The “top 1%” gets talked about a lot, but for most people the actual numbers are a mystery. How much do you really need to earn to get in, and how does that stack up against everyone else?
Below, we break down what it takes to reach the top 1%, where in Canada the bar is highest, how it compares to a typical income, and why wealth tells a different story than income. We finish with what it all means if you are nowhere near that group, which is almost everyone.
Key Points
Key Points
1. It takes about $293,800 in total income to reach the top 1% of Canadian earners, and the group’s average income is roughly $606,000.
2. The bar is much higher in some places, topping $424,000 in Calgary, versus about $294,000 nationally.
3. Income and wealth are not the same. A family needed a net worth of about $7.4 million to be in the top 1% by wealth.
4. Almost no one is close to these numbers, so if you are not either, you are in very good company.
What Income Puts You In The Top 1% In Canada?
There are two numbers worth separating here, because they are often mixed up.
- The entry point. To make it into the top 1% of Canadian tax filers, you needed a total income of about $293,800 in 2023. Clear that bar by a dollar and you are in the club.1
- The average. The typical top-1% income is far higher, around $606,000, because a smaller group of very high earners pulls the average up.1
So why is the average so much bigger than the entry point? Because $293,800 is only the floor. Inside the top 1%, incomes run from there up into the millions, and a small number of extreme earners drag the average way up. You can see it in the middle of the group: the median top-1% earner made about $402,900 in 2023, still well below the $606,000 average. That gap between the median and the average is the tell that a handful of enormous incomes at the very top are doing the heavy lifting.
Top 0.1% And 0.01% Income Earners
The higher you climb, the steeper it gets. To reach the top 0.1%, you needed about $930,100, and the top 0.01% started around $3.49 million.1
It is also worth knowing how the top 1% earn their money. A big share does not come from a regular paycheque. In 2023, wages and salaries made up about 61.5% of the top 1%’s total income, which means nearly 40% came from other sources like investments, capital gains, dividends, and business income. That tilt gets stronger at the very top: wages were just 55.0% of income for the top 0.1% and 50.8% for the top 0.01%.1
The Top 5% And Top 10% Income Earners
The top 1% grabs the headlines, but the rungs just below it are worth knowing too. Here is where the top 10%, top 5%, and top 1% each begin, and what people in each group earn on average.
| Income Group (2023) | Income Needed To Get In | Average Income In The Group |
|---|---|---|
| Top 10% | $116,500 | $205,300 |
| Top 5% | $152,700 | $278,700 |
| Top 1% | $293,800 | $606,000 |
You reach the top 10% of Canadian tax filers at about $116,500, and the top 5% at $152,700.1 The jump from there up to the top 1% is steep, which shows how sharply the income curve rises as you get near the very top.
Men vs Women In The Top 1%
The top 1% is far from evenly split between men and women. In 2023, about 73.6% of the group were men and just 26.4% were women1. Women have slowly gained ground over the years, but the very top of the income ladder is still dominated by men, by roughly three to one.
The gap does not stop at who gets in. Even inside the group, men earned more on average and held a much larger share of the country’s total income.
| Top 1% In 2023 | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Share of the group | 73.6% | 26.4% |
| Average total income | $627,000 | $547,500 |
| Average wages and salaries | $406,800 | $277,800 |
| Share of all income in Canada | 7.7% | 2.4% |
So not only are there about three men for every woman in the top 1%, the men in the group also out-earn the women on average. Put together, men in the top 1% hold 7.7% of all the income in Canada, more than three times the 2.4% held by the women in that same group.
Where In Canada Does It Take The Most To Be Top 1%?
The top-1% bar is not the same everywhere. Because incomes run higher in some cities, it takes a lot more to reach the top there. Calgary leads the country by a wide margin, followed by Toronto and Vancouver.
By province, the pattern is similar. Alberta sets the highest bar, then Ontario and British Columbia, while the Atlantic provinces are the lowest.
| Province / Territory | Income To Reach The Top 1% (2023) |
|---|---|
| Alberta | $334,500 |
| Ontario | $313,100 |
| British Columbia | $304,600 |
| Canada (overall) | $293,800 |
| Territories | $266,600 |
| Quebec | $260,800 |
| Saskatchewan | $248,200 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | $240,400 |
| Manitoba | $235,100 |
| Nova Scotia | $226,800 |
| New Brunswick | $209,700 |
| Prince Edward Island | $208,000 |
It is one thing to earn a top-1% income in a place, and another to live there. Most of Canada’s top 1% are clustered in the big cities: a large share live in the Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary areas.
How The Top 1% Compares To The Average Canadian
This is where the gap really shows. Set against the average income in Canada, the top 1% is in a different league. A typical Canadian household takes home about $75,500 a year after tax, and a typical individual makes around $46,300.3 Line those up against the top 1% and the distance is striking.
| Group | Income |
|---|---|
| Top 1%, average income | About $606,000 |
| Top 1%, entry point | About $293,800 |
| Typical household (after tax) | About $75,500 |
| Typical individual | About $46,300 |
Even the entry point for the top 1% is roughly four times what a typical household takes home, and the group’s average income is about eight times as much. In the priciest cities, the gap is wider still.
One fair note: these are not perfectly matched measures. The top-1% figures are total income before tax, while the household numbers are after tax. But the takeaway holds either way. The distance between the top and the middle is large, and it has been growing.
