you into a higher bracket and even trigger the Old Age Security clawback once net income passes roughly $93,000, which quietly raises your effective withdrawal rate above the headline number. If you expect a sizable RRSP balance, that risk tilts the decision toward the TFSA for your later contributions, since TFSA withdrawals do not count as income and never affect OAS. For someone early in their career sitting in a low bracket today, the reverse logic applies: the RRSP deduction is worth little now, so the TFSA and FHSA usually come first, with the RRSP reserved for the years your income climbs.
Can I hold all three accounts at once?
Yes. They are independent and most serious savers use the FHSA and TFSA together, adding the RRSP as income rises. Your contribution limits do not pool; each has its own room tracked separately by the CRA. The only overlap rule worth knowing is that an unused FHSA balance can transfer to your RRSP without using RRSP room, which is a quiet bonus if your home plans change.
Does this tool account for the Home Buyers' Plan?
No, it compares the three accounts on a pure tax basis. In practice a first-time buyer can stack the FHSA with the Home Buyers' Plan, which lets you borrow up to $60,000 from an RRSP for a home and repay it over 15 years. Combining a maxed FHSA with the HBP can put a large tax-advantaged down payment together, but the HBP is a loan you repay while the FHSA withdrawal is a true tax-free exit.