Borrowing From Your RRSP To Buy A Home

How To Use The Home Buyers' Plan

Borrowing these days can be pretty painful. Gone are the low interest rates and that variable rate you got a couple of years ago. Either one of these can cause heartburn. So it's no wonder that I keep thinking about an article I wrote a while back about the ability to borrow from your RRSP. In fact, I received a call out of the blue from someone who had read my article asking about how that could work. So I thought it would be worthwhile to dust off my article and do a 2023 version it.

The golden rule we all know is: Don't withdraw from your RRSP before it is time to do so. Otherwise you can be hit with a hefty tax penalty (this is because you could actually lower your tax bill when contributing to an RRSP). But as with every rule, there are always exceptions. In this case, there are three of them. Essentially, you can access your RRSP funds prematurely without triggering a penalty by using the Home Buyers' Plan (HBP),