To see where the top 1% lands, here is how Canada’s income classes break down, with the top 1% added on top.
| Class | Compared To Typical Income | Canada (After-Tax Income) |
|---|---|---|
| Lower | Less than two-thirds | Under $50,300 |
| Middle | Two-thirds to 1.5x | $50,300 to $113,300 |
| Upper-middle | 1.5x to 2x | $113,300 to $151,000 |
| Upper | More than 2x | Over $151,000 |
| Top 1% | Far above the upper class | About $293,800 to enter (before tax) |
The four classes are based on how a household’s after-tax income compares with the typical (median) of about $75,500: lower is below two-thirds, middle is two-thirds to 1.5 times, upper-middle is 1.5 to 2 times, and upper is more than double. The top 1% row uses total income before tax, so it is not on the exact same basis as the other rows, but it sits far beyond even the upper-class line.
Top 1% By Net Worth vs Income
Here is a distinction that trips a lot of people up: income and wealth are not the same thing. Income is what you earn in a year. Wealth, or net worth, is everything you own (home equity, savings, and investments) minus what you owe. You can have a high income and little wealth, or modest income and real wealth, often through a paid-off home or years of investing.
By wealth, the top 1% looks like this: a family needed a net worth of about $7.4 million to make the cut in 2023.4
Wealth is even more concentrated than income. Here is how it is split across the country, based on the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s 2023 estimates.
| Group Of Families | Share Of All Net Worth In Canada |
|---|---|
| Top 0.1% | 11.4% |
| Top 1% | 23.8% |
| Top 5% | 40.3% |
| Top 10% | 52.7% |
| Top 20% | 69.2% |
| Middle 40% | 27.6% |
| Bottom 40% | 3.3% |
In other words, the top 1% of families hold nearly a quarter of all the wealth in the country, the top 10% hold more than half, and the bottom 40% hold barely more than 3%.4 At the very top of that group sit Canada’s billionaire dynasties, like the McCain family and the Irving family, whose fortunes stretch far beyond even the top 1% mark.
The reason this matters: wealth is a better measure of real financial security than a single year’s income. Someone with a high salary but heavy debt can be less secure than someone earning far less who owns their home outright.
What It Means For Everyone Else
If you read all of the above and thought “that is not me,” you are with the vast majority. Almost no one is in the top 1%, and it is not the benchmark most people should measure themselves against. Here is what tends to matter more.
The Bottom 99%, Which Is Almost Everyone
It helps to flip the picture around. The bottom 99%, meaning everyone outside the top 1%, made a median income of about $43,600 in 2023, with an average of $54,400.1So the typical person in the bottom 99% earned less than a tenth of the top 1%’s $606,000 average. That is the real gap most comparisons miss, and it is a good reminder that the top 1% is a tiny slice living in a very different reality.
Where Most Canadians Actually Land
A typical household takes home about $75,500 after tax, and roughly half of Canadians fall in the middle-class income range. If money still feels tight at those levels, that is a sign of how much everyday costs have risen, not a sign that you are doing something wrong.
What It Really Costs To Get By
In many cities the “living wage,” meaning the hourly pay needed to cover basic costs, runs around $27 an hour, well above the minimum wage of roughly $17 to $18.5 That gap is a big reason a full-time job can still feel like a stretch.
The Money You May Be Leaving On The Table
For lower and middle incomes, government benefits and credits can act like a raise you do not have to earn, and many go unclaimed. A few worth checking:
- The Canada Workers Benefit, a refundable credit for lower-income workers.
- The GST/HST credit, a tax-free quarterly payment.
- The Canada Child Benefit, worth up to about $7,997 a year per young child for families.
- Provincial and disability benefits, depending on your situation.
The catch is that you usually need to file a tax return to get them, even if you earned little or nothing.
Building Security From Where You Are
You do not need a top-1% income to get on stable footing, and the average savings by age in Canada is a far more useful benchmark to measure yourself against. Starting a small emergency fund, keeping debt manageable, and choosing lower-cost borrowing over high-cost options when money is short all move you forward. If your credit is bruised, comparing bad credit loan options carefully, and steering clear of predatory lenders, protects the progress you make.
The Bottom Line
To join Canada’s top 1%, you need an income of about $293,800, and the group averages around $606,000, more in cities like Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver. By wealth, the bar is about $7.4 million. Those numbers are worth understanding, if only to see how far the top sits from the middle. But for almost everyone, the more useful goal is not cracking the 1%. It is making the most of the income you have, claiming the benefits you qualify for, and building a little security at a time.
Top 1% In Canada FAQs
You needed a total income of about $293,800 in 2023 to reach the top 1% of Canadian tax filers. That is the entry point. The average income within the group was much higher, around $606,000.
The average income of someone in Canada’s top 1% was about $606,000 in 2023. The very top earns far more, with the top 0.1% starting near $930,100 and the top 0.01% around $3.49 million.
A Canadian family needed a net worth of roughly $7.4 million in 2023 to be in the top 1% by wealth. This group holds close to a quarter of all net worth in the country. Net worth (what you own minus what you owe) is a different measure from yearly income.
Among major metro areas, Calgary has the highest bar, at about $424,500 to reach the top 1% in 2023, followed by Toronto (about $373,200) and Vancouver (about $344,500).
A typical (median) household took home about $75,500 after tax in 2024, while a typical individual made around $46,300. Both are far below the top 1% threshold.
References
- Statistics Canada. (2025). High-income Canadians, 2023. Government of Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/251031/dq251031b-eng.htm
- Statistics Canada. Table 11-10-0056-01, High income tax filers in Canada, specific geographic area thresholds. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110005601
- Statistics Canada. (2026). Canadian Income Survey, 2024. Government of Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260429/dq260429a-eng.htm
- Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. (2025). Estimating the top tail of the family wealth distribution in Canada, 2025 update. https://www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/publications/RP-2526-009-S–estimating-top-tail-family-wealth-distribution-in-canada-2025-update
- Ontario Living Wage Network and Living Wage for Families BC. (2025). Living wage rates. https://www.ontariolivingwage.ca/updated_2025_rates and https://www.livingwagebc.ca/livingwagerates2025
