There is no province-wide Alberta first-time home buyer grant. It is worth saying that at the top, because a lot of searching starts from the assumption that one exists. What Alberta gives first-time buyers is the absence of a cost: no land transfer tax, where an Ontario buyer at the same price would pay thousands.
The programs that do exist are federal, which means they work the same in Calgary as in Airdrie or Lethbridge. There are three, they stack, and each one defines first-time home buyer slightly differently. That last point causes more trouble than anything else here, so it gets its own section.
Every figure below is from the Canada Revenue Agency, with sources listed at the end. This is a summary of published rules, not tax advice. Before you act on any of it, confirm your own situation with an accountant.
The First Home Savings Account
The FHSA is the strongest of the three, because it is the only one that is deductible going in and tax-free coming out. An RRSP is deductible but taxed on withdrawal. A TFSA is tax-free on withdrawal but not deductible. The FHSA is both, which is why it should generally be filled before the other two are considered.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Annual participation room | $8,000 |
| Lifetime limit | $40,000 |
| Maximum carry-forward into one year | $8,000 |
| Over-contribution tax | 1% per month on the excess |
The carry-forward cap is the detail most often written incorrectly. Unused room does accumulate, but the carry-forward itself cannot exceed $8,000. So the most that can go into an FHSA in any single year is $16,000, being that year's $8,000 plus at most $8,000 carried forward. It is not an unlimited pool that builds while you wait.
Three conditions to open one, all required at the time you open it: you are 18 or older, you are a resident of Canada, and you are a first-time home buyer under the definition that applies to opening an account.
Rules worth knowing before you open one
- File Schedule 15 for the year you open your first FHSA, even if you contributed nothing and did nothing with it. This is easy to miss because there is no activity to report.
- A qualifying withdrawal is never repaid. Unlike the Home Buyers' Plan, the money is simply yours.
- A qualifying withdrawal does not clear an over-contribution. If you have contributed too much, fix that first, or the 1 per cent monthly tax can continue after the account is emptied.
- The account has a life. Your participation period ends on December 31 of the earliest of: the 15th anniversary of opening your first FHSA, the year you turn 71, or the year following your first qualifying withdrawal.
- You can transfer out to an RRSP or RRIF, but not to a TFSA. A move to a TFSA is treated as a taxable withdrawal plus a new TFSA contribution.
- A qualifying withdrawal needs Form RC725, and the acquisition or construction completion date has to fall before October 1 of the year following the withdrawal.
The Home Buyers' Plan
The HBP lets you withdraw up to $60,000 from an RRSP to buy or build a qualifying home, then repay it over 15 years. It is a loan from yourself, which is the important difference from the FHSA.
When repayment starts depends on when you first withdrew, and this is where the current rules are genuinely confusing.
| First withdrawal | Repayment starts |
|---|---|
| Before January 1, 2022 | Second year after the year of first withdrawal |
| January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2025 | Fifth year after the year of first withdrawal |
| January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2028 | Fifth year after the year of first withdrawal |
The second and third rows are relief that defers the start by an additional three years. CRA's own examples make the arithmetic concrete: a first withdrawal in 2022 means a first repayment year of 2027, and a first withdrawal in 2023 means 2028.
The relief first introduced for withdrawals made between 2022 and the end of 2025 has since been extended to cover first withdrawals made between January 1, 2026 and December 31, 2028. CRA states this as settled rather than proposed, and gives its own worked example: a first withdrawal in 2026 means a first repayment year of 2031. If you are planning around the longer grace period, it is the current rule rather than something still waiting on legislation.
How repayment actually works
- The minimum each year is your remaining balance divided by the years left in the period. Paying more than the minimum in one year lowers every later minimum.
- Repay into an RRSP, PRPP or SPP, then designate the amount on line 24600 of Schedule 7. Without the designation it is just an ordinary contribution.
- Missing a payment is not penalised as such. The shortfall is added to your income for that year on line 12900. It is not a fine, but it is taxable.
- You cannot repay an HBP withdrawal into an FHSA.
- Repayments do not use up RRSP deduction room, and you can make them even if your deduction limit is zero. You cannot also deduct an amount designated as a repayment.
- Contributions to a spouse's RRSP cannot be designated as your repayment.
The HBP and an FHSA qualifying withdrawal can both be used for the same home, as long as you meet each set of conditions at the time of each withdrawal. For a couple who have both saved in both places, that is a substantial amount of down payment.
The Home Buyers' Amount
This is a non-refundable federal tax credit claimed on line 31270 in the year you acquire the home. You can claim up to $10,000, which is worth up to $1,500 at the 15 per cent lowest federal rate.
If you have read elsewhere that this credit is $5,000 and worth $750, that page is out of date. The amount doubled for the 2022 tax year.
| Tax year | Maximum claim |
|---|---|
| 2022 and later | $10,000 |
| 2015 to 2021 | $5,000 |
Non-refundable means it reduces tax you owe. If you owe no federal tax, it does not turn into a refund.
On splitting, which is commonly stated backwards: where more than one person is eligible for the same home, they can each claim part, and the total for that home cannot exceed the maximum. But the credit cannot be split between spouses or common-law partners unless both are eligible. If only one of you qualifies, that person claims the full amount rather than half of it.
There is also a route for a person eligible for the disability tax credit, who does not need to be a first-time buyer at all. It covers buying a more accessible or better suited home, including buying one for the benefit of a related person who is eligible.
Three definitions of first-time home buyer
This is the part that catches people, and it is not a technicality. The three programs use three different tests, and CRA is explicit that the FHSA alone uses two different ones depending on whether you are opening the account or taking money out.
| Purpose | Whose ownership counts | Look-back |
|---|---|---|
| Opening an FHSA | You or your spouse or common-law partner | Current year before opening, plus the four preceding calendar years |
| FHSA qualifying withdrawal | You only | Current year before the withdrawal, except the 30 days immediately before, plus the four preceding calendar years |
| Home Buyers' Amount | You or your spouse or common-law partner | Year of acquisition plus the four preceding years |
The consequence is worth stating plainly, because it runs in a direction most people do not expect. Someone living in a home their spouse owns cannot open an FHSA. But someone who already holds an FHSA and then marries a homeowner can still make a qualifying withdrawal, because the withdrawal test looks only at homes they owned themselves.
CRA publishes worked examples of both situations. If your circumstances changed partway through saving, this is the section to check against your own facts rather than assuming the tests match.
What this looks like in Alberta
All three programs are federal, so nothing above is specific to Calgary or to Alberta. What is specific is what you are not charged. Alberta has no provincial land transfer tax, and instead charges land titles registration fees that are a fraction of what a percentage-based transfer tax would cost. Those fees did rise in October 2024, and they are covered in our guide to Alberta closing costs.
There is no province-wide Alberta first-time buyer grant to apply for. If you find a page promising one, check what it is actually describing before you spend time on an application.