Average Savings by Age in Canada: Are You Behind?

Search for average savings by age in Canada and you’ll get a different number on every page, most of them with no source attached. Statistics Canada’s own figure: the typical Canadian family unit had $8,400 in the bank in 2023. The average was $37,500. Both numbers are real. The gap between them is why no two articles agree, and it’s the reason the average is the wrong number to measure yourself against.

How much does the average Canadian have in savings?

Canadian family units held a median of $8,400 in deposits at financial institutions in 2023 and an average of $37,500, according to Statistics Canada’s Survey of Financial Security (opens in a new tab). Deposits here means chequing and savings accounts plus term deposits and GICs, so it’s close to the money you think of as your savings.

Why the average is more than four times the median

The median is the middle: line every family up by their balance and take the one standing in the centre. The average adds every balance together and divides. One family with $2 million in cash lifts the average for thousands of families around them, and it moves the median not at all.

That’s the whole reason these two numbers sit so far apart, and it’s why almost every “average savings” article makes readers feel worse than the data warrants. If you have $9,000 in the bank, you’re behind the average and ahead of half the country at the same time.

Average and median savings by age in Canada

Median deposits run from $6,000 for family units under 35 to $13,000 for those 65 and over. The averages in the same brackets run from $21,000 to $54,800. Age brackets here refer to the major income earner in the family unit, and both figures count only families that hold deposits at all.

Source: Statistics Canada, Table 11-10-0016-01 (opens in a new tab), Survey of Financial Security, 2023.

Savings don’t climb steadily with age

Read down the median column and the line isn’t a ramp. It rises slightly into the late thirties, drops back to $6,000 for the 45 to 54 bracket, and only starts climbing after 55. The average column climbs the whole way, because higher earners in their peak years pull it upward while the middle of the pack stays flat.

The 45 to 54 dip surprises people, and it holds up in a completely separate dataset (more on that below). Those are the years when a mortgage, teenagers and aging parents arrive at once. Cash on hand is often the thing that gives.

Under 35, the starting line is lower than most people assume

A median of $6,000 for family units under 35 is a month or two of essential expenses for a lot of Canadians. If you’re in your twenties or thirties with a few thousand dollars saved and a nagging feeling that everyone else is doing better, the national data doesn’t back up the feeling. Most of your peers are somewhere close to where you are.

How much do Canadians have in TFSAs and RRSPs by age?

Registered accounts hold more than chequing and savings do, and they’re where the age pattern actually looks like the one people expect. Median TFSA balances climb from $10,000 under 35 to $52,100 at 65 and over, though only about half of Canadian family units hold a TFSA at all.

Source: Statistics Canada, Table 11-10-0016-01, Survey of Financial Security, 2023. Medians cover families holding that account type.

The per-person view, from the CRA

Those brackets cover family units, so a couple’s balances are combined. For a per-person read, the Canada Revenue Agency publishes TFSA statistics (opens in a new tab) covering every account in the country. For the 2023 tax year, average fair market value per holder ran $13,149 at ages 25 to 29, $16,760 at 30 to 34, $20,670 at 40 to 44 and $30,190 at 50 to 54. The CRA reports averages only, so expect the same upward pull you saw above.

One number there matters more than the balances. The average TFSA holder is carrying $49,596 in unused contribution room, and it peaks in the late thirties at close to $63,000. Practically nobody is filling their TFSA. If you’ve been treating a maxed-out TFSA as the standard you’re failing to meet, that standard is almost entirely imaginary.

Why no two articles give the same number

Because there isn’t one official “savings by age” figure in Canada, and the sources that come closest measure different things. Four details explain most of the disagreement, and they’re worth knowing before you trust any page on this topic, including this one.

• Family units, not people. The Survey of Financial Security counts economic families and people living alone. Two salaries and one balance sit in the same row.
• The age is the major income earner’s. A 28-year-old living with an older partner lands in that partner’s bracket.
• Zero balances are excluded. Statistics Canada calculates these medians and averages from non-zero values, so the roughly 1 in 20 family units with no deposits at all sit outside the table. The true typical balance across everyone is lower.
• The data is from 2023. The survey runs every few years and was last released in October 2024. It’s the most recent official read, and it predates two years of price increases.

The trap in the fresher numbers

There’s a newer Statistics Canada table that appears to show a savings rate by age, and it’s a trap worth flagging because it looks authoritative. In the 2025 distributions of household economic accounts (opens in a new tab), households under 35 record net saving of $14,271, which works out to about 15% of disposable income. That figure would make young Canadians look like the best savers in the country.

Most of it never touches a bank account. $9,821 of that $14,271 is the change in pension entitlements, the value accruing inside workplace pension plans. Strip it out and what’s actually left over after spending is $4,450.

How much are Canadians putting away right now?

Not much, and less than at any point in the last two years. The national household saving rate fell to 3.5% in the first quarter of 2026 (opens in a new tab), the lowest since early 2024, as spending grew faster than income. Broken down by age for 2025, disposable income minus what households actually spend looks like this.

Per household, 2025. Calculated from Statistics Canada Table 36-10-0587-01 (opens in a new tab), household disposable income less household final consumption expenditure, excluding pension entitlement changes.

Notice the 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 rows. Canadian households in their peak earning years spend more than they bring in, which lines up with the dip in the deposit table from a completely different survey. Earning the most and keeping the most are not the same decade.

Am I behind on savings?

A national median can’t answer that, and it’s the wrong question to build a plan on. Rent in Vancouver and rent in Moncton aren’t the same number, a nurse and a contractor don’t have the same income stability, and someone with a paid-off car and no kids has room a single parent doesn’t. Those things decide what you should have saved. The country’s middle balance doesn’t.

Money is still the leading source of stress for 43% of Canadians, ahead of health at 21%, relationships at 17% and work at 15%, per the FP Canada 2026 Financial Stress Index (opens in a new tab). Ranking yourself against a stranger’s balance tends to feed that without changing anything.

The version of the question worth asking is narrower. Could you cover a $2,000 emergency without borrowing? If not, that’s the first target, and our emergency fund guide walks through the amount that fits your expenses. After that, pick the specific thing you’re saving for and work backwards from its date with a savings goal calculator. Both give you a number that means something, which a percentile never will.

How Lodavo fits in

Knowing the median doesn’t make anyone save. The hard part is that saving stays invisible for months: you move $50, the balance ticks up, nothing else happens, and eventually you stop. That gap between doing the right thing and feeling anything is where most saving plans die.

Lodavo puts something on the other side of it. Connect the Canadian bank account you already use, and the money you save earns you free tickets in a weekly draw for cash prizes up to $10,000, with at least $100 going to a user every week. The more you save, the more tickets you get. Your money never leaves your own account, so whatever interest it earns, it keeps earning.

Ready to make saving worth looking forward to? Download Lodavo free on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) or Google Play Store (opens in a new tab) and start earning tickets for this week’s draw.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.