Unclaimed Money in Canada: Where to Search for Lost Assets

*Figures verified as of August 2026.

Money gets left behind in Canada more often than most people realize. It is not necessarily hidden or stolen. More often, it has simply become disconnected from the person who would have known where to look for it.

A bank account becomes inactive after someone moves. A workplace pension remains with an employer they left in 1998. A paid-up life insurance policy goes unclaimed because nobody else knew it existed.

There is no single place to search for all of these assets. They are held in separate registries run by different institutions, and those systems do not communicate with one another. Most are free to search, but every search begins with the same basic requirement: you need to know the person’s name.

Start here: the seven places to search

Each asset type sits in a different registry. Start with the one that matches what you are looking for, then work through the list.

1. Dormant bank accounts. Balances at federally regulated banks are transferred after ten years of inactivity to the Bank of Canada Unclaimed Balances Registry. It held $1.60 billion as of December 31, 2025.
2. Provincially held property. Only four provinces run a searchable program: British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and New Brunswick.
3. Life insurance policies. OLHI runs a free policy search, with a separate search for the policy of a deceased person.
4. Demutualization shares and cash. Policyholders at several large insurers before March 2000 may be owed shares or cash. Sun Life operates an unclaimed demutualization benefits program. For a Canada Life policy, contact the insurer or its transfer agent.
5. Pensions from former employers. Start with the employer or plan administrator. If the company is gone, go to the pension regulator. CAPSA publishes the full list of regulators.
6. Uncashed government cheques. CRA My Account lists uncashed tax refunds, benefits, and credits. CPP, OAS, and EI payments go through Service Canada instead.
7. Old stock certificates. Go through the company’s transfer agent. Current contact information is often in the company’s filings on SEDAR+.

Public Guardian and Trustee offices are a second step rather than a starting point. They are covered further down.

What counts as unclaimed money?

“Unclaimed money” is a general description rather than a single legal category. It includes several types of assets that become stranded for the same underlying reason.

Common examples include dormant bank accounts, uncashed cheques, security deposits, matured investments, unclaimed life insurance benefits, pension entitlements from former employers, and shares in companies that have changed ownership.

What these assets have in common is a broken connection between the money and the person entitled to it. The institution may still have the funds, along with a name and address on file. However, that address may be thirty years old, and the person who could confirm the connection may have moved or died.

The institution is not necessarily making the process difficult. It is holding money that it cannot legally release until someone proves they are entitled to receive it.

Where do forgotten bank accounts go?

An account at a federally regulated Canadian bank does not disappear when it becomes inactive. It follows a process established under the Bank Act.

The account first becomes dormant, meaning there have been no deposits, withdrawals, or contact from the account holder. After ten years of inactivity, the balance is transferred to the Bank of Canada, which maintains a public, searchable Unclaimed Balances Registry. The account holder’s name and last known address are transferred with it.

Before that happens, the bank must try to contact the account holder. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada outlines the notification schedule: one notice after two years of inactivity, another after five years, and a final notice after nine years advising that the balance is about to be transferred. The legal requirement appears in section 439 of the Bank Act.

Those notices are sent to the address the bank has on file, which is often where the process breaks down.

Once the balance reaches the Bank of Canada, the amount determines how long it will be held. Balances under $1,000 are held for 30 years. Balances of $1,000 or more are held for 100 years. After that period, any funds that remain unclaimed are transferred to the Receiver General for Canada. These rules are set out by both the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada and the Bank of Canada.

As of December 31, 2025, the Bank of Canada held $1.60 billion in unclaimed balances across roughly 3.6 million accounts.

Before searching the federal registry and concluding that nothing is there, it is important to understand three limitations.

First, credit unions are provincially regulated in most provinces, so their dormant accounts generally do not enter the federal registry. What happens to those balances depends on the province. In Ontario, unclaimed credit union balances are transferred to the Minister of Finance after ten years. In British Columbia, they go to the BC Unclaimed Property Society. In some provinces, the money remains with the credit union itself. A credit union that has since become federally regulated is treated differently. Its dormant accounts do reach the Bank of Canada.

Second, foreign currency accounts were previously excluded from the federal registry. That changed in December 2023. Accounts held in other currencies at federally regulated banks are now transferred to the Bank of Canada’s Unclaimed Properties Office and converted into Canadian dollars during the transfer.

