Here’s a question I get almost every week from first-time buyers in Winnipeg: “I’ve got an FHSA and I’ve got some RRSP savings — do I have to pick one?”
No. You can use both, for the same house, in the same transaction. And when you do the math, the numbers get big fast. A single buyer can pull up to $100,000 out of these two programs. A couple buying together can reach $200,000.
That’s not a theoretical number in this market. The average detached home in Winnipeg sold for $483,910 in June 2026. A 20% down payment on that is about $96,800 — meaning one person who maxed both programs could cover the entire down payment on an average Winnipeg house without touching a non-registered dollar.
But there’s an order of operations here, and a rule change that took effect this year that a lot of people haven’t caught yet. Let’s walk through it.
The two programs, briefly
The FHSA (First Home Savings Account) is the newer one, and it’s the better of the two. You contribute up to $8,000 a year, to a $40,000 lifetime maximum. Contributions are tax-deductible going in, like an RRSP. Qualifying withdrawals for a first home come out completely tax-free, like a TFSA. And you never pay it back.
That combination — deductible in, tax-free out, no repayment — doesn’t exist anywhere else in the Canadian tax system. If you’re a first-time buyer and you don’t have an FHSA open, that’s the single highest-value thing you could do this week.
The RRSP Home Buyers’ Plan (HBP) is the older one. You can withdraw up to $60,000 from your RRSP toward a first home. It’s tax-free at withdrawal — but it’s a loan to yourself. You repay it into your RRSP over 15 years, and if you miss a year’s payment, that amount gets added to your taxable income.
Both are per person. Two first-time buyers each maxing both: $80,000 in FHSA plus $120,000 in HBP. Two hundred thousand dollars.
The 2026 change most buyers haven’t heard about
This is the part that matters right now.
For HBP withdrawals made between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2025, the government temporarily extended the repayment grace period from two years to five. It was a pandemic-era affordability measure, and it was genuinely helpful — five years of no required repayments while you settled into a new mortgage.
That extension expired. Withdrawals made from January 1, 2026 onward are back to the standard two-year grace period.
The practical difference is stark. Someone who made their first HBP withdrawal in December 2025 doesn’t have to start repaying until 2030. Someone who withdrew in January 2026 starts repaying in 2028. Same program, two weeks apart, three years of difference.
On a full $60,000 withdrawal, the minimum annual repayment is 1/15 of the balance — $4,000 a year. If you’re buying in Winnipeg this year and using the HBP, budget for that $4,000 starting in 2028. It’s not a mortgage payment, but it’s real, and if you don’t make it, CRA adds it to your income for that year and taxes it.
This is a good argument for leaning harder on the FHSA side of the stack where you have the choice. FHSA money never has to go back.
The order of operations
Here’s how I’d sequence it for a client starting from scratch.
Step one: open an FHSA today, even with $1 in it.
This is the mistake I see most often, and it’s an expensive one. FHSA contribution room does not accrue automatically the way RRSP and TFSA room does. It starts the year you open the account. If you were eligible in 2023 and only open your FHSA in 2027, you don’t get four years of backdated room — you get one year, $8,000.
Open the account. Fund it later if you need to. The clock only runs once you’ve started it.
Step two: understand the carry-forward, because it’s limited.
Once your FHSA is open, unused room carries forward — but only up to $8,000 at a time. So the most you can ever put in during a single year is $16,000: your current $8,000 plus one year of carried-forward room. You can’t skip three years and then dump $32,000 in. The lifetime cap stays at $40,000 regardless, but the annual ceiling limits how fast you can get there.
Step three: watch the December 31 deadline.
RRSP contributions get a 60-day grace period into the new year — you can contribute in February and claim it against the previous tax year. FHSA contributions do not. The deadline is a hard December 31. Every year I have clients who assume the RRSP rule applies and lose a year of deduction on the last day of December. Set a reminder for early December.
Step four: mind the 90-day rule on the RRSP side.
Money you contribute to an RRSP must sit there for at least 90 days before it can be withdrawn under the Home Buyers’ Plan. You can’t drop $30,000 into an RRSP in March, take the deduction, and pull it out for an April closing. Plan the RRSP side at least three months ahead of your expected withdrawal.
Step five: withdraw from both for the same purchase.
You’re allowed to make an FHSA qualifying withdrawal and an HBP withdrawal for the same qualifying home, provided you meet each program’s conditions at the time of each withdrawal. They’re separate forms and separate rules, but they are not mutually exclusive.
A Winnipeg example
Say you and your partner are buying a detached home at $480,000 — right around the June 2026 average.
You’ve each had an FHSA open for three years and contributed $24,000 each. You each have $30,000 in RRSPs that’s been sitting more than 90 days.
- FHSA withdrawals: $48,000 combined, tax-free, never repaid
- HBP withdrawals: $60,000 combined, tax-free, repaid over 15 years starting 2028
- Total down payment: $108,000 — about 22.5% down
At over 20% down you’re into conventional mortgage territory, which means no CMHC default insurance premium. On a $480,000 purchase, that premium alone would have run into the thousands. And you avoided it entirely with money you’d already deducted from your taxable income on the way in.
Your future repayment obligation: $4,000 a year into your RRSPs, combined, beginning in 2028. Worth knowing about now, while you’re setting the household budget, rather than discovering it on a tax slip.
Who qualifies
Both programs use a “first-time home buyer” definition, and it’s more forgiving than most people assume. Broadly, you qualify if you haven’t lived in a home you or your spouse owned during the current calendar year or the four preceding calendar years. That means people who owned before — after a divorce, after a few years renting, after a move for work — often re-qualify. I’ve had clients in their forties who assumed they were permanently disqualified and weren’t.
The conditions differ slightly between the two programs, and there are timing requirements around having a written purchase agreement and intending to occupy the home. If you’re close to the line on the four-year window, that’s worth confirming before you withdraw rather than after.
The takeaway
The FHSA is the better of the two instruments and should be your first stop. The HBP is still worth using, especially at 20% down where it can push you past the insurance threshold — just go in knowing that a 2026 withdrawal starts repaying in 2028, not 2030.
If you’re planning a purchase in the next couple of years and want to map out which accounts to draw from and in what order, that’s a conversation worth having before you’re under contract, not during. Give me a call at 204-890-2446 or send me a note at ted@tedvailas.com and we’ll put the numbers on paper.
This article is general information, not tax advice. Contribution limits, eligibility, and repayment rules can change, and individual situations vary — confirm the specifics with CRA or your accountant before making a withdrawal.