Net worth vs investable — which one is yours?

Investable assets are the financial assets you hold that can be deployed in investment markets — RRSP/RRIF, TFSA, FHSA, non-registered investment accounts, and deposits/cash. The category EXCLUDES your principal residence, vehicles, business equity, personal property, and pension plans you don't directly own. The distinction matters because total net worth in Canada is dominated by home equity, and home equity is illiquid — you can't easily spend it without selling or borrowing against the home.

Statistics Canada SFS 2023 highlights the most extreme version of this gap: for family units under 35, median net worth WITH a principal residence is $457,100, but WITHOUT one it drops to just $44,000 — a 10× gap. The full $413,000 difference is essentially home equity. Younger homeowners who bought in 2019-2021 captured the pandemic-era price appreciation in their net worth statements; renters did not. This is the single biggest divide in Canadian household wealth statistics.

Per Statistics Canada SFS 2019 (RRSP) and CRA TFSA Statistics 2023, the published medians/averages combine to roughly: under 35 ≈ $25,000 ($12,500 RRSP + $12,450 TFSA); 35-44 ≈ $49,750; 45-54 ≈ $97,170; 55-64 ≈ $139,175; 65+ ≈ $157,800. These are direct sums of two published statistics — RRSP medians and TFSA averages — and represent the registered-account portion of investable assets. Non-registered investments and cash add on top.

No. Net worth includes ALL assets (financial + real estate + vehicles + personal property + business equity) minus all debts. Investable assets are financial-only. The conventional retirement-planning use case favours investable assets because they're the dollars you can actually draw on in retirement — you typically don't liquidate your home to fund retirement income. A household with a $700K total net worth and $500K of that in home equity has only $200K of investable assets.

Two reasons. First, a small number of high-balance households (typically high-income professionals who maxed RRSP every year since starting work) pull the average up substantially. Second, the published RRSP median is from SFS 2019, which predates several years of strong market returns — newer data would show a higher median. The mean-vs-median gap is widest in the 45-64 age band, where decades of contribution discipline compound very differently than for late-starters.

For retirement-income planning, generally no. The home you live in provides shelter, not income — drawing on its value typically requires selling, downsizing, or a reverse mortgage (which has rates and risks the typical retirement plan doesn't model). Most Canadian financial planners separate "investable" wealth (which can fund withdrawal income) from "residence" wealth (which provides housing) and target a withdrawal rate against the former only. A 4% safe-withdrawal rate against $500K of investable assets yields $20,000/year of retirement income; the same 4% against $500K of home equity yields nothing without selling the home.

Three highest-leverage moves for most Canadians: (1) Max the FHSA if you're a first-time home buyer — it's the only registered account that combines an RRSP-style deduction with a TFSA-style tax-free withdrawal. (2) Max the TFSA before non-registered — its growth and withdrawals are tax-free, and unlike RRSP it doesn't trigger OAS clawback in retirement. (3) Maximise RRSP in years when your marginal tax rate is high, deferring deductions to higher-bracket years if needed. See our /ca/guides/rrsp-vs-tfsa-canada guide for the bracket-by-bracket decision framework.

Conventional rule-of-thumb: 25× your annual retirement spending need (the 4% rule). A household targeting $50,000/year of retirement-income drawdown needs ~$1.25M of investable assets, on top of CPP and OAS. Median Canadians fall well short of this target — the 55-64 SFS RRSP median of $100,000 funds roughly $4,000/year in drawdowns. The shortfall is bridged by CPP (max ~$1,500/mo at 65), OAS ($743/mo at 65), employer pensions where applicable, and partial reliance on home equity (downsizing or HELOC in later retirement).