The Average Canadian TFSA Holder Has $38,566 Saved and $52,735 of Room They Have Not Used.
The Canada Revenue Agency publishes a statistical portrait of every Tax-Free Savings Account in the country, and two of its figures belong beside each other. For the 2024 tax year, the average Canadian TFSA balance was $38,566 per holder. The average unused contribution room, per holder, was $52,735. The empty space is larger than what is sitting in the account.
Both of those averages, the balance and the room, are taken across all 19,322,830 TFSA holders. Canadians who have never opened a TFSA appear in none of these tables and hold room of their own, so the national gap can only be wider. The annual limit is what gets debated; on these numbers it is not what binds the average holder.
The 2024 tax year is the most recent published. The tables cover records financial institutions sent the CRA and “processed up to 12 January, 2026”.
The national picture: 19.3 million holders, $745 billion held, over $1 trillion of room left over
The headline counts come from the CRA’s Tax-Free Savings Account statistics for the 2024 tax year. There were 19,322,830 holders and 32,061,460 open accounts, 1.7 accounts per holder on the CRA’s own count, and total fair market value was $745,207,845,000, which the CRA publishes as $38,566 per holder and which works out to $23,243 per account on our arithmetic. Multiply the average unused room by the number of holders and the unused room among TFSA holders comes to $1.02 trillion, 1.37 times the money actually in the accounts.
Table 1A adds another angle. In 2024, 10,979,910 holders contributed and 8,342,930 did not, which works out to 56.82% and 43.18% on our arithmetic. Of the open accounts, 17,127,690 saw no transactions at all, a 53.42% share. And 1,711,020 holders maximized their contributions: 8.85%, fewer than one holder in eleven.
The holders who did contribute were not held back by the annual number. The average contribution per contributor was $11,251 against a 2024 annual limit of $7,000, 1.61 times the limit. That gap is carry-forward room and re-contributed withdrawals at work, and our guide to the TFSA rules on limits, withdrawals and penalties sets out how both accrue.
Some of that trillion is recycled room, not untouched room
The trillion is a stock, and the flow behind it runs both ways. Table 3A puts 2024 contributions at $123,540,026,000 and withdrawals at $69,881,752,000, so net inflow was $53,658,274,000 on our arithmetic, about $53.7 billion. For every dollar contributed, nearly 57 cents came back out. Withdrawing is not a minority habit: 5,685,240 holders made a withdrawal, 29.42% of all holders, and the CRA’s average withdrawal per withdrawer of $12,292 exceeds its average contribution per contributor of $11,251.
That changes how the trillion reads. A withdrawal is added back to contribution room on January 1 of the following year, so an account used as a savings account regenerates unused room every year. Part of the $1.02 trillion is money that went in and came out again rather than money never contributed, and the tables cannot separate the two. It does not close the gap: $53.7 billion of net inflow against $1.02 trillion of room is still very wide.
The average balance only overtakes the average room after 60
The age breakdown shows the shape. Both columns below are the CRA’s own per-holder averages.
| Age | Average unused room | Average balance per holder |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20 | $6,915 | $4,179 |
| 20-24 | $22,983 | $8,652 |
| 25-29 | $44,346 | $13,967 |
| 30-34 | $63,600 | $18,475 |
| 35-39 | $66,934 | $21,561 |
| 40-44 | $66,918 | $24,061 |
| 45-49 | $66,094 | $28,084 |
| 50-54 | $62,659 | $35,235 |
| 55-59 | $57,618 | $43,519 |
| 60-64 | $51,778 | $52,381 |
| 65-69 | $47,232 | $59,344 |
| 70-74 | $44,264 | $64,972 |
| 75-79 | $41,030 | $71,094 |
| 80+ | $36,526 | $76,305 |
Source: CRA, Tax-Free Savings Account statistics, 2024 tax year, tables 1A and 3A.
The 60-64 band is the first in which the average balance exceeds the average unused room, clearing it by $603. Every band below has more average room than average balance, and those nine bands, from under 20 through 55-59, hold 12,274,070 holders, 63.5% of all banded holders.
