Last updated: 2026 federal, provincial, payroll and Canada Child Benefit figures reviewed. Assumptions & sources
Tools & Resources

Can We Afford for One of Us to Stay Home?

Put in both incomes, your province, your children and what childcare costs. The calculator works out what the second income actually adds to your household once tax, CPP, EI, childcare and the Canada Child Benefit clawback have all taken their share. The answer surprises most households.

What the gross figure hides
The second salaryminusTax, CPP, EI, childcare, lost CCB
Four things come off a second income and only the first is obvious. The Canada Child Benefit is income-tested, so a two-child family in the first phase-out band loses 13.5 cents of it per extra dollar earned.

Your Numbers

$

The higher of the two salaries, before tax.

$

What that parent earns now, or would earn going back.

Under 6
6 to 17

The Canada Child Benefit pays more for the under-sixes, and they are the ones who need paid care.

$

Full-time daycare for two under-sixes runs well past this in some cities and well under it where $10-a-day spaces are available. Use your real number.

$

The second commute, parking, lunches out, work clothes, and the convenience food that happens when both of you get home at six.

The second income adds

$0

 

     

     

    Both scenarios are priced on 2026 federal and provincial brackets, CPP, EI and the July 2026 to June 2027 Canada Child Benefit. A single-income household also gains the federal spouse amount, which is counted here. Provincial spouse amounts and provincial childcare subsidies are not, so treat the figure as a conservative read. The full list of what is left out is in the questions below.

    Quick definitions

    CCB
    Canada Child Benefit. Tax-free monthly money for families with children under 18, and income-tested. Maximum $8,157 a year per child under 6 and $6,883 for 6 to 17, full while family net income stays under $38,237.
    Clawback
    The reduction in a benefit as income rises. Above $38,237 the CCB falls by 7% of the excess for one child, 13.5% for two, 19% for three, 23% for four or more. A clawback costs your household the same as a tax rate of the same size.
    Childcare deduction
    Up to $8,000 per child under 7 and $5,000 for 7 to 16, capped at two-thirds of the claimant’s earned income. The lower-income spouse must normally claim it, which is why a household with a parent at home has none of it.
    Spouse amount
    A federal credit the working spouse claims when the other has little or no income, worth up to $2,303 in tax. It disappears as the second income rises.

    Read this as one input. It tells you honestly what the second income is worth in cash. The rest of the decision sits outside it: what the years with small children are worth, and what leaving costs the one who leaves. Run the number, then go and have the conversation it was meant to start.

    The conversation before the calculator. If this question is live in your house, the harder part is talking about it well. How to talk to your wife about money is the piece to read first, and what makes a good provider takes up the identity underneath the number.

    Why nobody else builds this calculator

    Search for a stay-at-home parent calculator and you will mostly find American tools that tell you a mother’s work is worth $184,000 a year. It is a kind thought and it decides nothing. The handful that try to answer the real question handle gas and dry cleaning, then stop, because the part that actually moves the answer is the Canadian tax and benefit system, and they are not built for it.

    Which leaves the thing that matters most unsaid. In Canada the second income is taxed at the household’s higher marginal rate, pays CPP and EI from the first dollar, creates a childcare bill that did not exist before, and shrinks a tax-free benefit worth up to $8,157 per small child without ever appearing on a pay stub. Stack those and a $40,000 salary can come down to a four-figure contribution to the family’s cash. A household making that decision on the gross figure is making it on a number that was never real.

    None of which argues for one answer. Plenty of households run two incomes and should. The point is that the decision deserves the true number, and the true number is usually smaller than the offer letter and sometimes small enough to change the conversation entirely.

    Questions households ask about this

    Why is a second income worth so much less than it looks?

    Four things come off it at once, and only the first is obvious. Income tax at your household’s higher marginal rate, because the second income stacks on top of the first. CPP and EI from the first dollar. Childcare, which is a new cost that only exists because both of you work. And the Canada Child Benefit, which is income-tested: a family with two children inside the first phase-out band loses 13.5 cents of CCB for every extra dollar of family net income. That last one is a real marginal rate, paid through smaller deposits instead of a bigger tax bill, and most calculators ignore it entirely.

    How does the CCB clawback actually work?

    For the July 2026 to June 2027 benefit year the maximum is $8,157 per child under 6 and $6,883 per child aged 6 to 17. You keep the full amount while adjusted family net income stays under $38,237. Above that it is reduced by 7% of the excess for one child, 13.5% for two, 19% for three and 23% for four or more. Above $82,847 the reduction becomes a flat amount plus a smaller rate on the rest. This calculator runs the real CRA formula rather than an average.

    Does the calculator tell me what to do?

    No, and it should not. It answers one question honestly: what the second income adds to your household once everything that comes off it has come off. That is worth knowing before you decide, because the gross figure on a job offer is not the number your family actually lives on. But the decision also carries things no calculator holds. What the years with small children are worth. Whether the work itself is a calling. What it does to the one who leaves. What it does to the one who stays. Get the number, then have the conversation.

    What about the career cost of stepping out?

    It is real and this calculator does not price it. Time out of the workforce usually costs more than the salary foregone, because it slows wage growth and pauses CPP contributions for those years. Studies in the United States have put the lifetime cost well into six figures. Treat the number on this page as the near-term cash picture for the next year or two, not a verdict on a decade. If the stay-at-home season is intended to be short, the gap closes faster than this page can show.

    What does the calculator leave out?

    Provincial spouse-or-common-law-partner amounts, which most provinces offer, so a single-income household is in fact slightly better off than shown here. Provincial childcare programs and subsidies, which vary widely and change the childcare line substantially in some provinces. Quebec is the biggest gap of all: it runs both its own subsidised childcare spaces and its own Family Allowance on top of the federal CCB, and neither is modelled here, so a Quebec household should treat this as a rough sketch and check Retraite Québec for the rest. The Canada Caregiver amount. GST/HST credit and provincial benefits that are also income-tested, which would widen the gap further in favour of one income. RRSP and FHSA contributions. Self-employment. Every one of those omissions except the childcare subsidies pushes in the same direction, so read the result as a conservative estimate of the second income’s value.