If your spouse is named successor holder, they take over the account intact. If they are only named beneficiary, the value passes but post-death growth becomes taxable.
The Canadian position
The successor holder designation is available only to a spouse or common-law partner and is the more advantageous option.
The Islamic position
Either way the account passes outside the estate under Canadian law. No fiqh body has ruled on the TFSA by name at all. The nearest ruling, Islamweb on a North American pension, treats wealth the deceased earned as remaining his heirs' by faraid however it is paid out — so do not assume the designation removes it from the shares.
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 →
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 a TFSA holder — Canada Revenue Agency
- What to do when someone has died — Canada Revenue Agency
- Tfsa beneficiary vs successor holder — Treadstone Law
- Tfsa successor holder vs beneficiary ontario — Treadstone Law
- Fhsa successor holder like tfsa — Treadstone Law
- Common law spouse beneficiary designation vs intestacy ontario — Treadstone Law
- Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law