The comparison is also tilted toward the balance. Item 8 of the CRA’s explanatory notes says total fair market value “shows the calendar year-end fair market value since the inception of the program” and takes into account contributions, withdrawals “as well as any income earned in the account”, so the balance carries sixteen years of investment growth while unused room is a flat nominal entitlement with none. The flattered side is still the smaller one in those nine bands.
Average unused contribution room against average balance, per TFSA holder, by age. Source: CRA, Tax-Free Savings Account statistics, 2024 tax year, tables 1A and 3A.
By 2024 the ceiling had reached $95,000, and the average holder in their forties occupied at most a third
The CRA’s schedule of annual TFSA limits runs $5,000 for 2009 through 2012, $5,500 for 2013 and 2014, $10,000 for 2015, $5,500 again for 2016 through 2018, $6,000 for 2019 through 2022, $6,500 for 2023, and $7,000 for 2024, 2025 and 2026. That totals $95,000 through 2024 and $109,000 through 2026.
Two things qualify any reading of average unused room against that $95,000. The first is residency: the full amount only accrues to someone who was an adult resident of Canada throughout, because room does not accrue for a non-resident. That error runs one way. Both columns below start from the $95,000, one by subtraction and one by division, so a smaller true ceiling makes both an upper bound rather than an exact reading. Someone who arrived in 2020 with a $31,500 ceiling and $21,500 of unused room reads as 77.4% occupied on this method and is really at 31.7%. The second is the meaning of occupied, which is room currently taken up rather than room ever used: withdrawn room comes back the following January.
Here is the average share of the $95,000 occupied, for the bands whose whole cohort had it available.
| Age | Average room occupied | Share of $95,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 35-39 | $28,066 | 29.5% |
| 40-44 | $28,082 | 29.6% |
| 45-49 | $28,906 | 30.4% |
| 50-54 | $32,341 | 34.0% |
| 55-59 | $37,382 | 39.3% |
| 60-64 | $43,222 | 45.5% |
| 65-69 | $47,768 | 50.3% |
| 70-74 | $50,736 | 53.4% |
| 75-79 | $53,970 | 56.8% |
| 80+ | $58,474 | 61.6% |
Source: our arithmetic on CRA table 3A against the CRA’s cumulative limit through 2024.
Not one band from 35 up has two thirds of its average room occupied, the three bands covering 35 to 49 are at most a third, and because these readings are a ceiling both statements hold with room to spare.
An individual ceiling turns on birth year, residency history and every withdrawal since 2009. The CRA’s guidance is to “use your own financial records to calculate your available contribution room, not the information in your CRA account”, because that account is updated once a year in the spring and will not yet show transactions your issuer has not reported. Over-contributions start there. Our TFSA contribution room calculator does the same arithmetic year by year.
Maximizing is U-shaped, and the low point is at 30 to 34
Maximizing in these tables is stricter than it sounds. The CRA’s explanatory notes say of the item: “This item refers to the cumulative contribution room earned, not the annual TFSA dollar limit.” A holder counted as having maximized has filled all of their accumulated room, not just that year’s $7,000.
That share does not climb smoothly with age. On our arithmetic from table 1A it runs 19.13% under 20, 6.56% at 20-24, 4.33% at 25-29, and bottoms out at 3.83% in the 30-34 band, the lowest of the fourteen. From there it climbs the whole way back: 4.26%, 4.77%, 5.70%, 7.59% and 9.96% through 55-59, then 12.45%, 13.90% and 14.55%, with 75-79 the highest of the bands from 20 up at 14.98% and 80 and over just behind at 14.94%.
The 19.13% under 20 is the highest of any band for a mechanical reason: an 18-year-old’s cumulative room earned is one or two years of limit, so filling it costs a few thousand dollars rather than $95,000.
Income barely moves the room. It moves how much of the room gets filled.
Tables 1C and 3C break the same data down by income, and the room column barely moves. Across the seventeen bands from “$1 to $4,999” up to “$100,000 to $149,999”, average unused room never leaves a $3,635 corridor between $50,708 and $54,343, while the share who maximized runs from 5.70% to 11.73% and the average balance from $18,649 to $48,289.
