How to participate in the Home Buyers' Plan

The Home Buyers' Plan (HBP) is a program that allows you to make a withdrawal from your registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) to buy or build a qualifying home for yourself or for a specified disabled person. The HBP allows you to pay back the amounts withdrawn within a 15-year period.

You can make a withdrawal from more than one RRSP as long as you are the annuitant of each RRSP account. Your RRSP issuer will not withhold tax on withdrawn amounts of $35,000 or less. Some RRSPs, such as locked-in or group RRSPs, do not allow you to make a withdrawal from them.

Certain conditions must be met in order to be eligible to participate in the HBP, including the following:

• you must be considered a first-time home buyer. If your participation is in respect of a specified disabled person, this condition does not have to be met
• you must have a written agreement to buy or build a qualifying home, either for yourself or for a specified disabled person
• you have to be a resident of Canada throughout the period that starts when you make your first eligible withdrawal from your RRSPs under the HBP and ends when you buy or build a qualifying home
• you must intend to occupy the qualifying home as your principal place of residence within one year after buying or building it. If you buy or build a qualifying home for a specified disabled person, or help a specified disabled person to buy or build a qualifying home, the specified disabled person must intend to occupy the qualifying home as their principal place of residence within one year after buying or building it

In all cases, if you have previously participated in the HBP, you may be able to do so again if your HBP balance on January 1st of the year of the withdrawal is zero and you meet all the other HBP eligibility conditions.

HBP eligibility conditions

In order for withdrawals from your RRSPs to be treated as eligible withdrawals under the HBP, you must meet the conditions outlined below. If you are making withdrawals from your RRSPs under the HBP to buy or build a qualifying home for the benefit of a specified disabled person, or to help a specified disabled person buy or build a qualifying home, you are the one who must meet the conditions outlined below.

The HBP conditions that you must meet are as follows:

• You must be a resident of Canada at the time of your withdrawal from your RRSPs under the HBP.
  • If you have not acquired the qualifying home before your first withdrawal, you have to be a resident of Canada throughout the period that starts when you make your first withdrawal and ends when you or the specified disabled person has acquired the qualifying home.
• You or the specified disabled person must have a written agreement to buy or build a qualifying home at the time of your withdrawal.
  • A qualifying home is a housing unit located in Canada. This includes existing homes and those being constructed. Single-family homes, semi-detached homes, townhouses, mobile homes, condominium units, and apartments in duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, or apartment buildings all qualify. A share in a co-operative housing corporation that entitles you to possess, and gives you an equity interest in a housing unit located in Canada, also qualifies. However, a share that only provides you with a right to tenancy in the housing unit does not qualify.
  • Obtaining a pre-approved mortgage is not considered a written agreement to buy or build a qualifying home and therefore will not satisfy this condition.
  • In order to be considered an eligible withdrawal, the qualifying home must be acquired or built before October 1st of the year after the year of the first withdrawal. If the qualifying home is being built, the home will be considered built on the date it becomes habitable. If it is an agreement to purchase a condo unit, it will be considered acquired on the day the purchaser is entitled to immediate vacant possession of it.
    • If you do not buy or build the qualifying home before October 1st of the year after the year you made your first withdrawal, you must do one of the following:
      • cancel your participation in the HBP
      • buy or build a replacement property before October 1st of the year after the year you made your first withdrawal
    • We still consider you to have met the deadline if either of the following situations applies:
      • If the qualifying home is being acquired, you or the specified disabled person must have another written agreement before that October 1st date to acquire the qualifying home or a replacement property before October 1st of the 2nd year after the year you made your first withdrawal (i.e. an additional year).
      • If the qualifying home or replacement property is being constructed, you or the specified disabled person must have made payments to the contractors or suppliers (with whom you deal at arm's length) for materials for the home being built, or towards its construction, that was at least equal to the total of all withdrawals under the HBP. These payments must have been made during the period that starts on the date of the first withdrawal and ends before October 1st of the year after the year you made your first withdrawal.

