TFSA Contribution Room and Limit 2026 ($7,000 This Year)

The Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) contribution limit for 2026 is $7,000, and if at any time in each year since 2009 you were 18 or older and resident in Canada, and you have made no contributions, your room on January 1, 2026 is $109,000. The dollar limit is the same for all TFSA holders, and you don’t need earned income to contribute. Whether you get it depends on residency: room starts when a resident of Canada turns 18, and no new room is added for a year in which you’re a non-resident for the entire year (see newcomers and non-residents). This page shows next year's limit once the CRA publishes it (how the limit is set).

How much you can contribute right now is your own figure: this year’s dollar limit, plus unused room from previous years, plus the withdrawals you made last year, minus the contributions you have already made this year. The tables below and working out your room show how to get it, and the TFSA contribution room calculator does the arithmetic from your own history.

TFSA limits and cumulative room by year

The TFSA dollar limit for each year since 2009, with the running total for someone who has had room in each of those years and made no contributions:

Source: Canada Revenue Agency -- TFSA dollar limits. Cumulative column assumes eligibility since the year TFSAs began and no contributions made.

These totals count each year since 2009; if you turned 18 or became a resident of Canada later, your room starts in that year, and the next table gives the total by birth year.

How much TFSA room do I have if I’ve never contributed?

Find the year you were born: the table gives your room on January 1, 2026 if you have made no contributions and have been a resident of Canada since the year you turned 18.

Source: Canada Revenue Agency -- TFSA dollar limits. These are maximum room amounts before any contributions.

• Room starts in the year you turn 18, if you are a Canadian resident (2009 at the earliest); a newcomer starts in the year of residency.
• Unused room carries forward to later years.
• Withdrawals are added back to your room at the start of the following year.
• No room is added for a year you were a non-resident for the entire year.
• Changes in the value of your TFSA investments don't affect your room.

You get a year’s full dollar limit in the year you turn 18, whatever the month of your birthday: the Income Tax Act adds a year’s limit if, at any time in that year, you are 18 or older and resident in Canada. A year in which you are a resident of Canada for part of the year also gives you that year’s dollar limit.

In some provinces and territories you must be at least 19 to enter a contract such as a TFSA; there, you can open one after you turn 19 and carry over the room from the year you turned 18. The guide to opening your first TFSA covers who can open one. If you came to Canada as an adult, the table overstates your room: see newcomers and non-residents.

What will next year’s TFSA limit be, and how is the limit set?

The limit for 2027 appears here once the CRA publishes it in its table of TFSA dollar limits. It is added to your room on January 1, 2027, together with the withdrawals you make in 2026.

For 2016 and later years, the limit is worked out the same way: a base of $5,000, indexed to inflation for each year after 2009 and rounded to the nearest $500. Because of the rounding, the limit can stay the same for several years in a row, as the table above shows.

The exception was 2015, when the limit was $10,000, before the indexed amount applied again.

Does unused room carry forward, and how do I work out mine?

Yes. Room you don’t use in a year carries forward: you can contribute more than one year’s dollar limit when you have unused room from previous years.

To work out your own figure, the TFSA contribution room calculator starts from your birth year and adjusts for your residency, contributions and withdrawals. The CRA offers a worksheet, Form RC343, and a calculator in your CRA account that works from your own records.

If you contribute investments rather than cash (an in-kind contribution), the contribution is the investment’s fair market value at the time you contribute, and it reduces your room by that amount.

An over-contribution is taxed at 1% of the highest excess amount in each month, for every month the excess stays in the account, with no buffer. The TFSA over-contribution penalty calculator works out the tax and explains how to remove an excess.

What doesn’t use or create room?

Changes in the value of your TFSA investments don’t affect your room: earnings don’t reduce it, and losses don’t increase it. A loss is not a withdrawal, so it is not added back as room.

Management fees you pay, and fees paid by a TFSA trust, don’t affect your room either.

