The Lifelong Learning Plan: borrowing from your RRSP for school
The Lifelong Learning Plan lets you withdraw from your RRSP tax-free to pay for full-time training — for yourself or your spouse, not your children. You can take out up to $10,000 a year, to a $20,000 lifetime cap, then repay it to your RRSP over up to 10 years. The catch isn't a tax bill; it's the growth those dollars miss while they're out of the plan.
- Who it's for: full-time training for you or your spouse or common-law partner. Not your kids — that's the RESP. This is the single most common mix-up.
- The limits: up to $10,000 per calendar year, $20,000 lifetime per participant, withdrawn tax-free while the student is enrolled full-time at a designated institution.
- The cost: you repay over up to 10 years; miss a required repayment and it's added to your income and taxed. The real price is the tax-sheltered growth those dollars forgo while out of the RRSP.
Where the AI summary above gets this wrong
"The Lifelong Learning Plan lets you withdraw from your RRSP tax-free to help pay for post-secondary education, including for your children, without any cost as long as it's repaid."
Three errors in one sentence, and each one changes the decision:
- It is not for your children. The LLP funds full-time training for you or your spouse or common-law partner only. The vehicle for a child's education is the RESP. Confusing the two is the error I correct most often — you cannot withdraw under the LLP for a child or grandchild.
- "Without any cost" is wrong. The withdrawal is tax-free, but the dollars stop compounding tax-sheltered the moment they leave the RRSP. That forgone growth — not a tax — is the true cost of the LLP, and the worked example below puts a number on it.
- It omits the repayment rule. You repay at least 1/10 of the balance each year over the repayment period. Any required portion you skip is added to your income that year and taxed. "As long as it's repaid" glosses over the fact that not repaying is exactly when it costs you.
→ See chapter 2 for the repayment schedule and the forgone-growth example.
01 What the LLP is, who qualifies, and the limits
The Lifelong Learning Plan lets you withdraw money from your RRSP tax-free to finance full-time training or education for yourself or your spouse or common-law partner. Mark Lavoie — my old manager from my Toronto years, now 62 and in Mississauga — wrote in asking exactly the right question: he's eyeing a retraining program to move from part-time to full-time study, and he wanted to know whether he could pull from his RRSP without triggering tax. He can. The withdrawal isn't added to his income the way a normal RRSP withdrawal would be, provided he follows the LLP rules.
The dollar limits are firm. You can withdraw up to $10,000 in a calendar year, to a $20,000 lifetime maximum per LLP participant — current 2026 program rules. To qualify, the student must be enrolled full-time in a qualifying program at a designated educational institution, or have received a written offer to enrol before March of the following year. Part-time enrolment is allowed only if the student meets the disability conditions. A spouse can be the student, and each spouse can run their own LLP against their own RRSP, so a couple can have two parallel $20,000 limits.
- Annual cap: $10,000 per calendar year per participant.
- Lifetime cap: $20,000 per participant, across as many withdrawals as you need until you hit it.
- Who studies: you or your spouse/common-law partner — never a child.
- Enrolment: full-time in a qualifying program at a designated institution (part-time if disability conditions are met).
You can use the LLP more than once over a lifetime. Once you've repaid a previous LLP balance down to zero, a new LLP period can begin and the $20,000 lifetime room effectively resets for that fresh cycle. That's why the program is named for lifelong learning — it's built to be reused as careers shift.
02 Repayment, the real cost, and the worked example
The withdrawal is tax-free, but it is not free. You repay the amount to your RRSP over a period of up to 10 years. Repayment starts the earlier of (a) the fifth year after your first LLP withdrawal, or (b) the second year after the last year you were enrolled full-time. Each year of the repayment period you must make a designated RRSP contribution of at least 1/10 of the outstanding balance. If you repay less than the required amount in a year, the shortfall is added to your income for that year and taxed at your marginal rate — the only way the LLP generates a tax bill.
The cost that matters is quieter than a tax bill. While your dollars are out of the RRSP, they stop compounding tax-sheltered. If Mark withdraws $10,000 and it sits outside the plan for several years before repayment, the growth those dollars would have earned inside the RRSP is gone for good. That forgone growth is the true price of the LLP. The calculator below estimates it: enter the amount, the years out of the plan, and an assumed growth rate, and it shows the tax-free amount you receive now against the tax-sheltered growth you give up.
Shows: the tax-free amount you receive now versus the tax-sheltered growth those dollars forgo while out of the RRSP — the real cost of an LLP withdrawal. Ignores: repayment timing within the 10-year window, the tuition return on the training itself, inflation, contribution-room interactions, and any missed-repayment tax — this isolates the forgone-growth mechanic.
