If you have ever typed “how much RRSP should I have at 40” into a search bar, you already know what comes back: a confident chart with one exact number per age. It is worth being skeptical of those. There is no official Canadian target for how much you should have saved by a given age, and the popular benchmarks all come from somewhere — usually a set of assumptions that may or may not be yours.
So let’s explore where those numbers come from, what they quietly assume, and how to turn a generic benchmark into a figure that actually fits your life. Educational only — nothing here is a recommendation.
Is there an official “how much by age” number?
No. The Canada Revenue Agency sets contribution limits — how much you’re allowed to put into an RRSP, TFSA or FHSA each year — but it never publishes a target balance for your age. Neither does Statistics Canada. What StatCan reports is the median that Canadians actually hold at each age, which is a description of where people are, not a goal to aim at. (We walk through those real figures in Average RRSP Savings by Age in Canada.)
The benchmarks you see online are rules of thumb invented by financial firms to give savers a rough yardstick. They can be useful as a sanity check. They are not a personalized plan, and one age-based number can be badly wrong for two people the same age with different incomes, pensions and debts.
The rule-of-thumb benchmark: multiples of your salary
The most widely quoted yardstick comes from Fidelity, which frames the target as a multiple of your current salary — total retirement savings across all your accounts, not your RRSP alone:
| Age | Suggested total saved |
|---|---|
| 30 | ~1× your salary |
| 40 | ~3× your salary |
| 50 | ~6× your salary |
| 60 | ~8× your salary |
| 67 | ~10× your salary |
Source: Fidelity Viewpoints, “How much do I need to save for retirement?” — verify the exact multiples against the current Fidelity guideline at cross-check time, as the firm revises them.
Two things matter more than the numbers themselves:
- It’s total savings, not just your RRSP. Your RRSP, TFSA, any non-registered investments and the commuted value of a workplace pension all count toward the multiple. So “how much RRSP should I have at 40” is really a slice of a bigger question — as a rough read, treat the RRSP as one part of that 3×-salary total alongside your TFSA and any pension, since there’s no fixed RRSP-only target.
- The assumptions are American and aggressive. Fidelity’s benchmark assumes you start saving around 15% of income at 25, work to 67, and want to roughly maintain your pre-retirement lifestyle. Change any of those and the target moves.
The Canadian adjustment: CPP and OAS do some of the lifting
Here is where the US-origin benchmark needs a Canadian translation. Fidelity calibrates that 10× target to replace about 45% of your pre-retirement income from savings — after US Social Security covers the rest. Canada’s equivalents are the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security, which replace a meaningful slice of income too, especially at lower and middle earnings.
So the headline multiple is the savings-only target after a government pension does its part — just a different government pension than ours. The practical Canadian read: because CPP and OAS (and a workplace pension, if you have one) shoulder part of the load, the multiple you need from your own savings is often lower than the US figure, and lower earners lean on CPP/OAS proportionally more than high earners. The honest “what’s my number” answer isn’t a tidier multiple — it’s running your own CPP/OAS and savings through a calculator, which is the next section.
A second common lens skips multiples entirely: aim to replace roughly 70% of your pre-retirement income each year in retirement. It’s a planning heuristic, not a law — real replacement needs range widely depending on your mortgage, lifestyle and health — but it’s the figure many Canadian planners start from before personalizing.
What Canadians actually have at each age
Benchmarks tell you the target; the data tells you the starting line. The two are usually far apart, and that gap is normal rather than alarming. For the real Statistics Canada medians — contributions and retirement assets by age group — see Average RRSP Savings by Age in Canada. Reading the benchmark and the actuals side by side is the honest way to place yourself.
How to find your number instead of a generic one
A multiple of salary is a starting point, not an answer. The figure that matters is the one built from your own income, savings rate, retirement age and the income you’ll want — and that’s arithmetic a calculator does better than a chart:
- Retirement Savings Calculator — works out how much to set aside each month to hit a target nest egg.
- Retirement Calculator — models the other direction: what a given pot of savings turns into as retirement income, in today’s dollars, and how long it lasts.
A common drawdown sanity check is the “4% rule” — the idea that withdrawing about 4% of your savings in the first year (then adjusting for inflation) has historically lasted a 30-year retirement. It’s worth knowing the rule’s own creator, Bill Bengen, has since revised his estimate upward to roughly 4.7% (in his 2025 work), which tells you how much these figures move with the assumptions behind them. Like every rule here, it’s a starting assumption to pressure-test, not a guarantee.
Before you chase a benchmark
A few things a single age-based number ignores:
- A defined-benefit pension changes everything. If you have one, your personal-savings target can be dramatically lower.
- Home equity and debt count. A paid-off home lowers your retirement income need; a mortgage or consumer debt raises it.
- Starting late isn’t a verdict. Savings rate and time in the market drive the result more than hitting a specific balance on a specific birthday.
Treated as a rough compass rather than a target — paired with your own numbers and revisited every few years — a benchmark earns its keep. Taken literally, it tends to mislead.
Educational only — not financial advice. The strategies and instruments discussed on Dad Finance can lose money. If a page contains affiliate links, they’ll be clearly marked. See the disclaimer for the full version.