Canadian employees most often claim dental care, vision services, and mental health support through their Health Spending Accounts, while gym memberships, professional development, and home office equipment top the list of Wellness Spending Account claims. These patterns hold fairly consistently across provinces, though claim volume for fitness and mental health categories has grown noticeably in recent years as employees become more comfortable using both types of accounts to their fullest.
Health Spending Accounts and Wellness Spending Accounts have become staples of flexible employee benefits in Canada, yet many employees leave money on the table each year simply because they are unsure what qualifies. Understanding the most claimed HSA expenses gives employees a practical roadmap for maximizing their accounts, while helping HR teams benchmark their own benefits usage. The gap between what is eligible and what actually gets claimed reveals real opportunities for both sides of the employment relationship. Dental visits, therapy sessions, and gym memberships top the list, but the full picture includes categories most employees never consider.
Dental care, vision services, and mental health support consistently rank as the top HSA claims in Canada.
Fitness memberships, professional development, and home office equipment lead WSA submissions.
Mental health claim volumes have grown sharply in recent years as stigma decreases and coverage expands.
Underutilization, not ineligibility, is the biggest reason employees leave HSA and WSA funds unclaimed.
Health Spending Accounts cover a wide range of HSA-eligible expenses in Canada, from routine dental checkups to prescription medications and paramedical services. The spending patterns across Canadian workplaces reveal consistent themes: employees prioritize the health costs that recur most often and carry the highest out-of-pocket burden.
Dental procedures remain the single largest category of health spending account claims year after year. Cleanings, fillings, crowns, orthodontics, and root canals all qualify, and since provincial health plans rarely cover dental work, employees rely heavily on their HSA to offset these costs. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information's National Health Expenditure Trends report, private-sector health spending, including dental, vision, and drug costs, continues to grow faster than overall health expenditures, underscoring why these categories dominate HSA usage.
Preventive dental: cleanings, exams, X-rays, and fluoride treatments
Restorative dental: fillings, crowns, bridges, and dentures
Vision care: eye exams, prescription glasses, contact lenses, and laser eye surgery
Orthodontics: braces and retainers for employees and dependents
Prescription eyewear upgrades: progressive lenses and specialized coatings
Chiropractic visits, physiotherapy, massage therapy, and acupuncture represent a growing share of HSA submissions. Employees dealing with chronic pain, sports injuries, or postural issues from desk work frequently claim these services. Prescription drugs also rank high, particularly for employees managing ongoing conditions that require regular medication. These health spending account claims tend to accumulate steadily throughout the benefit year rather than arriving in a single large submission.
While HSAs cover medically necessary expenses, Wellness Spending Accounts open the door to a broader definition of employee wellbeing. The categories that Canadian employees claim most often through their WSA reflect shifting priorities around mental health, physical fitness, and work-life balance.
Mental health benefits in Canada have seen a dramatic increase in utilization over the past several years. Psychologist and counsellor sessions are eligible under most HSAs, and many WSAs extend coverage to broader wellness therapies, mindfulness apps, and stress management programs. Employees are no longer treating mental health support as a last resort. It has become one of the most consistently claimed categories across both account types. Data from Sun Life's Group Benefits book shows that mental health practitioner claims among plan members grew by roughly 70% between 2019 and 2022, with claim volume continuing to climb in the years since.
The normalization of therapy, combined with employer efforts to reduce stigma, has pushed mental health claims into the top tier of benefit usage. For HR teams, this signals that allocating sufficient funds to cover counselling is no longer optional if the goal is competitive talent retention.
Gym membership employee benefits consistently appear among the most popular WSA claims. Monthly fitness centre fees, yoga studio memberships, recreational sports league registrations, and personal training sessions all qualify under most WSA configurations. Employees in provinces like British Columbia and Ontario submit these claims at especially high rates, reflecting both the cost of urban fitness options and a growing culture of preventive health investment.
