RESP & CESG Planner

The basic CESG (20% match)

The Canada Education Savings Grant pays 20% × min(annual contribution, $2,500), up to $500 per year, into your RESP. The lifetime maximum per child is $7,200, reached with roughly $36,000 of contributions ($2,500/yr for 14.4 years). Contributing about $208.33/month ($2,500/yr) captures the full annual grant. Contributing less than $2,500 leaves basic grant behind; contributing more earns no extra basic grant that year unless you have carry-forward room.

Carry-forward and catch-up

Grant room accrues $500 per year from the year your child is born, whether or not an RESP exists yet. Unused room carries forward. In a catch-up year you can collect grant on up to $5,000 of contributions, one prior year's room plus the current year, for up to $1,000 of basic CESG. You can never claim more than $1,000 of basic grant in a single year, so if you start late you may not recover all the room before age 17. By default this tool assumes prior years were unfunded, so accrued room is $500 × current age (capped at the $7,200 grant maximum). If you already have an RESP, enter CESG already received: it reduces both the remaining lifetime grant (toward $7,200) and your available carry-forward room; it defaults to $0.

Additional CESG (income-tested)

Lower- and middle-income families get an extra grant on the first $500 contributed each year, based on 2025 adjusted family net income: +20% (up to $100/yr) if income is $57,375 or less, and +10% (up to $50/yr) between $57,375 and $114,750. Additional CESG counts toward the same $7,200 cap and does not carry forward: you must contribute each year to receive it.

The 16/17-year-old rule

Contributions stop earning any CESG at the end of the year the child turns 17. Beneficiaries aged 16 or 17 only qualify if either at least $2,000 was contributed before the year they turned 16, or at least $100 was contributed in any four years before then. If you are opening an RESP for a 15-, 16-, or 17-year-old with no history, confirm eligibility; this tool assumes the beneficiary qualifies.

Growth and the contribution limit

The balance grows monthly at your expected return: balance × (1 + r)^(1/12) + monthly, with each year's grant added at year-end. The $50,000 lifetime limit counts your contributions only: grants and growth never count toward it. If you already have an RESP, enter Contributions made so far so the account's grants and growth aren't mistaken for used contribution room. Left blank, it assumes your current balance less any CESG already received (as if the account had no growth yet), capped at $50,000. Your current balance is market value, so it can be above $50,000. Over-contributing triggers a 1%-per-month penalty tax, so the tool stops adding contributions once the cap is reached.

The three money figures add up to the projected value at 18: contributions (made so far plus projected), grants (CESG already received plus projected CESG, and QESI in Québec) and growth, which is everything else, including growth already in today's balance. The hero also shows the value at 18 in today's dollars: value at 18 ÷ (1 + inflation)^(years to 18), at the FP Canada planning assumption of 2.1% inflation.

Front-loading vs the grant pace

The optional lump-sum comparison runs three deployments of the same money to age 18. Grant pace contributes $2,500 a year ($5,000 in catch-up years while carry-forward room remains, tapering to whatever the last of the $7,200 needs), and the rest waits outside. Front-load the rest reserves the future grant-pace contributions first, then deposits every remaining dollar today: for a newborn with $50,000 that is $16,500 now, because the pace needs $36,000 spread over 15 years; starting at age 3 it is $19,000. Both figures are computed from the grant engine, never assumed. All in today contributes everything now and forfeits every future grant beyond the first year's. Contributions land at the start of each year, grants at year-end, and money not yet contributed grows at your after-tax outside return, because growth outside an RESP is taxable. The winner is the combined RESP-plus-outside value at 18: front-loading usually wins when your after-tax outside return is below the RESP return, and going all-in only wins when the return gap is large enough to outgrow the forfeited grants. Additional CESG isn't used to size the pace (it rides on the first $500 either way), though the projection still pays it. The bar chart shows each plan's total at 18, split into what is inside the RESP and what is still waiting outside; the table gives the exact figures.

Reading the charts

Grant collected at each monthly amount re-runs this same year-by-year projection at 31 steady monthly amounts from $0 to $750 (the range doubles, up to $6,000, when your amount is higher), holding every other input, and plots lifetime CESG including any already received, plus the QESI in Québec. The curve climbs as each extra dollar earns the 20% match (plus the additional CESG on the first $500 a year), then flattens at the most you can still collect: $7,200, or less after a late start, since basic CESG tops out at $1,000 a year. It can fall again: the steady amount that fills the $50,000 limit exactly in the year your child turns 17 is (50,000 − contributions so far) ÷ (12 × years to 18), and contributing faster than that runs out of room before the last grant years, so the grants those years would have earned are lost (the shaded zone). The least monthly amount that collects the most is found by bisection on the same engine and rounded up to the next dollar.

Your lifetime limits compares lifetime CESG (received plus projected) with the $7,200 maximum, lifetime contributions (made so far plus projected) with the $50,000 limit, and in Québec the projected QESI with its $3,600 maximum, assuming no QESI has been received yet. The marker at $36,000 is the contribution total that earns the full $7,200 at 20%.

Where the money comes from starts from today's balance, split into your contributions so far, the CESG already received, and the rest as growth (a loss if the account is worth less than what went in). The layers always add up to that year's balance, and at 18 they match the three money figures above.

Taxation and withdrawals

Growth compounds tax-free inside the RESP. When your child enrols, withdrawals of grants + growth are Educational Assistance Payments (EAPs), taxed in the student's hands, usually at a very low or zero rate given tuition credits and low income. Your original contributions come out tax-free as a Post-Secondary Education (PSE) withdrawal.

If your child does not attend post-secondary

Your contributions return to you tax-free. Unused CESG is repaid to the government. The growth becomes an Accumulated Income Payment (AIP), taxed at your marginal rate plus a 20% penalty, but you can roll up to $50,000 into your RRSP or spousal RRSP if you have room and the plan is at least 10 years old.

What this doesn't model

The Canada Learning Bond, other provincial grants (e.g. the BC BCTESG, a one-time $1,200), a specific education-cost target and drawdown schedule, family-plan sharing across siblings, or a return glide-path as school nears. Tick Québec resident to add the QESI (10% provincial grant). For registered-account contribution room see the RRSP vs TFSA tool, and for long-run growth math the compound interest calculator.