Canada Learning Bond 2026: Who Qualifies and How to Claim It

More than half the children who have qualified for the Canada Learning Bond have never received it. ESDC’s 2025 annual statistical review (opens in a new tab) counted 5.4 million children and young adults under 21 who had qualified at some point, and only 43.9% of them had received the bond by the end of 2025. That leaves about 3 million who haven’t.

The Canada Learning Bond is federal money for a child’s education after high school. It pays up to $2,000 into a registered education savings plan (RESP), and the family doesn’t have to contribute anything. It’s for children born in 2004 or later whose family income was low enough for at least one year. Because it’s also paid for past years, most of those 3 million still have time to claim it.

How much is the Canada Learning Bond?

The bond is worth up to $2,000 per child. It pays $500 for the first year a child is eligible, then $100 for each later year of eligibility up to and including age 15 (opens in a new tab). With that first $500, the government also pays an extra $25 toward the cost of opening the RESP (opens in a new tab).

So it isn’t a one-time payment, and a family doesn’t have to qualify every year to get something. The total depends on how many years your child qualified, not which ones:

Eligibility is checked one year at a time

Each benefit year runs from July 1 to June 30, and each one is judged on the family’s income from the year before. The year from July 2026 to June 2027 uses 2025 income, for example. If a raise takes your family over the limit, there’s no $100 for that year, and it starts again in any later year you’re back under the limit, up to age 15.

Who qualifies for the Canada Learning Bond in 2026?

A child can get the bond if they were born on or after January 1, 2004, live in Canada, have a social insurance number (SIN) and are named as the beneficiary of an RESP. Their primary caregiver, meaning the person eligible for the Canada Child Benefit in the child’s name, has to have filed a tax return for each year being claimed, and the family’s income has to be under the limit that year.

The limit is on adjusted family income, which is the caregiver’s net income plus their spouse’s or partner’s, the same total that sets the child benefit. For July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027, the limits are:

Bigger families have higher limits, listed up to 16 children in ESDC’s notice to RESP providers (opens in a new tab). Children in care, for whom a Children’s Special Allowance is paid, qualify too.

If your income is under these limits, other federal programs may pay you as well. Our guide to saving money on a low income lists them.

How do you claim the Canada Learning Bond?

You claim it by opening an RESP for your child and asking the provider to apply for the bond. You don’t have to put any money in. Once the application goes through, the government works out every past year your child qualified and deposits the total.

1. Get a SIN for your child, and one for yourself if you don’t have one.
2. Choose an RESP provider. Most banks, credit unions and investment firms offer RESPs, and almost all of them offer the bond. ESDC’s list of RESP providers (opens in a new tab) shows which ones do. Some charge service fees or limit how often you can contribute, so ask about fees before you sign.
3. Open the RESP and name your child as the beneficiary. Many providers let you do it online or by phone.
4. Ask the provider to apply for the bond. They’ll help you apply (opens in a new tab) for the Canada Education Savings Grant and any provincial benefit at the same time.
5. File your taxes every year, and your partner too, since each year’s eligibility is checked against a tax return.

Once the application is processed, the money is deposited automatically, though it can take several weeks to show up. The bond goes into only one RESP per child, even if you open more than one.

Can you claim the Canada Learning Bond yourself at 18?

Yes. If you were born in 2004 or later and your family’s income was under the limit for at least one year while you were growing up, you can open an RESP in your own name and request the bond yourself (opens in a new tab) from age 18, as long as you meet your province’s minimum age for opening an RESP. You have until the day before your 21st birthday, and the bond for every year you qualified is paid at once.

Not many people do it. In 2025, 16,453 young adults claimed their own bond and received almost $19 million between them, about $1,150 each. By the end of that year, 521,506 people born from 2004 to 2007 who had qualified at some point still hadn’t received it, according to the same ESDC review.

The money can pay for full- or part-time studies at a trade school, CEGEP, college, university or apprenticeship program, and for costs like tuition, rent, books, tools and transportation. You’ll need your own SIN to apply.

The age limit rises to 30 in 2028

Parliament has already passed a change (opens in a new tab) that raises the age limit to apply from 20 to 30. It isn’t in force yet, and ESDC says it starts in April 2028 (opens in a new tab). Everyone born in 2004 or later will still be under 30 then, so people who turned 21 without claiming will get another chance.

How many eligible kids get it in your province?

It depends a lot on where you live. In Quebec and British Columbia, about half of eligible children have received the bond. In Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador it’s about 3 in 10, and in Nunavut fewer than 3 in 100. These are ESDC’s figures for everyone who has qualified since 2004 and was still under 21 at the end of 2025:

Will the government open an RESP for your child automatically?

Yes, for children born in 2024 or later. From April 2028, the government will open an RESP itself (opens in a new tab) for an eligible child who has a SIN and still has no RESP by age 4, and deposit the bond there. The primary caregiver has to have filed their taxes and be eligible for the Canada Child Benefit.

ESDC started sending letters about it to families in early 2025. If you get one, you don’t have to do anything yet. Parents who don’t want the account can ask to opt out starting in 2027.

You don’t have to wait for it, though. Open an RESP yourself and the bond is paid within weeks instead of when your child turns 4, and you can add your own savings whenever you’re ready.

For children born before 2024, nothing happens automatically. The government says that from 2028 their parents will also be able to ask it to open one, with details still to come, so for now someone has to open it themselves.

Should you add your own money to the RESP?

If you can, start with the first $500 a year, which gets the biggest match for lower- and middle-income families. The Canada Education Savings Grant adds 20% of the first $2,500 you contribute each year, and those families get an extra 10% or 20% on the first $500 (opens in a new tab). So on 2026 contributions, a family with an adjusted income of $58,523 or less gets $200 of grants for $500.

Past the first $500 the grant stays at 20%, so a family at the lowest income level can get up to $600 a year. The lifetime cap is $7,200 per child. Unused room for the basic 20% carries forward, but the extra 10% or 20% doesn’t, so it’s lost in any year you don’t contribute. Our guide to saving for your child’s education covers the grants in full, including the extra ones paid in British Columbia and Quebec.

How do you find $500 a year for the grant?

It works out to about $42 a month, or less than $10 a week. It also doesn’t have to go into the RESP all at once. The grant counts contributions by calendar year, so you can build the $500 up in savings over the year and move it in before December 31.

Lodavo is a free Canadian app that gives you a reason to keep building it up. Connect the savings or chequing account where you’re putting the money aside, and every $25 in it earns you a free ticket for the weekly draw. Each week at least $100 is won, and the top prize is $10,000. The money stays in your own account the whole time, so it’s all there when you’re ready to move it into the RESP. Lodavo is on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) and the Google Play Store (opens in a new tab).

This article is general information, not tax advice. Eligibility depends on each year’s tax return and on who your child’s primary caregiver is, so your RESP provider or Service Canada can confirm your child’s bond.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.