Schedule 7 of the T1 Return: RRSP Contributions, HBP and LLP Repayments

Schedule 7 is the CRA form that reports your RRSP contributions on your T1 return, together with any PRPP and SPP contributions, Home Buyers’ Plan and Lifelong Learning Plan repayments, spousal contributions, and eligible retiring allowance transfers. For the 2025 tax year, the maximum RRSP contribution is the lesser of 18% of your previous year’s earned income or $32,490, and contributions must be made by March 2, 2026 to count on that year’s return.¹² The form determines how much of what you contributed you can actually deduct, how much rolls forward, and whether the CRA will treat any of your RRSP activity as taxable income.

When You Have to File Schedule 7

You need to attach Schedule 7 to your T1 if any of the following applies:³

You made contributions to your own or your spouse’s RRSP, PRPP, or SPP between March 2 of the previous year and March 2 of the current year, whether or not you’re claiming them this year.
You have unused contributions from a prior year that you haven’t yet deducted.
You owe an HBP or LLP repayment for the year.
You transferred an eligible retiring allowance directly into your RRSP.

The form is required even if you’re deducting nothing. Skipping it when you owe an HBP or LLP repayment is the costly case: the CRA adds the unpaid repayment amount to your taxable income for that year.⁴

What to Have on Hand Before You Start

Your latest Notice of Assessment or Notice of Reassessment, or your CRA My Account, which shows your RRSP deduction limit and any unused contributions carried forward.⁵
Contribution receipts from your financial institution covering March of the previous year through the first 60 days of the current year.
Your HBP or LLP participant statement, which shows the minimum required repayment and your remaining balance.
Your T4 slip if you’re transferring a retiring allowance: boxes 66 and 67 show the eligible and non-eligible portions.⁶

Check your deduction limit before you contribute, not after. Going more than $2,000 over triggers a 1% monthly tax on the excess.⁷

Working Through the Four Parts

Part A: Total Contributions

Enter your unused RRSP contributions from the prior year (this figure comes from your last Notice of Assessment). Add contributions made from March through December of the tax year, then add contributions made in the first 60 days of the following year. The total is the pool you draw from for deductions and repayments.³

Part B: HBP and LLP Repayments

If you owe repayments under either program, designate the appropriate portion of your Part A contributions here. Amounts designated in Part B reduce your program balance and do not count as deductible contributions. The form subtracts them from Part A before you get to the deduction step.

Part C: Your Deduction Claim

Compare what’s left against the deduction limit shown on your Notice of Assessment. You can claim any amount up to that limit; you don’t have to claim it all. Holding some back can make sense if you expect to be in a higher bracket next year. Whatever you claim here goes to line 20800 of your T1.⁸

Part D: Carry-Forward

Take total contributions from Part A, subtract the repayments in Part B and the deduction claimed in Part C, and the remainder carries forward to next year. That number becomes the starting figure on next year’s Schedule 7, so getting it right matters.

HBP and LLP Repayments in More Detail

The Home Buyers’ Plan lets you withdraw up to $60,000 from your RRSP to buy or build a qualifying home, repayable over 15 years.⁹ For withdrawals made between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2025, a temporary relief measure delays the start of repayments until the fifth year after the withdrawal.⁴ Once repayments start, divide the outstanding HBP balance by the years remaining to get the minimum annual repayment. The Lifelong Learning Plan works similarly for education withdrawals, with a 10-year repayment period.¹⁰

Under both plans, you turn a contribution into a repayment by designating it on Schedule 7. The common mistake: contributing enough money to the RRSP but forgetting to designate the right amount in Part B. The CRA then treats the shortfall as income for the year, and your contribution simply sits as a regular RRSP deduction instead of paying down the plan balance.

Spousal Contributions on Your Schedule 7

When you contribute to your spouse’s or common-law partner’s RRSP, the contribution uses your deduction room and appears on your Schedule 7, not theirs. The funds grow inside your spouse’s plan and are taxed in their hands on withdrawal, which is what makes spousal RRSPs useful for income splitting.

Watch the attribution rule. If your spouse withdraws from a spousal RRSP within three calendar years of your last contribution to any of their RRSPs, all or part of the withdrawal is taxed as your income instead.¹¹ The lookback covers the year of withdrawal and the two preceding years; if any spousal contribution falls in that window, your spouse completes Form T2205 to allocate the withdrawal. To avoid attribution, stop spousal contributions at least two full calendar years before a planned withdrawal.