A direct transfer between your own TFSAs, arranged by the institutions, has no effect on your room; withdrawing the money yourself and depositing it elsewhere is a new contribution that uses room, and the withdrawal is added back only on January 1 of the following year. How to transfer a TFSA has the steps.

Two kinds of contribution don’t count against your room: a qualifying transfer and an exempt contribution. A spouse or common-law partner named as beneficiary, or a surviving spouse or common-law partner in Quebec, can contribute all or part of the payment to their own TFSA as an exempt contribution, which doesn't use their own contribution room, if they contribute it by the end of the calendar year that follows the year of death and send Form RC240 to the CRA within 30 days of contributing; the contribution can't be exempt if the deceased's TFSA held an excess amount or payments went to more than one survivor. What happens to a TFSA when you die lists the conditions.

Withdrawals do add room, on January 1 of the following year: see when you can put money back.

How do I check my TFSA room with the CRA, and why might its number be wrong?

The CRA shows your TFSA contribution room in your CRA account, and its automated phone service gives it too:

1. Sign in to your CRA account and select your individual account.
2. Select Savings and pension plans, then View TFSA details, then Contribution room.
3. Or call the CRA’s automated service at 1-800-959-8281 and select option 3, which gives your TFSA contribution room.

The CRA’s figure can lag. The new year’s dollar limit is there on January 1, but the rest is updated once a year, in the spring, after your TFSA issuer reports the previous year’s transactions, and a contribution you make this year isn’t shown right away. The CRA’s guidance is to calculate your room from your own financial records, not from the information in your CRA account.

With TFSAs at more than one institution, your complete TFSA information is spread across the statements from each issuer. If the dates or amounts of contributions or withdrawals the CRA has on file look wrong, contact your TFSA issuer: if the issuer’s information is incorrect, it must send the CRA an amended report.

If your own records are incomplete, compare each institution’s transaction history with the transaction summary in your CRA account, then total them as in working out your room.

If I take money out, when can I put it back?

The CRA’s guidance is not to re-contribute all or part of a withdrawal in the same calendar year unless you know you have enough unused room.

The TFSA withdrawal rules cover the rest of taking money out, including what is added on January 1.

How do I know if my TFSA is full, or over?

Your TFSA is full when your available room, worked out as above, is zero. It is over when you have contributed more than your room: the Act’s room formula can give a negative amount, and the CRA calls the difference an excess TFSA amount.

Signs you may be over:

• the CRA has notified you of an excess, through your CRA account or by mail; it sends these notifications to some holders in late spring
• you put back money you withdrew earlier in the same year without enough unused room (when you can put money back)
• you contributed to more than one TFSA without tracking the total (one figure for all your TFSAs)
• you moved money between institutions yourself instead of by direct transfer (what doesn’t use room)
• you contributed early in the year based on your CRA account’s figure (why the CRA’s number can lag)

An excess can stay in your TFSA for several months before the CRA notifies you. The TFSA over-contribution penalty calculator works out the tax and explains how to remove an excess. If your TFSA is full rather than over, what to do once your TFSA is maxed out covers where to save next. If you have room to use, the best TFSA accounts in Canada compares where to hold it.

I’m new to Canada, leaving, or living abroad: what room do I have?

If you are a new resident of Canada and 18 or older, you start to accumulate room on the day you become a resident, and your room begins in your year of residency, not the year you turned 18. The dollar limit applies to you for the years you were a resident of Canada. The newcomers’ guide to personal finance covers other accounts and benefits in your first years in Canada.

• No room is added for a year in which you are a non-resident for the whole year; a year of partial residency gets the full amount.
• Withdrawals made while a non-resident are not taxed in Canada, but you can't re-contribute any amounts tax-free until you become a resident again.
• A contribution made while a non-resident is taxed at 1% a month until you withdraw all of it or become a resident again, whichever comes first.
• Withdrawing only part of a non-resident contribution does not reduce the tax.

Once you are a resident again, you can re-contribute tax-free within your available room.

Other TFSA questions are answered on the TFSA hub.