How to Fill Out Form T1036: HBP RRSP Withdrawal Steps and 89-Day Rule

To fill out Form T1036, you complete Area 1 yourself with your personal information, the RRSP account you’re drawing from, and the amount you want to withdraw. You then hand the form to your RRSP issuer, who fills in Area 2 and releases the money without withholding tax. You do not send the form to the Canada Revenue Agency; your financial institution handles that reporting.¹

What the Form Does

Form T1036 tells your RRSP issuer to treat a withdrawal as a Home Buyers’ Plan transaction rather than an ordinary one. A normal RRSP withdrawal triggers withholding tax of 10% to 30% depending on the amount, and the full withdrawal is added to your taxable income for the year.² With T1036 on file, no tax is withheld, and the amount stays out of your income for that year.¹

The form is only for the Home Buyers’ Plan. If you’re drawing on your RRSP for education under the Lifelong Learning Plan, use Form RC96 instead.³ Moving your RRSP between financial institutions is a direct transfer and doesn’t involve T1036 at all.⁴

Download the current version from the CRA website. It comes as a standard PDF and an accessible fillable PDF.⁵

Confirm You Qualify Before You Start

Area 1 asks you to certify that you meet the HBP conditions. Your issuer will not process the form if you don’t. Every one of these must be true at the time of the withdrawal:⁶

You are a resident of Canada. If the home hasn’t been acquired yet at the time of your first withdrawal, you must remain a Canadian resident until it is.
You have a written agreement to buy or build a qualifying home. A pre-approved mortgage does not count.
You are a first-time home buyer. You cannot have owned and occupied a home as your principal residence at any point in the current calendar year (except in the 30 days immediately before the withdrawal) or in the four preceding calendar years. The same rule applies to your current spouse or common-law partner.
Your outstanding HBP balance from any previous participation is zero at the start of the calendar year of the new withdrawal.
You intend to live in the home as your principal residence within one year of buying or building it.

The first-time buyer condition is waived if you or the person you’re helping is a specified disabled person buying a home that is more accessible or better suited to their needs.⁶

The property must be a housing unit in Canada. That covers single-family homes, semi-detached homes, townhouses, mobile homes, condominiums, and apartments in duplexes through fourplexes or larger buildings. A share in a co-operative housing corporation qualifies if it provides an equity interest and the right to possess a unit; a share that only gives a right to tenancy does not.⁷

Completing Area 1

Area 1 is the part you sign. Enter your name, Social Insurance Number, address, and date of birth. Identify the RRSP account you’re withdrawing from and the dollar amount you want taken out. Sign the certification confirming you meet the eligibility conditions.¹

The total you can withdraw is $60,000. If your spouse or common-law partner also qualifies, they can withdraw up to $60,000 from their own RRSPs for the same home, bringing the household total to $120,000.⁸

You can pull from more than one RRSP as long as you’re the annuitant of each account, but each withdrawal needs its own T1036. If you’re drawing from three accounts, that’s three separate forms. All of your withdrawals must fall in the same calendar year as your first one, or in January of the following year. You can’t spread them across several months of the next year.⁶

Handing the Form to Your RRSP Issuer

Once Area 1 is complete, give the form to the bank, credit union, or investment firm holding the RRSP. Your issuer completes Area 2 with the withdrawal details and issuer information, processes the transaction, and releases the funds to you with no tax withheld. You do not mail the form to the CRA yourself.¹

Watch the 89-Day Contribution Window

Timing your form submission matters if you’ve recently topped up your RRSP. If you contributed to the RRSP in the 89 days before your HBP withdrawal, you may not be able to deduct part of those contributions. Specifically, you cannot deduct the amount by which contributions in that 89-day window exceed the fair market value of the RRSP after the withdrawal. The same rule applies if you contributed to your spouse’s RRSP within the 89 days before they withdrew from that RRSP under the HBP.¹

If you’re contributing to your RRSP specifically to boost the balance available for an HBP withdrawal, make the contribution at least 90 days before you submit T1036. Otherwise you can lose the deduction on those contributions, which cancels out much of the reason you contributed in the first place.

What Happens After You Submit

You must acquire or build the qualifying home before October 1 of the year after the year of your first withdrawal. A 2026 withdrawal means an October 1, 2027 deadline. For a condominium, the acquisition date is the day you’re entitled to immediate vacant possession. For new construction, the home is considered built on the date it becomes habitable.⁶

If a deal falls through and you sign a written agreement for a different qualifying home before that October 1 deadline, you get an additional year, pushing the acquisition deadline to October 1 of the second year after your first withdrawal.⁶

If no purchase happens and neither extension applies, you have to cancel your HBP participation. That means returning the withdrawn funds to an RRSP in your own name (not a pooled registered pension plan, a specified pension plan, or your spouse’s RRSP) by December 31 of the year after the year of your first withdrawal. The cancellation payment is not treated as a regular RRSP contribution, so you cannot claim a deduction for it and you should not enter it in the contributions section of Schedule 7. Within 60 days of the cancellation payment deadline, send the CRA either Form RC471 or a letter identifying you by name, address, and SIN and explaining the cancellation.⁹

Keep Your Copies

Hold on to your completed T1036 forms, withdrawal confirmations, RRSP statements, and later repayment records for at least six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to.¹⁰ HBP repayments run for 15 years,¹¹ so in practice your original withdrawal paperwork needs to stay accessible for the full repayment period plus six years.

1
Canada Revenue Agency. How to Make Withdrawals from Your RRSPs Under the Home Buyers’ Plan
2
Canada Revenue Agency. Tax Rates on Withdrawals
3
Canada Revenue Agency. Lifelong Learning Plan
4
Canada Revenue Agency. Making Withdrawals
5
Canada Revenue Agency. T1036 Home Buyers’ Plan (HBP) – Request to Withdraw Funds from an RRSP
6
Canada Revenue Agency. How to Participate in the Home Buyers’ Plan
7
Canada Revenue Agency. Definitions for Home Buyers’ Plan
8
Canada Revenue Agency. The Home Buyers’ Plan
9
Canada Revenue Agency. How to Cancel a Participation in the Home Buyers’ Plan
10
Canada Revenue Agency. Keeping Records
11
Canada Revenue Agency. How to Repay the Amounts Withdrawn from Your RRSPs Under the Home Buyers’ Plan