Only One of You Is a First-Time Buyer?.
When friends or family buy together and only one person is a first-time buyer, each eligible buyer keeps their own FHSA and Home Buyers’ Plan room. Co-signer and co-borrower are not the same thing. Limits below are the ones already stated on this site.
Only one of you has to be a first-time buyer for that person to use a first-time plan. The programs follow the person. They do not follow the house, and they do not double because two names are on the offer. Start with co-buying a home in Canada for the mortgage and title, and with the co-buying chapter for friend and family cases.
The dollar limits below are the ones already published on this site. They are not a new reading of the Income Tax Act.
What “first-time” means here
The guide’s first-time buyer test, repeated on the FHSA and HBP pages, is the federal one those programs use: you have not owned a home you lived in as your principal residence in the current year or the previous four calendar years. Each adult is tested on their own history. A parent who owns a house does not pass that test. Their adult child, who has never owned, still can.
Write down the answer for every name before you count withdrawals. The co-buying chapter’s section on one buyer who is not a first-time buyer says the first-time buyer can still use their own plans and the other person cannot use those plans.
FHSA: one account per eligible buyer
The FHSA guide states the 2026 contribution limit as $8,000 per year and $40,000 lifetime. Contributions are tax-deductible. A qualifying withdrawal for a first home is tax-free. There is no repayment the way the Home Buyers’ Plan has a repayment.
If both of you qualify, you each have your own room. Two eligible buyers do not share one $40,000 ceiling. If only one of you qualifies, only that person has an FHSA withdrawal to use on this purchase. The other person’s savings do not become FHSA money because they are on title with you.
Opening the account is what starts the room. Deadline and carry-forward details are in FHSA 2026 deadlines and carry-forward. The official description is the CRA FHSA page already linked from the FHSA guide.
A co-buyer who is not eligible should not “use” the eligible buyer’s FHSA by being added to the account. The withdrawal belongs to the account holder. Record, in the co-ownership agreement checklist, whose withdrawal paid which part of the down payment.
Home Buyers’ Plan: one withdrawal per eligible buyer
The Home Buyers’ Plan page states the withdrawal limit as $60,000 per person. A couple of eligible buyers can withdraw up to $120,000 combined. Repayment runs for 15 years, with the first repayment due in the second calendar year after the withdrawal. Miss a required repayment and that amount is included in income.
Same pattern as the FHSA. Each person who qualifies withdraws from their own RRSP. A buyer who is not a first-time buyer does not gain an HBP withdrawal by purchasing with someone who is. A buyer who qualifies does not lose the withdrawal because their co-buyer fails the test.
The chapter also notes two points that are easy to skip: the funds generally have to have been in the RRSP for at least 90 days, and each person repays their own withdrawal. If one person withdraws $60,000 and the other withdraws nothing, only the first person has a repayment.
Compare the order of the two plans on FHSA vs HBP. The usual order on that page is FHSA first, because a qualifying withdrawal is not repaid, then HBP if you still need RRSP money.
Using both on one purchase
The HBP page and the FHSA page both say you can use the two programs on the same qualifying home. The arithmetic they already publish is up to $40,000 of FHSA lifetime room plus $60,000 of HBP room for one eligible person, and double that only when a second person is also eligible. There is no third pool called “the household’s room.”
If only one of you is eligible, the stack is that one person’s FHSA plus that one person’s HBP. The other buyer can still contribute cash from a TFSA, from other savings, or from a gift the lender will accept. Those dollars are not FHSA or HBP dollars. They still need a paper trail. The down payment article is the place for the 5 percent / 10 percent / 20 percent tiers those dollars have to meet.
The home buyers’ amount
The site states the federal home buyers’ amount as a $1,500 non-refundable credit (the constant behind the HBP and incentives copy). The co-buying chapter goes further and says each first-time buyer claims their own credit, worth $1,500 per person, and that the total claimed cannot exceed $10,000 per home. This article does not resolve that beyond what the chapter already says. If both of you are first-time buyers, read that section before you assume two full credits. If only one of you is, do not count a second credit.
Land transfer tax rebates are provincial, and the same chapter says they are often prorated when only one owner is a first-time buyer. Ontario’s rebate rules are in the Ontario land transfer tax article and in the land-transfer calculator. Do not treat a federal credit and a provincial rebate as the same program.
Co-borrower is not a co-signer
The co-buying chapter draws the line this way:
- A co-borrower is on the mortgage and on title. They share liability and they own a share.
- A co-signer is on the mortgage only. They help the file qualify, they own nothing unless they are also on title, and they are still liable if payments are missed.
This site does not invent a CRA rule that says a co-signer is, or is not, a first-time buyer for the FHSA or the HBP. Eligibility questions belong to the CRA pages already linked from the FHSA and HBP guides, and to the person who files. What the chapter does say is that each person’s first-time status is assessed individually, and that a co-signer is not an owner. Do not assume a parent who co-signs, and who already owns a home, can withdraw under the HBP. Do not assume their signature deletes the child’s FHSA.
The lender has a separate question: whose income and whose debts are on the application. That is the joint mortgage page. Program eligibility and mortgage qualification are not the same test.
What to write down
Before anyone moves registered money:
- Each person writes yes or no on the four-year ownership test, using the definition on the FHSA and HBP pages.
- Each eligible person lists their own FHSA balance and their own RRSP available for the HBP, within the limits above.
- The co-ownership agreement records whose withdrawal is whose, and whether extra cash is a gift, a loan, or a larger share.
- You qualify the household once, on combined income and combined debts, at the stress-test rate. One person’s program room does not change the GDS and TDS math.
If the numbers only work because you are counting a room the other person does not have, stop and rerun them. The income needed series and the affordability calculator are the stress-test tools. They do not know who is a first-time buyer unless you put the right down payment in.