No. A named beneficiary on an RRSP receives it directly, outside the estate and outside the will. This is the most common way a carefully drafted Islamic will is defeated.
The Canadian position
The plan is generally treated as fully withdrawn immediately before death and taxed on the final return — but the money goes to the named beneficiary. The tax lands on the estate, which the other heirs share.
A rollover is available where the beneficiary is a spouse or a financially dependent child.
The Islamic position
Where one person is named and the estate carries the tax, the remaining heirs bear a cost for an asset they never received. The distribution can end up further from faraid than doing nothing at all.
RRSPs, TFSAs, joint tenancy and beneficiary designations are all newer than the four schools, so this is not a madhhab difference and we have built no four-school table for it. What the schools do agree is the test: the tarikah is what the deceased owned at the moment of death, not how the asset moved afterwards. Applying that test to Canadian instruments is a present-day question, and named bodies reach opposite results — AMJA and Qatar’s Islamweb keep an earned plan in the estate; Singapore’s MUIS treats a nomination as a completed lifetime gift. No source on either side reasons from probate.
No school ruled on this instrument; named present-day bodies differ. Reviewed 2026-09-01. Full positions, evidence and sources — Assets that pass outside the estate — are they part of the tarikah?.
Making an Islamic will in Canada — province by province, and what makes one valid where you live →
What to do about it
- List every registered account and policy you hold.
- Check who is currently named on each — designations made years ago often name a former spouse.
- Decide deliberately whether each should follow the shares or pass outside them.
- Review designations whenever the will changes.
Naming the estate as beneficiary brings the funds into the shares — but also into probate, and within reach of creditors. Take advice rather than switching by default.
This is legal information only. For advice on your own circumstances, speak to a lawyer.
Citations & sources
Every factual claim on this page traces to a source below. Details change — check the original source before relying on any figure, fee or legal position. Anything under “further reading” is related material, not a source for what is stated here.
- Death of an RRSP annuitant — Canada Revenue Agency
- Death of a TFSA holder — Canada Revenue Agency
- What to do when someone has died — Canada Revenue Agency
- Rrsp beneficiary financially dependent child — Treadstone Law
- Does rrsp get taxed on death ontario — Treadstone Law
- Rrsp rrif rollover to spouse at death — Treadstone Law
- Rrsp no named beneficiary death ontario — Treadstone Law
- Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law