Canada RESP grant check · Free
Started the RESP late? There's likely free grant money still waiting.
The government adds 20% on top of what you put in an RESP — up to $7,200 per child through the Canada Education Savings Grant. If you started late or paused, you've built up unused grant room you can still claim. Add your kids and see your number in 30 seconds.
Runs entirely in your browser. No account, no login — nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.
The free check
Add your kids and see your grant gap
Just two things per child: the year they were born and roughly how much you've put into their RESP so far. No account numbers, no balances, no sign-up. If you've contributed nothing yet, that's fine — enter $0.
Your RESP grant catch-up check
Everything runs on your device. We use your answers only to compute your unused grant room, right here in the browser.
How it works
Three steps to your number
Add each child
Birth year and how much you've contributed to their RESP so far. Add as many children as you have — each is calculated on its own.
See your grant gap — free
We apply the published federal CESG rules to your numbers and show the unused grant room you've built up: the free money still sitting on the table.
Get your catch-up plan
For $17 you unlock a year-by-year schedule — exactly what to contribute each year to recover the most grant before your child ages out, plus a print-ready PDF.
Why there's money on the table
The catch-up rule most parents never hear about
The Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) pays 20% on your RESP contributions. Here's the part that trips people up: you don't lose missed years all at once — but you can only catch up one extra year at a time. That's why starting late costs real money, and why acting sooner recovers more of it.
20% match, up to $7,200
Every dollar you contribute earns 20 cents of grant, up to a lifetime maximum of $7,200 per child.
$500 of room a year
Each year, $2,500 of contributions attract the full $500 grant. Miss a year and that room carries forward.
Catch up $1,000 a year
Contribute up to $5,000 in a year to claim $1,000 of grant — this year's $500 plus one missed year. That's the catch-up lever.
The window closes at 17
Grant stops on December 31 of the year the child turns 17. The fewer years left, the less you can catch up — so timing matters.
Questions
Common questions
Is this financial advice?
No. GrantGap is an educational tool. It applies the standard, published CESG rules to the numbers you enter and shows you an estimate of your unused grant room and a suggested catch-up schedule. It doesn't know your full financial picture, and it never tells you which RESP, fund, or provider to choose. Treat it as a prompt to confirm the details with your RESP provider.
How exact is the number?
It's an estimate based on standard CESG rules. Because you enter a single "total contributed so far" rather than a year-by-year history, the tool assumes your contributions earned the normal 20% grant as they went in. Your provider or your CRA / RESP statements have the exact grant paid to date — this gets you a close, defensible picture of where you stand and what's still recoverable.
What is CESG grant room, exactly?
Each year from birth, your child accumulates $500 of Canada Education Savings Grant entitlement (that's 20% of $2,500 in contributions). If you don't contribute enough to claim it, that room carries forward. "Unused grant room" is the grant you've earned the right to but haven't collected yet — money you can still capture by contributing, up to $1,000 of grant per year.
Why can't I just catch up all at once?
The grant is capped at $1,000 per child per year — this year's $500 plus one prior missed year's $500. So a big backlog can only be recovered $500 of "extra" at a time, and only until the grant window closes at 17. The catch-up schedule you unlock lays out exactly how much to contribute each year to recover the most grant before the deadline.
My child is 16 or 17 — can we still get the grant?
Sometimes. To receive CESG in the years a child is 16 or 17, a minimum had to be in place earlier: either at least $2,000 contributed before the year they turned 16, or at least $100 contributed in any four years before that year. If neither happened, the 16–17 grant may not be available. The tool flags these years so you can confirm the rule with your provider.
What's free and what costs money?
Adding your kids and seeing your unused grant room — the headline number and a per-child breakdown — is completely free. For $17 (one time) you unlock the full plan: a year-by-year catch-up schedule for each child showing exactly what to contribute and how the grant adds up, a plain-English explainer of the rules, and a print-ready PDF you can keep or bring to your bank.
A few minutes now can be worth thousands to your kids.
See how much free government grant is still within reach — and exactly how to catch it up.
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