Net Worth by Age in Canada: What the Number Actually Hides

Statistics Canada’s 2023 medians give you a number to measure against. The more useful question is what that single figure quietly hides.

I try not to fixate on what other people have and I don’t, but I think it’s normal to think the grass is greener sometimes or feel the ‘keeping up with the Jones’ mentality. Today, it’s probably more true than ever. The benchmarks for what constitutes success have moved so far from what they used to be. Having a garage or a second bathroom used to be considered doing well, and now if you haven’t founded a multi-billion dollar tech unicorn, you’re struggling to keep up. People with MBAs working at top jobs are struggling to even buy a house in some markets. So how do you measure success anyways? One way is net worth.

Net worth is what you own minus what you owe. In Canada, the median for a household in its late thirties and early forties is $409,300, and it keeps climbing with age from there (Statistics Canada, 2023). It is the most-tracked figure in personal finance, but the headline number can be misleading unless you understand what goes into it.

Because every line that feeds that number is a different kind of dollar. A dollar in your TFSA, a dollar of home equity, and a dollar in your RRSP mean different things for you, even though the arithmetic treats them as identical. The following paragraphs outline what is actually inside the number, and how to read it.

What is the average net worth by age in Canada?

The most reliable Canadian benchmark comes from the Survey of Financial Security (SFS) — Statistics Canada’s national measure of household assets and debts. The most recent release covers 2023, with all figures in constant 2023 dollars. It groups families by the age of their main income earner and reports the median net worth for each group.

Source: Statistics Canada, Survey of Financial Security, 2023. Median net worth, families grouped by age of major income recipient, constant 2023 dollars. Overall median across all Canadian households: $519,700. These are the latest available figures — the next Survey of Financial Security cycle is expected in early 2027.

One detail matters before you compare yourself to any of these: use the median, not the average. The median is the midpoint (half of households sit above it, half below). The average is always higher, because a small number of very wealthy families pull the mean sharply upward. If you have ever seen an “average net worth” figure and felt behind, you were likely measuring yourself against a number inflated by the richest few per cent, which is no benchmark at all.

The figures also move a lot by geography, almost entirely because of housing. In British Columbia the median is $773,500 and in Ontario $665,600, while in Nova Scotia it is $354,600. That spread is driven far more by home values than by how disciplined anyone is at saving.

How is net worth actually calculated?

The formula is simple: total assets minus total liabilities. The judgement is in what you put on each side, and how you value it. Here is the full set of lines we add up inside the YouGotThis app, which mirrors how the SFS measures it:

Two choices in that list are deliberate, and worth saying plainly. First, registered accounts are counted at their full balance (gross, before tax). We do not shrink your RRSP to estimate what the CRA will eventually take. Second, your principal residence goes in at full market value, with the mortgage subtracted separately on the liability side.

Why comparing your number to a median misses the point

So, the gross number is honest. It is also where most people stop, and stopping there is the mistake. The single figure blends together dollars that behave nothing alike. Read each line through three lenses and the picture changes completely:

• Tax: has this dollar already been taxed, will it be taxed on the way out, or is it tax-free for good?
• Liquidity: could you actually spend this in a month, or only by selling or borrowing against something?
• Durability: is this dollar going to compound, sit flat, or quietly depreciate to nothing?

Comparing one gross total to a median tells you none of that. Two people with the identical number can be in entirely different financial situations. The interesting work is reading the lines.

A line-by-line read of your net worth

The TFSA — the one clean dollar

The TFSA, Canada’s tax-free savings account, is the only line where the number on the screen is the number you get to keep. The money went in already taxed, it grows tax-free, and it comes out tax-free and penalty-free at any time. Liquid, settled, fully yours. If every dollar on your balance sheet behaved like a TFSA dollar, net worth would be a perfect measure. None of the others do.

The RRSP and RRIF — the dollar you co-own with the CRA

An RRSP holds pre-tax dollars, so you don’t actually own the full amount. You got a deduction going in, the money compounds untaxed, and then every dollar you withdraw, or that your RRIF pays out after age 71, is taxed as ordinary income at your marginal rate. So, a $500,000 RRSP is not $500,000 of spendable money. Depending on your rate when you draw it, a meaningful slice belongs to the CRA. The balance is real, but you own it jointly with a silent partner who collects at the end.

The corporate account — the dollar taxed on the way out

For incorporated professionals, retained earnings inside a CCPC (Canadian-controlled private corporation) are often the largest line on the sheet — and the most layered. The money has been taxed once at the corporate level, and will be taxed again as a dividend or salary when you extract it personally. It is genuine wealth, but it is wealth behind two doors. Most net worth articles ignore it entirely; if you run a practice through a corporation, leaving it out understates your position by a lot, and counting it at face value overstates what you can actually spend.

Non-registered investments — the taxable-gain dollar

A non-registered (taxable) account sits in the middle. The principal is already-taxed money, but the growth is not — when you sell, capital gains are taxable, and dividends and interest are taxed each year along the way. More of it is yours than in an RRSP, less than in a TFSA. The embedded tax depends on how much of the balance is gain.