The room stays flat because the entitlement is flat. Unlike RRSP room, which is a share of earned income, a high earner’s TFSA ceiling is the same as anyone else’s of the same age. What is left unused stays flat too because average contributions are flat across those middle bands, from $9,201 in the “$5,000 to $9,999” band to $12,302 in the “$100,000 to $149,999” band.
Only at the extremes does the pattern break. At $150,000 to $249,999, average room is $44,750, the average balance $63,143 and 17.14% maximized; at $250,000 and over, average room is $32,574, the average balance $90,302 and 27.76% maximized. At the other end, the “loss and nil” band carries the most average room of any ranked income band, $63,002, against an average balance of $13,839 and 3.01% maximizing.
The real extreme is not a band at all. Tables 1C and 3C also publish an “Unknown” column, which the CRA’s notes describe as “a segment of Canadians for which CRA has TFSA data but no income tax data”, and the agency adds that Canadians do not have to file a return to open or use a TFSA. Its 1,712,050 holders are 8.9% of all holders, and they carry the highest average unused room of any column in the table, $67,452, the lowest average balance, $12,062, and 2.09% maximizing.
Of the provinces, British Columbia has saved the most and has the least room left
Tables 1B and 3B run the same figures by province, ordered here by average balance per holder.
| Province | Average balance per holder | Average unused room | Maximized |
|---|---|---|---|
| British Columbia | $42,614 | $50,668 | 10.05% |
| Quebec | $39,743 | $51,880 | 9.07% |
| Saskatchewan | $39,185 | $53,958 | 9.61% |
| Ontario | $38,132 | $52,342 | 8.62% |
| Alberta | $36,424 | $54,693 | 8.82% |
| Manitoba | $35,436 | $54,534 | 8.16% |
| Prince Edward Island | $34,608 | $55,809 | 7.63% |
| Nova Scotia | $34,449 | $58,008 | 7.09% |
| New Brunswick | $33,353 | $59,321 | 6.68% |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | $32,352 | $60,641 | 6.12% |
Source: CRA, Tax-Free Savings Account statistics, 2024 tax year, tables 1B and 3B, with our arithmetic on the maximized share.
The ordering is close to inverted: the provinces whose holders have saved the most have the least average room left. Of the provinces, British Columbia sits at one end of both columns and Newfoundland and Labrador at the other.
Unused room is not the same thing as a mistake
The honest limit of all of this is that it describes the size and shape of a gap and nothing about whether any particular person should have closed it. Someone carrying $60,000 of unused TFSA room may be putting the money against a mortgage, filling an RRSP for the deduction, or simply not have it to put anywhere. Every figure here is an average, and an average of $52,735 is built out of holders with nothing left and holders with the whole ceiling untouched. The CRA’s tables cannot distinguish between them, and neither can we.
What does follow is an ordering question rather than a verdict, and that is what we take apart in our comparison of the TFSA, the RRSP and the FHSA.
What the numbers settle
For the average holder under 60, the binding constraint is not the $7,000 a year that gets argued about each autumn. It is the $52,735 already banked and unused, against an average balance of $38,566.
The tables do allow one step inside that average. The 1,711,020 holders who maximized hold no unused room at all, by the CRA’s definition of the item. If none of the $1.02 trillion is theirs, it belongs to the other 17,611,810 holders, an average of $57,858 each on our arithmetic.
Figures in this article are from the CRA’s Tax-Free Savings Account statistics for the 2024 tax year, retrieved October 10, 2026.
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. All TFSA figures are from the Canada Revenue Agency’s Tax-Free Savings Account statistics for the 2024 tax year, tables 1A, 1B, 1C, 2, 3A and 3B/3C, downloaded October 10, 2026, with the CRA’s explanatory notes for the definitions of maximized contribution room, fair market value and the Unknown income group. The annual TFSA dollar limits are the CRA’s MP, DB, RRSP, DPSP, ALDA, TFSA limits table, and the contribution room formula is the CRA’s Calculate your TFSA contribution room page. The national total of unused room, the shares of holders, the shares of the $95,000 cumulative ceiling, the provincial maximizer shares and the per non-maximizer average are our own arithmetic on those tables, as of October 10, 2026.
