$109,000.
That’s the maximum amount a person can contribute to a TFSA if:
- The person was 18 or older in 2009.
- Has made no prior contributions.
- Has never lived abroad full time.
- Did not realize gains bringing the balance well above $109,000, withdraw the larger amount, and then wait for a year to pass.
$109,000 is also the most you could have contributed to a TFSA by contributing annually from 2009 to today.
So, $109,000 is something of a “TFSA milestone” in 2026. Having contributed that much shows that you are truly serious about growing your TFSA.
With that being said, how many Canadians actually contribute $109,000 to their TFSAs? This is information worth knowing, because it can tell us how effective Canadian banks are at encouraging their clients to invest tax-free. In this article, I’ll explore the question of how many Canadians actually hit the $109,000 milestone. I will start with hard data on how many age and gender groups achieve the milestone, then move on to the question of how many individuals hit it (the answer to that latter one is a little more speculative).
Source: Getty Images
By gender and age bracket: none!
Official StatCan records show that no age or gender demographic group has yet achieved a $109,000 TFSA on average. The highest average balance in 2004 was $76,000. That distinction was held by females over the age of 80. All other groups had lower balances. Unless a lot of Canadians are losing money on their TFSA investments, no age or demographic group has, on average, contributed $109,000.
Now, if we look look at TFSA balances by income category, we might find a different story. Presumably, Canadians earning $250,000 or more would have no trouble socking $109,000 into a TFSA; however, StatCan’s tables on TFSA balances by income bracket, do not include balances… I wonder why!
Individuals: Possibly around 1.6 million
While there are no data showing how many Canadians have contributed $109,000 to their TFSAs, we do know that there are 19,322,000 unique TFSA holders. Some banks have reported that about 8.5% of their clients contribute the maximum amounts to their TFSAs. If this second point is accurate, then there are about 1.6 million Canadians who have contributed $109,000 to their TFSAs.
On maximizing the value of your TFSA
If you do not yet have a $109,000 TFSA balance, you might feel like you’re a bit behind. “I could have contributed that much if I’d just cut out fancy dinners” you might be saying to yourself. It’s natural to feel that way. The good news is, you are not, in fact, behind: the oldest Canadians, do not have $109,000 in their TFSAs on average.
On the topic of increasing your TFSA balance without pain-staking savings:
That can be done with prudent index fund investing.
Take a fund like the iShares S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index Fund (TSX: XIC), for example. It holds 220 stocks, making it ultra-diversified. It has an ultra-low 0.05% management fee, and a 0.06% total expense ratio. It represents all sectors of Canada’s economy. Finally, as a very popular and widely traded fund, it has a narrow bid-ask spread (the wider the bid-ask spread the more money market makers take from you). The characteristics above have made XIC a valuable TFSA-boosting tool for many Canadian retirement savers.