Retiring Allowance Transfers

You can transfer the eligible part of a retiring allowance directly into your own RRSP without using up your regular deduction room.⁶ The eligible amount is $2,000 for each year or partial year of service before 1996, plus an additional $1,500 per year of service before 1989 where you had no vested employer pension contributions.

On Schedule 7, report the transfer on line 24640 and in box 15. Your employer withholds no tax on the eligible portion when transferred directly. You still report the full retiring allowance as income on line 13000, then claim the transferred amount as a deduction on line 20800, so only the non-eligible portion is taxed. The transfer cannot go to a spousal RRSP, and it isn’t available if you were over 71 at the end of the tax year.

The Deduction Limit and the $2,000 Buffer

Your deduction limit is more than the current year’s new room. The CRA takes your unused deduction room from the prior year and adds the lesser of 18% of your prior year’s earned income or the annual dollar cap ($32,490 for 2025), reduced by any pension adjustment.¹ Unused room accumulates indefinitely.

If you’re 18 or older, contributions that exceed your limit by up to $2,000 sit in the plan penalty-free, though you can’t deduct them until you accrue new room.⁷ Anything above that cushion is taxed at 1% per month for every month it remains in the plan. Report and pay the tax on Form T1-OVP (or T1-OVP-S), due within 90 days after the end of the year in which the excess occurred. Missing that deadline adds a 5% late-filing penalty plus 1% per month up to 12 months.

If the over-contribution was a genuine mistake, you can request a waiver of the tax on Form RC2503, with documentation showing the exact months of every contribution and withdrawal involved. Standard RRSP receipts and T4RSP slips are not enough because they don’t show month-by-month detail. The fastest way to limit the damage is withdrawing the excess before the month ends.

Filing Schedule 7

Schedule 7 goes in with your T1 General return. CRA-certified tax software packages it into your NETFILE submission automatically; professional preparers send it through EFILE.¹² Paper filers attach the completed schedule to the T1 before mailing.

You don’t send contribution receipts with an electronic return, but keep them and all supporting documents for at least six years in case the CRA asks.¹³ Your next Notice of Assessment will show your updated deduction limit and carry-forward balance; those become the starting numbers for next year’s Schedule 7.

Fixing a Schedule 7 Mistake After Filing

If you forgot a contribution, claimed the wrong deduction, or missed an HBP or LLP designation, use the ReFILE service through CRA-certified tax software to submit a corrected return electronically for 2021 and later years.¹⁴ You don’t have to use the same software you originally filed with.

For earlier years or situations where ReFILE isn’t available, file Form T1-ADJ by paper or through the CRA’s online webform.¹⁵ Fix Schedule 7 errors as soon as you see them. A missed HBP repayment has already been added to income for the year in question, and the longer you wait, the messier the reassessment.

RRSP-to-FHSA Transfers Don’t Belong Here

Direct transfers from an RRSP to a First Home Savings Account are not deductible and are not reported on Schedule 7.¹⁶ Your FHSA issuer reports the transfer on a T4FHSA slip, and the movement has to happen directly between institutions using Form RC720. Withdraw the RRSP funds yourself and redeposit them into an FHSA, and the CRA will tax the withdrawal as income and treat the FHSA deposit as an ordinary new contribution.

1
Canada Revenue Agency. How Contributions Affect Your RRSP Deduction Limit
2
Canada Revenue Agency. Important Dates for RRSPs, HBP, LLP, FHSAs and More
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Canada Revenue Agency. 5000-S7 Schedule 7 – RRSP, PRPP, and SPP Contributions and Transfers, and HBP and LLP Activities
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Canada Revenue Agency. How to Repay the Amounts Withdrawn From Your RRSPs Under the Home Buyers’ Plan
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Canada Revenue Agency. Where Can You Find Your RRSP Deduction Limit
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Canada Revenue Agency. Transferring the Eligible Part of a Retiring Allowance
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Canada Revenue Agency. What Happens if You Go Over Your RRSP, PRPP or SPP Deduction Limit
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Canada Revenue Agency. Line 20800 – RRSP Deduction
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Canada Revenue Agency. The Home Buyers’ Plan
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Canada Revenue Agency. Lifelong Learning Plan
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Canada Revenue Agency. Withdrawing From Spousal or Common-Law Partner RRSPs
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Canada Revenue Agency. Tax Software for Filing Personal Taxes
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Canada Revenue Agency. How Long Should You Keep Your Income Tax Records
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Canada Revenue Agency. Changing a Tax Return – Personal Income Tax
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Canada Revenue Agency. T1-ADJ T1 Adjustment Request
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Canada Revenue Agency. Transfers Into Your FHSAs