Tax refunds 2026: How to make every dollar count + MORE Apr 22nd

For many Canadians, a tax refund feels like a bonus—a bit of extra cash that shows up each spring. In reality, it’s your own money being returned after a year of overpaying taxes, and how you think about it often determines how far that money goes.

The difference comes down to mindset. When a refund is seen as extra cash, it’s often spent quickly with little impact. When it’s viewed as an opportunity, it’s more likely to be used intentionally.

With higher living costs and borrowing rates stretching budgets, even a modest refund can help create stability. Making a strategic choice with your refund, whether that means paying down debt, catching up on bills, or setting it aside for savings, can have a lasting effect well beyond tax season. 

In this article, we’ll share smart, practical ways Canadians can use their tax refund to pay down debt and get ahead financially.

What Canadians are doing with their refunds (2026)

According to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), the average tax refund is still in the ballpark of a couple of thousand dollars; however, it doesn’t go as far as it used to…

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Best high-interest savings account rates in Canada

Generally, savings accounts offer very low interest rates. So, if you want to earn on your deposits (rather than simply using your account as a temporary “holding tank” or directing to longer-term saving and investing vehicles), a savings account with a high interest rate is a no-brainer…

Making space in your portfolio for Canadian equity ETFs used to come with rationalizations: that they tended to pay higher dividends than their global peers and that those dividends received preferential tax treatment in non-registered accounts, for example. 

But Canadian investors these days need no excuses to justify their home-market bias. Domestic index ETFs have performed better than virtually all the other major investable regions for more than a year now.

A big part of that outperformance has come from the heavy financial and commodity skew to the Canadian stock market, which has benefited from rotation away from giant technology stocks and into energy, materials, and industrials. Investors today are seeking exposure to companies with real earnings, not just hoped-for ones.

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For Canadians creating a globally diversified investment portfolio, international equity covers stocks domiciled anywhere outside Canada and the U.S. But, practically speaking, most investors stick to the developed economies of Europe, Australasia, and the Far East (EAFE) for their core international exposure, which represents most of the market capitalization within this enormous region. 

You can, if you choose, include an emerging market (EM) fund in your portfolio to obtain exposure to countries like China, India, and Brazil. But remember that multinational corporations from Europe, Japan, and North America have operations in the developing world, too. Growth in these regions will not pass you by simply because you didn’t specifically invest in companies based there.

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1-year GIC

Lock in your deposit and earn a guaranteed interest rate of 3…