Enter your salary, your province and how much you plan to put into your RRSP, and the calculator above shows the tax that contribution saves for the 2026 tax year. It works in every province and territory, including Quebec's separate system, and there is no account, no sign-up, and nothing you type ever leaves your browser.
An RRSP contribution is a deduction: it lowers your taxable income, so you pay less federal and provincial income tax. The refund is simply the difference between two tax bills, the one you would owe without the contribution and the one you owe with it. That is exactly what this calculator computes. It runs your full return twice, with real brackets, credits, low-income reductions, surtaxes and health premiums, and subtracts.
Many RRSP refund calculators skip that and multiply your contribution by a single marginal tax rate. It is quick, and it is often wrong, in both directions.
Take an Ontario salary of $60,000 and a $10,000 contribution. At $60,000 you sit in the 20.5% federal bracket and the 9.15% Ontario bracket, so the shortcut says 29.65% of $10,000, or $2,965. The real figure is $2,220.
The gap is because the contribution does not stay in one bracket. Only the first $900 or so comes off at the 20.5% federal rate. The rest drops your income below the $58,523 federal threshold, where each dollar saves 14% federally plus 9.15% in Ontario, and the last few thousand also fall below Ontario's $53,891 threshold, where the Ontario part drops to 5.05%. A bigger contribution reaches further down, and each step down is worth less. Add it up and the brackets account for $2,192. The last $28 is Ontario's LIFT credit, explained below, which starts coming back once net income drops under $50,000.
It runs the other way too. Ontario has two income-tested amounts that a contribution can move in your favour. The Health Premium rises in steps with taxable income, so dropping below a step cuts it. The LIFT credit, worth up to $875 for workers, shrinks by 5 cents for every dollar of net income over $32,500 and is gone at $50,000, so lowering your net income brings part of it back. Either one makes the refund larger than the bracket rate suggests. Look at the $5,000 column below: a $50,000 earner gets more back than a $60,000 earner, from both effects at once. At $75,000, even a $2,000 contribution crosses a Health Premium step, which is why that row beats $90,000 on every contribution size.
What each contribution takes off your income tax. Employment income only, single filer, no other deductions or credits. Refund means the drop in federal plus provincial income tax; CPP and EI do not change. Every figure is generated from the same tax engine the calculator above runs.
| Salary | $2,000 contribution | $5,000 contribution | $10,000 contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| $40,000 | $533 | $1,353 | $2,253 |
| $50,000 | $631 | $1,353 | $2,555 |
| $60,000 | $522 | $1,217 | $2,220 |
| $75,000 | $675 | $1,633 | $3,115 |
| $90,000 | $593 | $1,482 | $2,965 |
| $120,000 | $859 | $1,995 | $3,689 |
| $150,000 | $868 | $2,170 | $4,341 |
Provincial brackets and credits differ, so an identical $10,000 contribution at an identical $60,000 salary returns anywhere from about $1,800 to nearly $3,000 depending on where you live:
Ranked from largest to smallest refund. Same assumptions as the table above.
| Province or territory | Refund | Share of contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Nova Scotia NS | $2,954 | 29.5% |
| Newfoundland NL | $2,909 | 29.1% |
| PEI PE | $2,806 | 28.1% |
| Quebec QC | $2,800 | 28.0% |
| Manitoba MB | $2,734 | 27.3% |
| New Brunswick NB | $2,732 | 27.3% |
| Saskatchewan SK | $2,607 | 26.1% |
| Alberta AB | $2,259 | 22.6% |
| Ontario ON | $2,220 | 22.2% |
| British Columbia BC | $2,210 | 22.1% |
| Yukon YT | $2,123 | 21.2% |
| Northwest Territories NT | $2,123 | 21.2% |
| Nunavut NU | $1,768 | 17.7% |
The calculator shows the tax the contribution saves. Whether that arrives as a cheque depends on how much your employer already withheld from your pay. If your withholding was about right, the saving shows up as a refund of roughly this size. If you already owed tax, it shrinks the balance owing instead. Either way the saving is the same amount of money.
It also does not change your CPP or EI. Those are charged on your employment earnings, and an RRSP deduction does not reduce them.
A refund is not free money. It is tax deferred until you withdraw in retirement, so the real question is whether your tax rate now is higher than it will be then. If you are weighing the two, the TFSA vs RRSP comparison works through it with your own numbers. And if you are not sure what you actually take home yet, start with the take-home pay calculator.
It is an estimate for planning, not a tax return. It models one person with employment income and does not include self-employment, investment or rental income, spousal RRSP attribution, or credits beyond the standard ones. If you need an exact figure for filing, use your tax software or an accountant.
This page is one view of the full Finance Simulator, where the same numbers drive your budget, investments, retirement date and net worth.
50 public comments so far, quoted from public posts without names. Nothing paid for, nothing invented.
This is very impressive. I like it a lot and previously paid for something similar before our planning software mostly covered this. For reference, I'm a CFP and CPA […]. Nice work!
This is great! Thanks for sharing your work. I can also vouch for the fearful that this does not appear to be saving data anywhere external to your local browser
Wow, it's actually the most helpful financial calculation tool I have used online. Kudos to you, I just spent 20+ minutes playing around with it.
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It depends on your income, your province and the size of the contribution. In Ontario in 2026, a $10,000 contribution saves $2,220 at a $60,000 salary and $3,689 at $120,000. Enter your own numbers in the calculator above for your figure. It runs your full return with and without the contribution, so the answer is the real difference rather than an estimate from one tax rate.
Only when the whole contribution stays inside one tax bracket and no income-tested credit or premium changes. A larger contribution often drops your income into a lower bracket, so part of it saves less. In Ontario, the Health Premium and the LIFT credit both respond to lower income, which can make the refund larger than the bracket rate suggests. At a $60,000 Ontario salary, the single-rate shortcut overstates a $10,000 refund by $745.
18% of your 2025 earned income, up to $33,810, plus any unused room carried forward from earlier years, minus any pension adjustment from a workplace plan. Your exact limit is printed on your Notice of Assessment and shown in CRA My Account.
No. CPP and EI are charged on employment earnings, and an RRSP deduction only lowers taxable income. That is why this calculator measures the drop in income tax alone.
Yes. Everything you type into the calculator (salary, savings, balances, goals) stays in your browser. It is never sent to me or anyone else unless you share a plan link yourself, there is no account or login, and you can wipe it at any time with the reset option in the app. What does get collected is how the site is used, never your numbers: Google Analytics counts visits and which features people use, with its advertising features switched off. It is the only tracking on the site, in either mode. If you send feedback, only what you write in that form (and your email, if you add one) reaches me.
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