Repay or be taxed. Each year of the repayment period, contribute at least 1/10 of your outstanding LLP balance and designate it as a repayment. Skip it and the missing portion becomes taxable income for that year — the LLP's only tax trap.
On the defaults above, the worked example returns $3,401. You receive $10,000 tax-free now, but forgo about $3,401 of tax-sheltered growth over 6 years at 5% — that’s the real cost.
03 LLP vs HBP vs RESP: which program is which
Three programs get tangled together, and sorting them out is half the battle. The LLP and the Home Buyers' Plan (HBP) are both tax-free RRSP withdrawals you repay over time, but they fund different things and carry different limits — the HBP is a separate $60,000 program for a first home, with its own 15-year repayment schedule. The RESP is the odd one out: it is not an RRSP withdrawal at all. It's a savings account you contribute to for a child's education, topped up by government grants, and it's the only one of the three meant for your kids.
Mark's case is a clean illustration. He's funding his own retraining, so the LLP is the right tool; if he were saving for a grandchild's university, he'd want an RESP instead, and tapping his RRSP for that purpose under the LLP simply isn't allowed. The table sets the three side by side.
| Program | Funds what | Limit | Repayment |
|---|---|---|---|
| LLP | Your or your spouse's full-time training | $10,000/yr, $20,000 lifetime | Up to 10 years |
| HBP | Your first home | $60,000 lifetime | Up to 15 years |
| RESP | A child's education | $50,000 lifetime contributions | Not a loan — contributions + grants |
The HBP and LLP can run at the same time against the same RRSP, since they're separate programs with separate limits and separate repayment clocks. The RESP runs entirely outside your RRSP. Keeping the three straight is the whole point of this chapter — the LLP is for adult learners, full stop.
When Mark asked me about the LLP, the part he'd half-absorbed online was the dangerous part: that it was free because the withdrawal isn't taxed. It isn't free. He's pulling dollars out of a tax-sheltered account and parking them outside it for years, and that forgone growth is a real, if invisible, cost — usually a few thousand dollars on a $10,000 withdrawal. That doesn't make the LLP a bad idea; for someone retraining into higher earnings, the tuition can pay for itself many times over. But I tell people to size the forgone growth first, set a repayment plan they'll actually follow, and never confuse this with the RESP they'd use for a child. The LLP is a loan from your future self. Treat it like one.
FAQ
Can I use the Lifelong Learning Plan to pay for my child's education?
No. The Lifelong Learning Plan funds full-time training or education for you or your spouse or common-law partner only — never your children. You cannot withdraw under the LLP for a child or grandchild's schooling. The program for a child's education is the RESP, which is funded by contributions and government grants, not by tapping your RRSP.
How much can I withdraw under the Lifelong Learning Plan?
Up to $10,000 in a calendar year, to a $20,000 lifetime maximum per LLP participant, withdrawn tax-free from your RRSP. The student must be enrolled, or have an offer to enrol before March of the next year, full-time in a qualifying program at a designated educational institution. You can take more than one withdrawal across the years until you hit the lifetime cap.
What happens if I don't repay my Lifelong Learning Plan withdrawal?
You repay over up to 10 years, starting the earlier of the 5th year after your first withdrawal or the 2nd year after your last full-time year. Each year you make a designated RRSP contribution of at least 1/10 of the outstanding balance. Any required amount you do not repay is added to your income for that year and taxed at your marginal rate.
Sources
Regulator references
- CRA — RC4112 Lifelong Learning Plan (LLP) · the $10,000 annual and $20,000 lifetime limits, eligibility, and the repayment scheduleThe Lifelong Learning Plan guide: eligibility, withdrawal limits and the repayment schedule.Last verified: 2026-06-25
- CRA — The Lifelong Learning Plan (LLP) · who can participate, that it funds your own or your spouse's education, and how withdrawals and repayments workThe Lifelong Learning Plan, which lets an RRSP fund training or education and be repaid.Last verified: 2026-06-25
Calculator unit tests · the assertions this page's worked example is checked against, and their last result
Changelog
- 2026-07-06 — added in-article links to related guides
- 2026-06-25 — initial publish (new format)
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Model an LLP withdrawal — the tax-free cash now, the repayment schedule, and the forgone tax-sheltered growth — inside your full retirement projection to age 95.
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Jordan Reeves
Founder of Talk Through Wealth. A software engineer for over a decade before turning to retirement planning, Jordan built the projection engine after watching family members get fragmented, country-by-country advice that never reconciled. He writes about retirement the way the engine computes it: month-by-month, lifetime-long, and skeptical of any rule of thumb that hasn't been run through the math.