Household debt-to-income ratio ticked higher in Q2: Statistics Canada

Statistics Canada says the amount Canadians owe relative to their income ticked higher in the second quarter as debt grew faster than income.

The agency said the ratio of household credit market debt to disposable income rose to 174.9% on a seasonally adjusted basis, up 1.1%.

In other words, Statistics Canada said there was $1.75 in credit market debt for every dollar of household disposable income in the second quarter.

The household debt service ratio—measured as total obligated payments of principal and interest on credit market debt as a proportion of disposable income—ticked up to 14.41% in the quarter, an increase from 14.37%.

The results came as the pace of household credit market borrowing slowed to a seasonally adjusted $31.6 billion in the quarter, down from $34.5 billion in the first quarter of 2025.

The total seasonally adjusted stock of household credit market debt, which includes consumer credit, and mortgage and non-mortgage loans, rose 1% to surpass $3.1 trillion in the second quarter, with mortgages accounting for almost 75% of the total.

The data comes as a separate report from Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer suggests some Canadian households are falling behind the top wealth earners in the country.

The PBO report, released Thursday, examined 2023 data about wealth distribution in Canada.

It showed that the top 1% of economic families in Canada hold about 24% of the country's total net wealth, with at least $7.4 million in net wealth each.

The top 10% hold around 53% of total net wealth and the top 20% hold 69% of total net wealth.

Meanwhile, the middle 40% own 27.6% of net wealth and the bottom 40% own around 3.3% of net wealth.

The report said there was a slight increase in wealth concentration from 2016 to 2019, but a reversal of this trend from 2019 to 2023.

"Given the uncertainties in the data, the concentration of wealth among high-net-worth families in 2023 is considered to be either comparable to or marginally lower than in 2019," it said.