Third, the registry only holds deposits. It receives bank accounts, term deposits, GICs, bank drafts, certified cheques, and money orders from federally regulated banks and trust companies, and nothing else. Registered accounts such as RRSPs, RRIFs, and TFSAs never transfer, even when they are held at a bank. Investment and brokerage accounts, whether registered or not, sit outside the regime entirely, because investment dealers are provincially regulated and their client assets never flow to the Bank of Canada. The contents of safety deposit boxes stay with the bank. To find any of these assets, contact the institution that held them directly, and check the provincial registries described below, which capture some property the federal registry does not. An empty search result on the federal registry says nothing about whether a deceased parent's RRSP or investment account exists.

The system is doing what it was designed to do. It was simply never designed to tell someone’s children that the money exists.

🔍 Search it here: Bank of Canada Unclaimed Balances Registry

The search is free and requires a name. The Bank of Canada does not charge to process a claim, and there is no need to pay a company to complete the search for you.

Which provinces have their own unclaimed property registries?

Some provinces operate programs that cover forgotten accounts, uncashed cheques, security deposits, investments, and other assets held by provincially regulated institutions.

Coverage across Canada is uneven, and understanding that unevenness is one of the most important parts of the search.

🔍 Search here. Provinces with a searchable program:

• British Columbia: BC Unclaimed Property Society
• Alberta: Alberta unclaimed property search, with program details available on alberta.ca
• Quebec: Revenu Québec, unclaimed property
• New Brunswick: FundsFinderNB

Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, and the three territories do not have a comprehensive public registry. Saskatchewan is a partial exception. Its Public Guardian and Trustee holds and administers unclaimed property, but there is no public search that individuals can run themselves.

If the person you are searching for lived in one of those places, there is no shortcut. The search must be done manually by contacting banks, insurers, and other financial institutions one at a time, using the person’s name and relevant dates.

That process is workable when you know which institutions to contact. In many cases, identifying those institutions is the part that stops the search.

How do you find a lost life insurance policy?

Life insurance policies are among the assets most likely to be missed. A paid-up policy may generate no ongoing statements or reminders, making it easy for others to overlook.

Most Canadian life and health insurers participate in the OmbudService for Life and Health Insurance, known as OLHI. OLHI publishes the list of participating companies and provides a free policy search for people who believe a policy exists but cannot locate the documents.

🔍 Submit a search here: OLHI policy search

When searching on behalf of someone who has died, use OLHI’s separate search for a policy of a deceased person.

Group insurance policies are not included in that search. When coverage was provided through an employer or professional association, the search should begin with that organization rather than with the insurer.

There is also another category of potential benefits that many people have never heard of.

Demutualization benefits

Several large Canadian insurers demutualized around the turn of the century. Demutualization occurs when a company owned by its policyholders converts into a company owned by shareholders. Eligible policyholders may receive shares or cash as part of that conversion.

Manulife Financial demutualized in 1999. Sun Life Financial completed its demutualization in March 2000. Canada Life Assurance Company demutualized in 1999 and was later acquired by Great-West Lifeco in 2003. Mutual Life of Canada demutualized in 1999, renamed itself Clarica, and was acquired by Sun Life in 2002.

The demutualization year and acquisition year are often confused. For the purpose of finding an unclaimed benefit, the demutualization year is the important one because that is when the shares were issued.

Some shares and cash from these conversions remain unclaimed. Sun Life operates an unclaimed demutualization benefits program covering Sun Life and Clarica policyholders from before March 2000. For a Canada Life policy, contact the insurer or its transfer agent.

🔍 Search it here: Sun Life unclaimed demutualization benefits program

What happens to a pension from a job someone left decades ago?

Pension entitlements do not automatically follow people when they change jobs. They remain with the pension plan.

Most adults work for several employers over the course of their lives. Some of those employers may have operated registered pension plans, and a deferred entitlement can remain there for decades under a name and address the plan administrator has been unable to update.

Begin by contacting the former employer or the pension plan administrator directly.

When the company no longer exists or has been acquired, the next step is the pension regulator. The correct regulator depends on how the plan was registered. Federally regulated private pension plans are supervised by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Provincially registered plans fall under provincial regulators. In Ontario, that regulator is the Financial Services Regulatory Authority. The Canadian Association of Pension Supervisory Authorities publishes a complete list of pension regulators.

