This not necessarily bad news Statistics Canada has estimated that household credit market debt grew by one percent. It has already passed that mark— now over $3.1 trillion in the second quarter of 2025. What this increase reflects, though, is a disturbing trend in household debt. It encompasses all of consumer credit, including both mortgage and non-mortgage related loans.
Mortgages, of course, represent the largest share of our household debt by far. The fact that they represent almost 75 percent of the total credit market debt. It is a major household expense for most Canadians. This is an astounding statistic and a strong representation of the extent to which the mortgage balance impacts household finances as a whole.
Alongside this growing total debt, a second deviation signal was the recent spike in household credit market debt service ratio. It hit a new high of 14.41 percent, an increase over 14.37 percent in the first quarter, in the second quarter. This household debt service ratio is the percentage of disposable income households spend on servicing the principal and interest on credit market debt. It’s a sign that families are having to spend more of their income just to stay on top of their debt.
Second, household credit market debt increased by almost $28 trillion from 2000 to 2021 – a 600 percent increase. It week now is 174.9 percent of disposable income, seasonally adjusted. This represents a 1.1 percent increase over previously reported estimates. Households are taking on increasing amounts of debt in relation to their income, which is a cause for alarm given potential long-term fiscal implications.
Rather, relative to these increased levels of debt, the pace of household credit market borrowing has slowed dramatically. In the second quarter, borrowing hit a seasonally adjusted $31.6 billion. This amount was a reduction from the $34.5 billion in the first quarter of 2025. Consumers are clearly taking a more cautious approach to new borrowing activities, as evidenced by the $2.9 billion decrease. Perhaps rising interest rates and overall market uncertainty are making them more risk-averse.
The household credit market debt statistics were last updated on September 11, 2025, at 10:25 AM and were made available earlier that day at 9:15 AM. These amounts are seasonally adjusted to account for annual cookie cutter borrowing pattern changes during the year.
