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RESP stands for Registered Education Savings Plan and can be valuable in helping you save for your children’s postsecondary education.

What are the benefits of an RESP?
RESPs help to save for post-secondary education. With an RESP, you could receive various government grants and Canada Learning Bond benefits.

Who is eligible for RESPs?
Anyone over age 18 with a valid social insurance number can open RESP. However, in some cases to access certain federal and provincial grants you must be a Canadian resident.

Who are beneficiaries?
Beneficiaries are the person who is named on the RESP and who will eventually use the money to pay for their post-secondary education. A beneficiary of an RESP account can be your children, grandchildren, relatives, friends or yourself.

Who are the custodial parents/legal guardian?
Custodial parents/legal guardian are the parents of the child by birth or adoption and have custody of your child, immediately before the child turns 18 years of age.

Who is primary care giver (PCG)?
PCG or PCG’s spouse is the individual who is eligible to receive Universal child care benefit.

What is adjusted family net Income?
To calculate the adjusted family net income of your family you can add Income received minus any UCCB (Universal Child Care Benefit) received plus any UCCB amount repaid.

Yes. You are eligible to receive government grants, like the Canada Education Savings Grant, when you make contributions to your RESP.

The CLB is an annual grant for low to moderate income families that meet the government’s eligibility requirements. Each eligible child can receive up to $500 the first year they are eligible and $100 each subsequent year they are eligible until they turn 15. Each child can receive a lifetime maximum of $2,000.

To maximize government grants, you can contribute up to $2,500 annually and the government will match 20% for a lifetime max of $7,200! There is a lifetime contribution limit per future student ($50,000) but your earnings can grow beyond this! Click here for more.

After you make a contribution, it takes 6-8 weeks for government grants to be deposited.

When you take money out of an RESP to pay for school, that includes government benefits (eg. CLB or CESG) or earnings on money you've contributed, it comes out as an Educational Assistance Payment (EAP) into the students bank account. This is taxed based on the student's income, which usually means low to no taxes.

If you only take out the direct contributions you, or your family, has made, it's considered a post-secondary education withdrawal, and isn't taxable at all.

If you need to use the money in your RESP for non-educational expenses, you get back your contributions but you lose out on the government grants. Any earnings you made on top of your contributions will be taxed.

Our RESP calculator takes your income, province of residence, number and age of your children, and planned contribution and calculates an estimate for returns until your oldest turns 18, which is a common age for students to transition to college or university. Your income and province of residence is used to approximate eligibility for grants, which may differ across provinces. For the Canada Learning Bond (CLB), the government of Canada publishes income brackets for eligibility each year based on adjusted net family income. We use estimates in our calculator since income thresholds change every year and it can be difficult to predict your exact adjusted net family income for the year ahead of time.

Our RESP calculator is not financial advice; it is for illustrative purposes only and the results are estimates. The calculator may be a useful tool in helping you estimate how much you need for your child’s education. However, the calculator does not anticipate or take into account future changes to government programs or tax rates. Actual rates of return on investments may also vary from our assumption of 3%.