Canada’s legal cannabis industry contributed more than $8.3 billion to the country’s  GDP in 2024, according to the most recent figures from Statistics Canada.

As in previous years, the majority of this came from licensed cannabis production, at nearly $7.4 billion, while retail added around $951 million on top of that. 

The illicit cannabis market added another nearly $2.6 billion to Canada’s GDP in 2024, down slightly from 2023, with most ($1.7 billion) coming from unlicensed cannabis production, and $951 million coming from illicit cannabis retailers, both online and brick-and-mortar. 

Licensed cannabis stores’ contribution to Canada’s GDP surpassed that of unlicensed retailers for the first time in 2023, a trend that continued in 2024.

While still only a fraction of Canada’s more than $2 trillion GDP, the legal cannabis industry in Canada is nonetheless a more considerable contribution to that overall number than many other industries, including breweries, wineries, and distilleries, as well as potash, dairy,  coal mining,  meat production, and natural gas production, to name a few. 

Cannabis production’s contribution to Canada’s GDP is also about one-third of all crop production in the country, while licensed cannabis stores are about one-quarter of all retail stores’ contribution to GDP.