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You still have time to add to your retirement savings and lower your taxable income before the RRSP deadline.
Every year, Canadians are asked to prepare an income tax return for the previous tax year. Most of the time, the tax year and calendar year align perfectly, meaning you’ll file a return in 2024 based on income you earned and deductions you qualified for between January 1 and December 31, 2023.
There’s one well-known exception to this rule: With registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs), Canadians have 60 days after the end of the calendar year to make contributions for the previous tax year. This means you have until midnight, 11:59 PM ET, on February 29, 2024, to make an RRSP contribution and lower your taxable income for the 2023 tax year.
An RRSP is a registered savings account designed to help Canadians save for retirement. You can hold cash and a wide range of investments (including stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds and guaranteed investment certificates) in your RRSP, and contributions are tax-deductible, meaning they reduce your taxable income.
Investments inside an RRSP grow tax-sheltered until they’re withdrawn, at which point the funds are added to your income and taxed at your marginal tax rate. Typically, the goal is to withdraw after you retire, when you may be in a lower tax bracket than when you were earning money.
Canadians have 60 days after the end of the calendar year to make RRSP contributions towards the previous tax year. This means the RRSP deadline for the 2023 tax year is midnight, 11:59 PM ET, on February 29, 2024.
Canadians who turn 71 have until December 31 of the same year to contribute to their RRSP. So, if you turned 71 in 2023, you had until December 31, 2023, to contribute to your account. Seventy-one is also the age at which you must either cash out your RRSP, convert it to a registered retirement income fund (RRIF) or purchase an annuity.
RRSP contributions made between March 1, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2023, can be deducted from your taxable income for the 2023 tax year.
If you contribute to an RRSP between January 1 and March 1, 2024, you have two options: You can deduct those contributions from your taxable income for either the 2023 or 2024 tax year. Either way, you will have to report the contributions on your 2023 tax return, but you can choose to carry the deductions forward into the future.
Any contributions you make after this year’s RRSP deadline on February 29 will be reported on your 2024 tax return.
Financial institutions typically send out tax documents before the end of January. These tax slips include RRSP contributions made between January 1 and December 31 of the previous year.
Contributions made between January 1 and March 1 of the current year are included in a separate tax slip that is generally sent out by the end of March. You will have to refer to both sets of documents when completing your tax return, so wait to receive your second tax slip before filing your taxes.
There are a few different ways to approach RRSP contributions.
An RRSP can be a powerful tool for retirement savings. Before deciding if and when you should contribute to an RRSP, check how much RRSP contribution room you have left using the tool below, because over-contributing can result in a tax penalty. Consider what you currently have socked away for retirement and whether a tax-free savings account (TFSA) might be a better option for you.
You can also check where you fall within the Canadian federal and provincial tax brackets to estimate how much income tax you’ll owe without RRSP deductions. If you need help with retirement planning, consider talking to a financial advisor.
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What happens if my renewal of rrsp goes beyond 71 years about 2 months Jan + Feb
Due to the large volume of comments we receive, we regret that we are unable to respond directly to each one. We invite you to email your question to [email protected], where it will be considered for a future response by one of our expert columnists. For personal advice, we suggest consulting with your financial institution or a qualified advisor.
The current RRSP deadline is 60 days into the new year so either March 1 or Feb 29 in leap years. Typically, if one of those days falls on a weekend the deadline is pushed out to the next business day. This date coincides with the deadline for companies to issue tax documents to employees and financial institutions to issue T-5’s for investment income. While most do issue before the deadline, I myself actually received a T-5 on March 1 this year, too late to include in my tax calculations in determining my RRSP contribution. I would make the case for moving the RRSP contribution deadline to March 15 as opposed to 60 days into the new year. This just seems to be a matter of common sense. I don’t really see that this two-week extension would come at much if any cost to anyone. From a practical point of view however there are in my opinion a number of good reasons to do this.
1. By March 15 of each year, all tax slips should be received if they are issued/mailed by the end of February deadline. As a practical matter I am sure many businesses receive pressure to issue T-4’s early so their deadline to issue statements is likely much earlier.
2. It avoids entirely the, every 4-year dance with a leap year flipping between a March 1 deadline and a February 29 deadline. I don’t think it is unreasonable to think that some people miss the Feb 29 deadline having grown accustomed to a March 1 deadline.
3. Pushing the deadline to the next business day if the 15th falls on a weekend is no different than what exists today and only serves to give people extra time to make their contribution.
4. This is still 6 weeks ahead of the April 30 filing deadline. I believe most RRSP contribution receipts are issued at the time the contribution is made but even if something needs to be mailed, 6 weeks seems to be plenty of time for receipt.
5. If filing electronically you don’t actually submit the receipts so as long as you meet the deadline with your contribution you can record it on your tax return.
6. While there could be some increase in the amount of refunds received by an individual, in a given year due to having more accurate information, the contribution limit remains unchanged, so any increased refunds are simply a timing issue and not an increase in the actual amount an individual is entitled to.
7. This appears to me to be a low or no cost change that would, in my opinion reduce some of the chaos that exists at tax time. The separation of the reporting and contribution deadlines would seem like a very practical solution and I really don’t see the downside to doing this. People who owe taxes, whether they are making RRSP contributions or not are likely not filing/paying until as close to April 30 as possible in any event. Accordingly, there is little if any delay in receiving revenue for the Government.
I would be interested in hearing about any issues in doing this.