The top 5 questions about RESPs

An RESP can be utilized for almost any education-related price—not only for tuition. Though, tuition is one of many greatest bills, and it’s one of many key causes mother and father and grandparents open an RESP. For the 2022–2023 educational 12 months, the common tuition charge for a full-time undergraduate pupil in Canada weighed in at $6,834—2.6% larger than the 12 months earlier than.

Tuition prices have been incrementally growing yearly, and a few skilled packages price considerably greater than others. When you’ve got a future physician or dentist within the household, for instance, know that one 12 months’s tuition averaged $15,182 and $23,963, respectively.

And in case your baby decides to attend a post-secondary academic establishment that isn’t a university or college, like a commerce faculty, you possibly can seemingly nonetheless use RESP funds to cowl bills, so long as it’s an eligible faculty within the eyes of the Canadian authorities. And in case your baby desires to check outdoors of Canada, you need to use an RESP for that, too, so long as they enroll in a course at the least 13 weeks lengthy, or three weeks for college packages.

Along with tuition charges, RESP funds can even pay for lease or residence charges, dormitory meal plans, textbooks, faculty provides, instruments, transportation, pupil athletic or exercise charges, tech gadgets and extra, so long as withdrawal necessities are met (extra about that in query #4, under).

Anybody can grow to be an RESP “subscriber” (contributor) and put cash into a baby’s RESP, as much as the plan’s lifetime limits. Usually, mother and father open an RESP for his or her baby, or a household RESP for a number of youngsters.

Should you’re a grandparent, aunt, uncle, household good friend or another person who desires to pitch in, it’s a good suggestion to coordinate with the mother or father(s) to keep away from over-contributing. The RESP lifetime contribution restrict per baby is $50,000. If an RESP’s subscribers collectively contribute greater than that, the Canada Income Company (CRA) will impose a tax of 1% of the surplus quantity per 30 days on the overall quantity till that cash is withdrawn. You don’t need that impact out of your reward, do you?