🔍 Find the right regulator here: CAPSA list of pension regulators

The scale of the issue is significant. FSRA reported that Ontario-registered pension plans had 198,405 missing members at the end of 2025, with benefits worth $3.8 billion.

Finding these pensions can be slow. The search often depends on someone remembering where a person worked in their twenties or thirties, which is exactly the type of information that may become impossible to recover after that person dies.

Are there uncashed government cheques in someone’s name?

The Canada Revenue Agency issues refunds, benefits, and credits through both direct deposit and cheque. Some of those cheques are never cashed.

A person may move without updating their address. A benefit cheque may be issued to someone who has died, and the family may set it aside because they do not know how to handle it. In other cases, the cheque is filed with other paperwork and forgotten.

Unlike many other cheques, Government of Canada cheques do not become stale after six months. CRA states that “Government of Canada cheques never expire,” and an old cheque can still be cashed at a Canadian financial institution without a fee.

As of July 2026, CRA reported 10,833,150 uncashed cheques worth approximately $1.88 billion.

🔍 Search it here: CRA My Account

To search for one, sign in to CRA My Account. Uncashed cheques appear on the Overview page and under Accounts and payments.

The list includes personal cheques that were issued more than six months ago.

To request a replacement, download the pre-filled Form PWGSC 535, Undertaking and Indemnity, from that section. The form must be signed by hand because electronic signatures are not accepted.

It can then be submitted through Submit documents in My Account or mailed to the tax centre address provided by CRA. A separate form is required for each cheque.

The process is different when the cheque belongs to someone who has died. An Executor cannot search for it through their own personal CRA My Account. The search happens in a different CRA portal called Represent a Client. Before accessing the deceased person’s information, CRA must recognize the Executor as the legal representative. This generally requires proof of death and proof of authority to act, such as the Will or the court document appointing the estate representative. Once that access has been established, the Executor can view the deceased person's uncashed cheques in Represent a Client and have replacement payments deposited into the estate account.

Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, and Employment Insurance payments are administered by Service Canada rather than CRA. Questions about uncashed cheques from those programs must be directed to Service Canada. The CPP and OAS telephone number is 1-800-277-9914.

What about old stock certificates?

Shares in a company that has merged, rebranded, or been acquired will often continue to exist under a different company name or in a different form.

Paper certificates frequently turn up in filing cabinets. Old dividend reinvestment statements may also survive and can sometimes be the only remaining evidence that an investment existed.

The Canadian Securities Administrators publishes guidance on how to determine the value of an old stock certificate. The search generally goes through the company’s transfer agent. A transfer agent is a firm appointed by a company to maintain its official shareholder records and process transfers and replacement certificates. The transfer agent’s name is usually printed on the certificate itself. Current contact information may also be found in the company’s filings on SEDAR+.

🔍 Search it here: SEDAR+ company filings

Is there a registry of unclaimed inheritances in Canada?

No. This is one of the most important misconceptions to correct because it can send people searching in the wrong place for months.

Canada does not have a central database of unclaimed inheritances.

Money left behind by a relative will rarely appear anywhere under the label “inheritance.” Instead, it may appear as an unclaimed bank balance, insurance proceeds, an investment account, or an estate distribution that was never collected.

The financial registries described above are where estate-related money is most likely to surface. Start with those registries, then follow any known connections, such as a family member, an Executor, a lawyer, or a specifically named estate.

The closest thing to an exception is Quebec, where Revenu Québec's unclaimed property program includes unclaimed successions, so a search for estate money in Quebec should include it.

When does a Public Guardian and Trustee become involved?

Every province and territory has a Public Guardian and Trustee office. These offices may administer estates in specific circumstances, including when no Executor is available, beneficiaries cannot be located, or minors or incapable adults are involved.

They are useful offices to know about, but they are not usually where a search should begin.

Public Guardian and Trustee offices do not operate public searchable databases and do not hold most unclaimed inheritances. Inquiries are generally handled case by case, usually when there is already a reason to believe someone is connected to a particular estate.

Treat these offices as a second step after the searchable registries have been exhausted.