A replacement property has to meet the same conditions as a qualifying home. To inform us that you are buying or building a replacement property, send a letter to one of the following addresses:

If your residential address is in Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, Nunavut, Northwest Territories or in the following cities in the province of Quebec (Montréal, Québec City, Laval, Sherbrooke, Gatineau and Longueuil), send your request to:

Canada Revenue Agency
Sudbury Tax Centre
Pension Workflow Team
Post Office Box 20000, Station A
Sudbury ON  P3A 5C1

If your residential address is in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or a location in the province of Quebec not listed under the Sudbury Tax Centre, send your request to:

Canada Revenue Agency
Winnipeg Tax Centre
Pension Workflow Team
Post Office Box 14000, Station Main
Winnipeg MB  R3C 3M2

Provide your name, address, and social insurance number, as well as the address of the replacement property. You have to say in the letter that you intend to occupy the replacement property as your principal place of residence within one year after you buy or build it.

• If you have previously participated in the HBP, your HBP balance must be zero at the beginning of the calendar year of your withdrawal.
• You must intend to occupy the qualifying home that you are buying or building as your principal place of residence no later than one year after buying or building it, or if you are buying or building the qualifying home for the specified disabled person or helping the specified disabled person buy or build the home, you must intend that the specified disabled person occupy the home as their principal place of residence no later than one year after buying or building it.
• Except as provided below, you must be considered a first-time home buyer.
  • You will be considered to be a first-time home buyer if you did not, at any time in the current calendar year before the withdrawal (except the 30 days immediately before the withdrawal) or at any time in the preceding four calendar years, live in a qualifying home (or what would be a qualifying home if located in Canada) as your principal place of residence that either you owned or jointly-owned, or your current spouse or common-law partner (at the time of the withdrawal) owned or jointly-owned.
    • For example, if you are making a withdrawal on July 31, 2024, you cannot have lived in a home as your principal place of residence that either you or your spouse or common-law partner owned or jointly-owned from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2024.
  • If you are not considered a first-time home buyer now, you may be considered a first-time home buyer later, once the required amount of time has passed. 
    • For example, if in 2018 you and your spouse sold a home that you both lived in and you did not purchase another home that you both lived in, you may be able to participate in the HBP in 2023 if you meet all of the other conditions. If the home was sold in 2019, you may be able to participate in 2024.
  • You are not required to meet the first-time home buyer condition in the following situations:
    • you are a specified disabled person who is making a withdrawal to buy or build a qualifying home, or you are making a withdrawal to buy or build a qualifying home for the benefit of a specified disabled person, or to help a specified disabled person buy or build a qualifying home.
      • The qualifying home must enable the specified disabled person to live in a more accessible dwelling or in an environment better suited to the personal needs and care of the disabled person.
    • you live separate and apart from your spouse or common-law partner at the time of the withdrawal and began to live separate and apart in the year in which the withdrawal is made, or any time in the four preceding years.
      • If you currently own your previous principal place of residence, you will be required to dispose of the previous principal place of residence no later than two years after the end of the year in which the withdrawal is made. The requirement to dispose of the previous principal place of residence will be waived if you buy out the share of the residence owned by your spouse or common-law partner. The existing rule that individuals may not acquire the home more than 30 days before making the HBP withdrawal will also be waived in this circumstance.
      • However, in the case where your current principal place of residence is a home owned and occupied by a new spouse or common-law partner, you will not be able to make an withdrawal under the HBP.
• You cannot withdraw more than $35,000 in total from your RRSPs under the HBP. You are only permitted to make withdrawals under the HBP from your RRSPs.
  • Your RRSP issuer will not withhold tax on the amounts withdrawn under the HBP where the total amounts withdrawn do not exceed $35,000.
  • Normally you will not be allowed to withdraw amounts from a locked-in RRSP or a group RRSP.
• You are permitted to make multiple withdrawals from your RRSPs under the HBP, however you are only permitted to make those withdrawals in the same calendar year as your first withdrawal, and in January of the following calendar year.
  • You are not permitted to make withdrawals outside of this period unless expressly permitted by the Minister.

Forms and publications

• Form T1036, Home Buyers' Plan (HBP) Request to Withdraw Funds from an RRSP
• Schedule 7, RRSP, PRPP, and SPP Contributions and Transfers, and HBP and LLP Activities
• RC471, Home Buyers' Plan (HBP) – Cancellation