The FHSA and RESP — dollars with strings attached

The FHSA (first home savings account) is powerful but conditional. The FHSA’s tax-free advantage holds only if the money goes toward a qualifying first home. The RESP is the strangest line of all: it sits in your net worth, but it was never really yours. It is held in trust for a child’s education, the government has topped it up with grant money that gets clawed back if it is not used for school, and the day it does its job, it leaves your balance sheet entirely. A real asset, promised to someone else.

The workplace pension — the line you have to go looking for

A defined-benefit pension can be one of the most valuable things you own and show up nowhere, because it has no account balance to log into. Its worth is its commuted value, the lump sum equivalent of the income it will pay, and that can easily run into the high six figures. The catch is that you have to actively find that number and enter it; nothing pulls it in automatically. People with generous pensions routinely believe their net worth is far lower than it is, simply because the biggest asset never got counted.

Home equity — the dollar you can’t spend

Home equity is real wealth that you cannot spend without either selling the roof over your head or borrowing against it. It earns its own section below, because whether it should even sit in your net worth is a genuine debate.

Cars, crypto, and everything else — the dollars that flatter the number

Vehicles, collectibles, and the like get entered at face value and then quietly betray you: a car is a depreciating consumption asset that is worth less every year and contributes nothing toward retirement. We deliberately don’t give your car its own celebratory line in the app — it lands in “other assets” rather than being dressed up as an investment. It counts, because you own it, but a net worth that leans on a depreciating asset is a number that flatters today and shrinks tomorrow.

Should your home even be in the number?

Here is the line item nobody agrees on. There are three reasonable positions:

• Include the equity: the default, and what Statistics Canada does. You own the home, it has value, the value counts.
• Exclude it entirely: the view favoured by the financial-independence crowd, who track “investable” or liquid net worth only, on the logic that you can’t eat a house.
• Treat it as something closer to a liability: the contrarian case, and the one I think is most interesting.

The argument for that third view is stronger than it first sounds. Your home is illiquid, meaning that you can’t access the value without selling or borrowing. You never actually liberate the money, because you always need somewhere to live; functionally, the equity is an inheritance your children will one day realize, not wealth you will ever spend. And even fully paid off, a home runs a negative cash flow every single year with property tax, insurance, maintenance, repairs. An asset that costs you money to hold and that you can never spend behaves, in important ways, like the liability side of the ledger.

The contrast with an investment property makes the logic clean. A rental gets treated as the real investment it is. It counts as equity in your net worth and feeds the projection engine, because it produces income and could be sold to fund retirement. The home you live in is net-worth-only. The rental pays you; the home you live in costs you. Same building material, opposite sides of the spendability line.

Two identical numbers, two different lives

Put it all together with two households, each with exactly $800,000 in net worth.

Same number. Profoundly different positions. Household A has options this year; Household B has a strong balance sheet that mostly cannot be reached this year. A median comparison would rank them identically. Reading the composition is the only thing that tells them apart.

Reading the number, not just tracking it

None of this means your number is wrong. The gross figure is the honest snapshot. It’s the right place to start, and the only version that compares cleanly to the StatsCan median. But a snapshot is not the same as understanding. The number becomes useful the moment you can see what it is made of: how much is liquid, how much the CRA still has a claim on, how much is doing nothing but keeping a roof overhead.

That is the difference between tracking a number and reading it. YouGotThis was built to show you the composition, not just the total. It’s your full picture in one place, with each dollar read for what it actually is. If you’d like to see your own number broken down this way, you can explore it inside the app.

Frequently asked questions

Is your house included in net worth in Canada?

Conventionally, yes. Statistics Canada counts a principal residence at market value, with the mortgage subtracted as a liability, so home equity sits inside the standard net worth figure. Some people also track a separate “investable” or liquid net worth that excludes the home, because you can’t spend it without selling. Both views are valid, but they answer different questions.

What is a good net worth by age in Canada?

There is no single “good” number. As a 2023 Statistics Canada benchmark, median net worth is about $159,100 under age 35, $409,300 for ages 35 to 44, and $675,800 for ages 45 to 54. Median means half of households are above and half below. It is a reference point, not a target.

Should I track net worth or investable assets?

Net worth gives the full snapshot of everything you own minus what you owe. Investable assets show what could actually fund retirement. The most complete view tracks both separately, which is why a home belongs in net worth but generally not in a retirement income projection. You can’t draw a 4% income from a house you live in.

Why is an RRSP worth less than its balance?

An RRSP holds pre-tax dollars. Every withdrawal is taxed as income at your marginal rate, so a $500,000 RRSP balance represents less than $500,000 of spendable money. The exact gap depends on your tax rate when you withdraw, which is why the balance itself is reported in full rather than guessed downward.

Educational illustration only. Not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. The net worth figures cited are 2023 Statistics Canada medians; individual circumstances, tax treatment, and asset values vary and change over time. The figures are meant to build intuition, not to size any individual’s decision — confirm current figures and tax rules for your own situation.