• British Columbia: Public Guardian and Trustee of BC
• Alberta: Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee
• Saskatchewan: Public Guardian and Trustee of Saskatchewan
• Manitoba: Public Guardian and Trustee of Manitoba
• Ontario: Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee
• Quebec: Curateur public du Québec (for unclaimed successions in Quebec, search Revenu Québec's unclaimed property program instead)
• New Brunswick: Public Trustee Services of NB
• Nova Scotia: Public Trustee of Nova Scotia
• Prince Edward Island: Public Trustee and Public and Official Guardian
• Newfoundland and Labrador: Office of the Public Trustee
• Yukon: Public Guardian and Trustee
• Northwest Territories: Public Guardian and Trustee of the NWT
• Nunavut: Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee

What every one of these searches asks you for

The registries all have something in common: each one requires a name and enough information to narrow the search.

That is why searches often stall on questions such as:

• Which bank did the person use before their current one?
• Which employers offered a pension, and during which years?
• Which insurer provided the workplace policy they had in the 1980s?
• Which province were they living in during their thirties?
• Which version of their name appeared on the account: a married name, maiden name, initials, or a middle name that nobody now uses?

An Executor searching through a filing cabinet may find a single statement from a trust company that was absorbed into a larger bank in 1998. That document may provide no clear way to determine whether the balance was transferred, spent, or simply left behind.

This is an information problem, and it is one that many families are poorly prepared to solve. A Will identifies who has authority to act, but it does not provide a list of where everything is held.

The version of this you can prevent

Everything above focuses on finding money that someone else may have forgotten.

The more useful exercise is to work in the opposite direction.

Write down the institutions you deal with today and the ones you dealt with in the past. Include the account you opened at nineteen and never formally closed, the pension from the job you left in 2009, the policy provided through an employer, and the advisor whose name exists only in your phone.

You do not need to record balances or account numbers for this information to be useful. You need to leave behind the names of the institutions and enough information to show where the assets may be held, so nobody has to reconstruct your financial life from paper.

That is the difference between an Executor who knows which institutions to contact and one who is left guessing from a filing cabinet.

Most unclaimed money in Canada was never deliberately hidden. It was simply never written down.

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Questions families ask

Does it cost anything to search for unclaimed money in Canada?

No. The Bank of Canada Unclaimed Balances Registry is free to search, and the Bank of Canada does not charge to process a claim. The provincial programs in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and New Brunswick are also free to search, as is OLHI’s policy search. Companies that offer to find unclaimed money in exchange for a percentage are charging for searches that individuals can run themselves. Alberta caps a locator’s fee at 10% of the property’s value.

Can an Executor search for unclaimed money on behalf of an estate?

Yes. Anyone can search public registries using the deceased person’s name, and no proof is required to conduct the initial search. Submitting a claim is different. The Bank of Canada requires an estate claimant to provide legal evidence showing their entitlement to the funds. Estate claims take longer than standard claims. The Bank of Canada reports an average processing time of about 120 days, and estate claims often exceed that. BC Unclaimed, FundsFinderNB, and Revenu Québec each publish their own documentation requirements, and those requirements are not the same.

Why is there no registry of unclaimed inheritances in Canada?

Unclaimed inheritances are not tracked as a separate category by any one institution. Money left behind by a relative remains with the institution that held it, which may be a bank, insurer, pension plan, or investment firm. It is recorded as an unclaimed bank balance, unclaimed insurance proceeds, or another type of financial asset rather than as an inheritance. That is why searching financial registries is useful, while searching for the word “inheritance” is not. Quebec is the partial exception: Revenu Québec's unclaimed property program covers unclaimed successions, so estate money in Quebec can be searched as such.

What if the province has no unclaimed property registry, like Ontario?

Ontario, Canada's largest province, has no unclaimed property registry. Neither do Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, or the territories. The federal Bank of Canada registry still applies in those places to dormant accounts held by federally regulated banks. Beyond that, the search must be completed manually. Banks, insurers, and other financial institutions must be contacted individually using the person’s name and relevant dates.

Every search in this article happens after the fact. Someone is looking for money because the person who knew where it was is gone. Estate Kit is the other version. Your family opens one place and finds the list: which banks, which insurer, which pension from which job, which advisor.

The accounts your family would inherit stay findable while you are here to name them.

💚 Start your Estate Kit Now