TFSA Contribution Room Calculator

A Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) is a registered account where any investment growth — interest, dividends, or capital gains — is tax-free, and withdrawals are tax-free too. Despite the word 'savings,' a TFSA can hold a wide range of investments: cash, GICs, stocks, bonds, ETFs, and mutual funds. Unlike an RRSP, you're never required to close a TFSA or convert it to a retirement income fund.

Any Canadian resident with a valid Social Insurance Number who has reached the age of majority in their province (18 in most provinces, 19 in BC, NB, NL, NS, NT, NU, and YT) can open a TFSA. You accumulate contribution room every year you’re 18 or older and a Canadian resident, even if you don’t open an account. In provinces where the age of majority is 19, you can’t open the account until 19 — but the room from age 18 is still credited and carries forward. See CRA: Tax-Free Savings Account.

Your TFSA room is the maximum you're allowed to have contributed (net of withdrawals) at any point. Room is the sum of every annual limit from the year you turned 18 (or 2009, whichever is later) through the current year, minus your contributions, plus any prior-year withdrawals. Investment growth inside the TFSA does NOT use up room — only deposits do. As of 2026, someone who was 18+ in 2009 and never contributed has $109,000 of room.

Yes. You can have as many TFSA accounts as you like — at different banks, with different investment types — but your total contribution room is shared across all of them. Spreading money across accounts doesn't give you more room, and it makes it easier to accidentally over-contribute. Financial institutions don't validate your overall room: that's on you (and the CRA, after the fact).

The annual limit is indexed to inflation and rounded to the nearest $500. For 2026 it’s $7,000. Limits were $5,000 from 2009 through 2012, $5,500 in 2013–2014, $10,000 for 2015 only, $5,500 from 2016–2018, $6,000 from 2019–2022, $6,500 in 2023, and $7,000 from 2024 onward. Cumulative room since 2009 is $109,000 as of January 2026. See CRA: TFSA contributions.

Unused room carries forward forever — you never lose it as long as you remain a Canadian resident. The same is true of withdrawals: any amount you withdraw is added back to your room on January 1 of the next calendar year, not immediately. That timing matters: if you withdraw and re-contribute the same amount in the SAME calendar year and you've already maxed out, that re-contribution is an over-contribution and triggers a penalty.

Any amount above your room is subject to a tax of 1% per month on the excess, for every month it stays in the account. That’s a 12% annualized cost, and it’s not interest — it’s a statutory penalty. The CRA monitors TFSA contributions and will notify you (typically by late spring) if you have an excess. Withdraw the over-contribution as soon as you notice; you’ll need to file Form RC243 if a penalty applies. See CRA: Tax on excess TFSA amounts.

Your authoritative TFSA room is in your CRA My Account, under the RRSP and TFSA section. It usually updates a few months after the calendar year ends, once financial institutions report their data, so the most current figure may lag the actual number — keep your own records too. Don’t rely on your bank: financial institutions don’t validate your total room across all of your accounts. Sign in to CRA My Account.

You can keep the TFSA you already have, and any existing investments continue to grow tax-free from a Canadian perspective. But you stop accumulating new contribution room for any year you’re a non-resident, and any contribution made while a non-resident triggers a 1% monthly tax on that amount until you either withdraw it or regain Canadian residency. Withdrawals made while non-resident still restore room, but only become usable once you’re a resident again. Your country of residence may also have its own tax rules for your TFSA. See CRA: TFSA and non-residency.

If you're married or in a common-law partnership, you can name your spouse as your TFSA's successor holder. They take over the account intact, keep its tax-free status, and the value doesn't use any of their own TFSA room. Anyone else (including children, or a spouse named as a designated beneficiary rather than successor holder) receives the value as of the date of death tax-free, but any growth between the date of death and the payout is taxable in their hands. Naming a successor holder or beneficiary is one of the most-skipped steps in TFSA setup and matters a lot for estate planning.