Canadian Retirement Savings Calculator
How much do you need to retire — and are you on track? This works out your target nest egg by running an actual tax- and benefit-aware drawdown (CPP, OAS, RRIF minimums and tax) at your chosen success rate — not a flat 25× rule — then projects your RRSP, TFSA, FHSA and non-registered savings forward with your contributions, RRSP room, employer match and the tax refund. It runs a Monte Carlo for your chance of reaching the goal, all in today's dollars. Educational only — not financial advice.
Running the projection…
This is a planning illustration based on the assumptions you entered — not a substitute for personalized financial advice. See the full disclaimer.
Your savings, growing toward the target
Total savings each year, in today's dollars. The shaded band shows the range from a weaker market to a stronger one; the dashed line is the savings you'll need.
Where your nest egg comes from
Your savings each year, in today's dollars, split by source: what you put in (including what you've already saved), your employer's match, the reinvested tax refund, and investment growth. The dashed line is the savings you'll need. (Assumes a steady average return.)
What moves the needle
How each change affects the gap between what you'll have and what you need — one change at a time. A quick estimate, so it's approximate. "Over" means more than enough.
What your savings could support
Given the savings you're most likely to actually reach, how much could you comfortably spend each year for life — compared with your goal? (One extra calculation, so it loads when you ask.)
Year by year (future dollars)
Shown in future dollars — the actual amounts that land in your accounts — so your salary, contributions, employer's match and balances all grow over time, the way they will on your statements. Your contributions grow with your salary increase. Each row adds up: what you start with, plus what you add, plus growth, equals what you end with. Note: the charts and the "savings you'll need" / "most likely have" figures above are in today's dollars (so they reflect real buying power); the last two rows below show the final total both ways.
How this is calculated (assumptions)
- The target nest egg isn't a 25× rule. We size it by running an actual Canadian retirement drawdown — RRSP/RRIF minimums, CPP, OAS, the OAS clawback, per-year tax, and (for couples) pension income splitting — and solving for the smallest starting portfolio that funds your spending target through your plan age in your chosen share of randomized return sequences. CPP, OAS and any work pension are retirement income that reduce the nest egg you need; they're not savings you accumulate. This reuses the same engine as our retirement income calculator.
- Today's dollars throughout. We grow savings with a real return — (1 + your return) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1 — so contributions, salary and the spending target all stay in today's purchasing power and line up with the drawdown. Your salary-increase rate is entered the way people think of raises (nominal), then converted to growth above inflation, so a raise equal to inflation leaves your today's-dollar pay flat.
- RRSP room. New room each year is 18% of the prior year's earned income, capped at the annual RRSP dollar limit (2026: $33,810, editable), and reduced by a pension adjustment for employer/DC contributions. Personal RRSP contributions are limited to your available room; anything over spills into a non-registered account. (TFSA and FHSA work the same way, with their own limits — FHSA is $8k/yr, $40k lifetime, 15-year window.)
- Employer / group-plan match. Three shapes: a flat dollar amount; a percent of salary contributed automatically; or a true match — where we assume you contribute the cap (X% of salary) to capture the full match, your employer mirrors it, and the RRSP figure you enter under "What you'll add" is anything extra on top. (Salary $100k, 5% match, +1% entered ⇒ $5k employer + $5k you + $1k extra = $11k.) Either way the employer money lands in your RRSP and counts as a pension adjustment that reduces your personal RRSP room.
- Fees & a separate retirement return. Any investment fee/MER you enter is subtracted from the return for both saving and retirement (the ~7% default is already net of a typical fee). You can also set a lower expected return for retirement if you'll de-risk the portfolio — a lower drawdown return means a bigger target nest egg.
- The refund. Your personal RRSP contribution generates a refund equal to the tax it actually saves — figured across your combined federal+provincial brackets, so a contribution that drops you into a lower bracket earns that lower rate rather than one flat marginal rate. With "reinvest the refund" on, it's added to a non-registered account so it keeps compounding — counted once, not double-counted.
- How you enter contributions. Type each contribution as a dollar amount or as a percent of salary (which then grows as your pay rises) — the figures are yearly totals either way. You can also deposit your own contributions monthly, quarterly, or annually: that only changes how much each year's money compounds within the year (monthly compounds a touch less than a start-of-year lump), and it doesn't change the $/yr units. The employer match is always counted as a single annual contribution.
- Two kinds of risk, kept separate. The target nest egg already absorbs retirement (sequence-of-returns) risk — it's the amount that survives the drawdown in your chosen share of return sequences. The probability below then absorbs saving risk: across hundreds of randomized return sequences on your saving path, how often the accumulated nest egg reaches that target. It's a deliberate two-stage view rather than one combined simulation — so your overall confidence is roughly the two multiplied (e.g. a 70% chance of reaching a target that itself is set for 90% retirement success).
- On track & the gap. "Projected nest egg" is the single steady-return path — note it sits a little above the Monte Carlo median, because a bumpy path compounds to less than its average ("volatility drag"), which is why the probability is the more honest read on whether you'll get there. The shortfall (if any) is shown both as a lump sum and as the extra you'd need to save each month to close it — grown at the same real return, before any RRSP refund (a deliberately conservative figure).
- Known simplifications. Annual interest/dividend tax drag on the non-registered account isn't modelled; DC/employer contributions aren't checked against the separate money-purchase limit; the pension adjustment defaults to your employer match (DB members should enter their T4 box 52). The RRSP dollar limit is held constant in today's dollars (it's indexed to wage growth in reality, so roughly flat in real terms). Tax brackets are 2026; CPP/OAS/credit amounts use their latest indexed levels. Verify anything important with the CRA and Service Canada.
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