Beyond traditional gym access, employees increasingly claim fitness-related purchases such as home workout equipment, fitness tracker subscriptions, and virtual class memberships. The flexibility of wellness spending accounts makes it possible for employers to support physical activity in whatever form works best for each individual. GoKlaim's platform lets employers customize exactly which fitness categories qualify, giving organizations control while employees get choice.
Professional development benefits through a WSA cover courses, certifications, conference registrations, and educational materials that help employees grow in their careers. This category has gained significant traction as employers recognize that supporting learning is a retention tool as much as a perk. Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey data on training participation found that 30% of Canadian employees completed job-related training in the 12 months ending November 2024, reinforcing how mainstream ongoing skills investment has become.
Home office equipment benefits round out the top WSA claims. Since remote and hybrid work became the norm for many Canadian organizations, ergonomic chairs, standing desks, monitors, and keyboard accessories have become frequent submissions. Employees working from home in provinces across Canada, from Ontario to British Columbia, use their WSA-eligible expenses to create functional workspaces without paying entirely out of pocket.
Knowing which expenses other Canadians claim is useful, but the real value comes from understanding how to structure and access these accounts effectively. Whether the goal is stretching a limited annual balance or choosing between overlapping categories, a few practical considerations make a meaningful difference.
A common question for both employers and employees is how HSAs compare to traditional group insurance for claims. Traditional plans offer predetermined coverage with set limits per category, co-pays, and insurer-negotiated fee schedules. HSAs, by contrast, give employees a fixed dollar amount to spend across any eligible medical expense they choose. This flexibility means an employee who needs extensive dental work but no vision care can direct their entire balance accordingly, something a traditional plan rarely allows.
For employers evaluating their benefits strategy, the distinction matters. HSAs reduce administrative complexity, eliminate insurer markups, and give employees spending power that matches their actual needs. Many Canadian organizations now pair a base group insurance plan with a supplementary HSA to cover gaps, creating a layered approach that satisfies diverse workforce needs.
Underutilization remains the biggest challenge with employee benefits spending accounts. Employees often forget to submit claims before year-end, overlook eligible expenses, or assume certain services are not covered. The solution starts with visibility. Platforms like GoKlaim make it straightforward for employees to check their balance, review eligible categories, and submit claims directly from a mobile app, which removes the friction that causes funds to go unspent.
HR teams can also drive utilization by sending periodic reminders about eligible expense categories, sharing anonymized usage data so employees see what peers are claiming, and ensuring the onboarding process includes a clear walkthrough of both HSA and WSA accounts. When employees understand what is available, they use it.
The most commonly claimed HSA and WSA expenses in Canada tell a clear story: employees value practical health coverage, mental health support, and lifestyle-oriented benefits that fit their daily lives. Dental care, vision services, and prescriptions dominate HSA usage, while gym memberships, professional development, and home office equipment lead the WSA side. For employers, these patterns offer a blueprint for designing benefits packages that employees will actually use and appreciate. The key is choosing a platform that makes claiming simple and gives both sides full transparency.
Explore how GoKlaim helps Canadian teams get the most from their HSA and WSA benefits.
You can claim eligible medical expenses, including dental procedures, prescription drugs, vision care, paramedical services like physiotherapy and chiropractic treatments, and mental health counselling sessions.
Most HSAs cover sessions with licensed psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical counsellors, and psychotherapists, though specific provider eligibility depends on your employer's plan configuration.
Gym memberships are typically eligible under a Wellness Spending Account, not an HSA, and coverage depends on whether your employer has included fitness as an approved WSA category.
Common qualifying expenses include online courses, industry certifications, conference registration fees, textbooks, and career coaching, provided your employer has enabled professional development as a WSA category.
HSAs generally cover preventive care like cleanings and exams, restorative work such as fillings and crowns, orthodontics, dentures, and oral surgery when performed by a licensed dental professional.
Vision care, including eye exams, prescription glasses, contact lenses, and corrective surgery, is typically claimed through an HSA since these are considered eligible medical expenses.
Home office equipment, such as ergonomic chairs, desks, and monitors, is commonly eligible under a WSA in British Columbia, provided the employer has included this category in their plan setup.
