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Canadian household wealth eclipsed the $19 trillion mark for the first time in the second quarter of 2026, driven by the rally in equity markets.

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Households added $550 billion to their collective wealth, a 2.9 per cent jump from the first quarter of the year, to hit $19.4 trillion, according to Statistics Canada’s latest national balance sheet, released Friday. Stock market gains steered the ratio of financial to non-financial assets to its highest level since 2000, with $1.24 in financial assets for every dollar of non-financial assets.

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Toronto-Dominion (TD) economist Maria Solovieva said she was not expecting such strong growth in household wealth, calling Q2, “a blow-away quarter.”

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“We definitely didn’t expect a 4.5 per cent surge in the financial assets,” she said, adding that TD was anticipating roughly half that growth. “That was a positive surprise.”

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The S&P/TSX Composite index rose 6.4 per cent in the second quarter, nearly double the pace of growth in the first quarter, said Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) economist Rachel Battaglia in a note. “U.S. equities (measured in Canadian dollars) contributed outsized returns of 17 per cent.”

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Household financial assets, which include stocks, underwent their strongest quarterly gain since the fourth quarter of 2020. Non-financial assets, which include residential real estate, edged upwards by just 0.5 per cent compared with the previous quarter.

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Equity markets have helped support Canadian financial conditions in the face of trade uncertainty and high energy prices, wrote Tu Ngyuen, an economist for RSM Canada LLP, in an email. “Households became wealthier, even though the impact was most prominent in the top quintile income.”

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Statistics Canada said in the report that 69 per cent of all financial assets and nearly half of non-financial assets are held by the highest wealth quintile, or the wealthiest fifth of Canadians.

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The value of household residential real estate ticked up by 0.4 per cent quarter over quarter to a cumulative $8.5 trillion in the second quarter of 2026 (though it dropped 0.3 per cent year over year).

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The household debt service ratio, an indicator of households’ ability to pay off their debts — measured as total obligated payments of principal and interest on credit market debt as a proportion of household disposable income — declined to 14.5 per cent. This improvement was partially due to households coming out of the mortgage renewal cycle, Soloveiva said.

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In the second quarter, Canadian households also improved their saving rate to 3.7 per cent as disposable income outpaced spending. Solovieva attributed this in part to stronger income growth as well as the one-time GST/HST credit top-up payment from the federal government offering income support, which was issued in June.