Turning 60 forces a lot of Canadians to ask themselves a simple question. Have I saved enough for retirement? The good news is that financial planners have benchmarks that can tell you, in plain numbers, where your Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) should stand at this age.
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What is the RRSP benchmark for age 60?
Retirement planning guidelines built around age-based savings multiples give a useful frame of reference. These guidelines suggest that Canadians should be building toward six to eight times their pretax annual salary saved by age 60, across their RRSP and other registered accounts.
For a household earning $100,000 a year, that works out to something between $600,000 and $800,000 in retirement savings by 60. For a household earning $125,000, the range moves between $750,000 and $1 million.
In addition to RRSP and TFSA savings, Canadian retirees will also generate cash flow from benefits such as the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS).
Your personal target depends on more than just your salary.
- Government benefits: CPP and OAS reduce how much income your RRSP needs to replace, so your savings do not have to cover every dollar of retirement spending on their own.
- Planned retirement age: Working until 65 or later gives your RRSP more years to grow and benefit from the power of compounding.
- Debt load: A mortgage that will be paid off well before retirement lowers your future spending needs, which lowers your savings target today.
Maximizing contribution room during your highest earning years lowers your tax bill today while building your nest egg. Pairing that with a Tax-Free Savings Account keeps withdrawals in retirement from triggering an OAS clawback later on.
And choosing quality investments inside those accounts matters just as much as how much you contribute.
Why quality stocks like EQB can help
A top Canadian stock that RRSP investors can own in August 2026 is EQB (TSX:EQB), the parent company of EQ Bank. Quality dividend stocks held in the RRSP can help you generate a low-cost passive income stream and benefit from long-term capital gains. Over the last 10 years, EQB stock has returned close to 500% to shareholders, after adjusting for dividend reinvestments.
In its most recent quarter, EQB raised its dividend by 3% to $0.61 per share, continuing what management called a strong track record of dividend increases, and it bought back a record 1.2 million shares.
Its Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio sat at a healthy 13.6%, well above regulatory requirements, and loans under management grew 8% year over year to $77.1 billion.
The company is also in the middle of closing its acquisition of PC Financial, which will roughly quadruple its customer base and give it access to the 18 million member PC Optimum loyalty program.
Management has been clear about where it wants profitability to land. As President and CEO Chadwick Westlake put it on the company’s latest earnings call, “We remain committed to returning to our 15% to 17% medium-term North Star ROE target.”
In my view, that combination of a growing dividend, disciplined capital management, and a transformative acquisition makes EQB a stock worth owning for Canadians building an RRSP toward that age 50 benchmark.
It is not a guarantee, since bank stocks carry credit and economic risk, but the fundamentals here support a bullish, buy-rated outlook for long-term RRSP investors.
The Foolish bottom line
Hitting a specific RRSP number by 60 matters less than the habits that get you there. Steady contributions, tax-efficient accounts, and quality Canadian stocks with strong dividend track records like EQB can turn a modest shortfall today into a comfortable retirement tomorrow.
