When Canadians decide to combine their debts into one loan, how much do they actually ask for? Smarter Loans processes personal loan applications from every province, which gives us a direct view most published debt statistics do not: not what people owe, but what they ask for when they decide to deal with it. This report covers the year ending July 2026, drawn from more than 8,000 consolidation applications.
The national picture
The average consolidation request across Canada was $6,659. For scale, the average request across every other personal loan purpose was about a third of that. Consolidation is where Canadians bring their accumulated balances, so the amounts are larger by nature: a request covers two or three debts built up over years, not one expense. Source: Smarter Loans personal loan applications, August 2025 to July 2026.
Province by province
| Newfoundland and Labrador | $7,948 |
| Saskatchewan | $7,123 |
| Ontario | $6,920 |
| Manitoba | $6,491 |
| Alberta | $6,402 |
| British Columbia | $6,392 |
| Nova Scotia | $6,349 |
| Quebec | $6,224 |
| New Brunswick | $6,133 |
| NT, NU, PE and YT | suppressed, fewer than 100 applications each |
Source: Smarter Loans personal loan applications, August 2025 to July 2026.
Newfoundland and Labrador leads at $7,948, more than $1,800 above New Brunswick at $6,133. Ontario, the largest volume at nearly half of all consolidation applications, sits near the national average at $6,920. Prince Edward Island and the territories are not shown because application counts there fell below our publication threshold; those figures are suppressed, not zero. Source: Smarter Loans personal loan applications, August 2025 to July 2026.
The spread says more about balances than about rules. Consolidation lending works the same way in every province, so provincial differences reflect what people owe and what living costs look like locally, not different laws.
Who asks for the most
| Full Time | $7,078 |
| Part Time | $4,980 |
| Self Employed | $9,210 |
| Unemployed | $4,932 |
| Retired | $6,682 |
| Disability Income | $4,702 |
| Social Assistance | $2,361 |
Source: Smarter Loans personal loan applications, August 2025 to July 2026.
Self-employed applicants request the most at $9,210, consistent with variable income and business-adjacent balances. Applicants on social assistance request the least at $2,361. The full-time employed, the largest group by far, average $7,078. Source: Smarter Loans personal loan applications, August 2025 to July 2026.
A shrinking share of borrowing
Consolidation's share of all personal loan applications moved from 12.4 percent to 10.6 percent between the year ending July 2025 and the year ending July 2026. The broader debt-related share, consolidation plus paying off bills, moved from 53.8 percent to 45.4 percent over the same periods. Fewer applications aimed at old debt, more at new purposes: a modest shift toward forward-looking borrowing in this year's data. Source: Smarter Loans personal loan applications for both shares.
About this data
Figures are drawn from Smarter Loans personal loan applications between August 1, 2025 and July 31, 2026, unless a year-over-year comparison states its own periods. Amounts are requested amounts at application, not funded amounts. Averages are used throughout. Provincial figures with fewer than 100 applications are suppressed. Smarter Loans has connected more than 2 million Canadians with financing since 2016.
For what these numbers mean for your own borrowing, see debt consolidation in Canada and debt consolidation loans compared.
Written by:
The Smarter Loans Editorial Team produces in-depth, original content to help Canadians navigate borrowing, credit, and personal finance with confidence.
