What CRA My Account doesn't tell you about your TFSA room

A lot of people check CRA My Account, see a TFSA room number, and assume it's current. It isn't — and the gap between what that number says and what's actually true can be wide enough to trigger a real penalty.

Here's exactly how it works, account by account.

TFSA: updated once a year, in spring

Your TFSA issuer (the bank or brokerage holding the account) has until the last day of February to report your prior year's contributions and withdrawals to CRA. CRA then processes those slips and updates the room figure in My Account — typically by April.

That means if you contributed to your TFSA in January of this year, CRA's number won't reflect it until next spring, at the earliest. For most of the year, the figure you're looking at is really a snapshot of where things stood at the end of last year.

RRSP and FHSA: tied to your tax return, not the calendar

RRSP and FHSA room work differently, but land on the same problem. Both are shown as part of your Notice of Assessment — the statement CRA sends after processing your tax return. So the number updates once a year too, just anchored to when you file rather than to a fixed spring date.

Your RRSP deduction limit is 18% of your previous year's earned income, up to the annual dollar cap ($33,810 for 2026, up from $32,490 in 2025), plus any unused room carried forward, minus any pension adjustment your employer reported. FHSA room adds $8,000 per year you've had the account open, up to a $40,000 lifetime cap — and that count also only refreshes when you file.

Why the lag actually matters

TFSA overcontributions aren't a warning-letter situation — CRA charges 1% per month on the excess amount for every month it stays over, for as long as it's over. If you're contributing through the year based on a number that's already a year stale, it's easy to go over without realizing it until the penalty shows up.

RRSP has a bit more breathing room — a $2,000 lifetime cushion before penalties kick in — but it's still worth knowing your real number rather than assuming last year's snapshot is this year's truth.

What to actually do about it

CRA's own guidance is blunt about this: keep your own running total, and don't rely solely on My Account during the year. In practice that means tracking every contribution and withdrawal yourself, the moment it happens, rather than checking a number that's guaranteed to be behind.

That's the entire reason the contribution room tracker in EveryToonie exists — you enter what you've actually contributed, and it calculates your real room using the current year's CRA limits, updated the instant you add a number, not next spring.