OAS Calculator
Canada 2026

The maximum Old Age Security pension for the July–September 2026 quarter is $751.97 a month at ages 65 to 74, and $827.17 a month at 75 and over — $9,024 and $9,926 a year. Those are MAXIMUMS, not defaults.

You receive the full amount only if you have lived in Canada for at least 40 years after turning 18. With fewer years you receive a partial pension of years divided by 40 — 25 years of residence pays $469.98 a month.

Two further adjustments apply: starting later than 65 raises the amount by 0.6% for each month you wait, and net world income above $93,454 triggers the recovery tax that claws part of it back. OAS is re-indexed to the cost of living four times a year, so an amount quoted without its quarter is incomplete — these figures are the July–September 2026 amounts and change again in October 2026.

No. This is the single most common misconception about Canada's two public pensions, and the two programs genuinely differ. The Canada Pension Plan can start as early as age 60, at a permanently reduced amount.

Old Age Security cannot start before age 65 under any circumstances — there is no early-OAS option, reduced or otherwise. OAS only moves in the other direction: you may defer it up to age 70, gaining 0.6% per month of delay, to a maximum of 36% at 70.

Deferring past 70 adds nothing, so there is never a reason to wait beyond your 70th birthday. The reason the two differ is structural: CPP is a contributory earnings-based pension funded by payroll contributions, while OAS is a residence-based benefit paid from general tax revenue and tied to how long you have lived in Canada, not to whether you ever worked.

OAS is a residence-based pension: the amount depends on how long you lived in Canada after age 18, not on your earnings or contributions. A full pension needs 40 years.

Below that you receive a partial pension equal to your years divided by 40 — so 20 years pays exactly half, $375.99 a month at the July–September 2026 rate. There is a floor: you need at least 10 years of Canadian residence after 18 to receive OAS while living in Canada, or at least 20 years to receive it while living abroad.

Below the floor the pension is zero rather than small. If you have lived and worked in a country that has a social security agreement with Canada, that time can often be counted toward meeting the minimum — though it does not usually increase the amount itself.

This is why OAS matters so much to Canadians who immigrated as adults: someone who arrived at 40 and retires at 65 has 25 years, and receives $469.98 a month rather than the headline maximum.

This is the case where deferral pays twice, and most calculators miss the second half of it. Delaying raises the pension by 0.6% a month, 36% in total at 70.

Separately, your residence years keep accumulating until the pension actually starts — Service Canada states that once you start receiving OAS, additional time living in Canada no longer increases the payment, which means the years before you start still count. So someone with 30 years of Canadian residence at 65 who stays in Canada and defers to 70 arrives with 35 years AND the 36% increase: $563.98 a month becomes $894.84, a rise of 59% rather than the 36% the deferral alone would give.

Canada.ca lists having fewer than 40 years of residence as one of its stated reasons to consider delaying. Two situations where deferring is the wrong call regardless: if you qualify for the Guaranteed Income Supplement you cannot receive it without OAS, so deferring costs you both; and if you are living outside Canada with fewer than 20 years of residence in a country with no social security agreement, delaying will not produce higher payments.

Service Canada publishes $152,062 for ages 65 to 74 and $157,923 for 75 and over, on 2025 net world income. But those figures assume a FULL 40-year pension, and that is the detail worth knowing: the recovery tax takes 15 cents per dollar of income above $93,454 and stops once it has recovered all the OAS you were due — so the less OAS you receive, the sooner it is gone entirely.

A partial pensioner with 20 years of residence has half the OAS to recover and is fully clawed back at about $122,758, not $152,062. The calculator on this page computes your own threshold from your own residence and start age.

One technical note that explains why our arithmetic matches Service Canada's published pair to the dollar: the recovery formula uses the average OAS across the recovery period ($732.60 a month at 65 to 74), not the current quarter's $751.97. Both numbers are current; they answer different questions.

Yes, automatically. Since 1 July 2022 the OAS pension increases by 10% the month after your 75th birthday — from $751.97 to $827.17 a month at the maximum, or $9,024 to $9,926 a year.

You do not apply for it and it is not a one-off payment; the higher rate simply continues for life and is indexed alongside the base rate every quarter. If you receive a partial pension the 10% applies to your partial amount, so the increase scales with what you already get.

The higher rate also raises the income at which your OAS is fully recovered, which is why Service Canada publishes a separate and higher full-recovery threshold for the 75-and-over band ($157,923 against $152,062). One thing the increase does not do: it has no effect on your Guaranteed Income Supplement, which is calculated separately and is not reduced by the 10%.

They are separate programs that are easy to confuse because both arrive monthly from the federal government in retirement. CPP is a contributory pension: you pay into it from employment or self-employment earnings, and the amount reflects what you contributed over your working life.

The maximum CPP retirement pension at 65 for benefits starting in January 2026 is $1,507.65 a month, and most people receive considerably less than the maximum because it requires near-maximum contributions for most of a career. It can start as early as 60 or as late as 70.

OAS is a residence-based benefit: you qualify by having lived in Canada, not by having worked or contributed, it is paid from general tax revenue, it cannot start before 65, and its maximum for the July–September 2026 quarter is $751.97 a month. Two further practical differences: OAS is re-indexed quarterly while CPP is adjusted once a year each January; and OAS is subject to the recovery tax above $93,454 of net income while CPP is never clawed back, though it is taxable and counts toward the income that claws back your OAS.

OAS is taxable income and must be reported on your return; tax is not withheld by default, though you can ask Service Canada to withhold it, which many pensioners do to avoid a balance owing each April. It also counts toward the net world income that drives the recovery tax on your own OAS.

The Guaranteed Income Supplement is a different matter: GIS is a non-taxable monthly benefit for low-income OAS pensioners, worth up to $1,123.17 a month for a single, widowed or divorced pensioner in the July–September 2026 quarter, and it phases out entirely at roughly $22,800 of annual income excluding OAS. GIS is tested on income other than OAS itself, and it is re-assessed every July from the previous calendar year's tax return, so filing on time matters even in a year with little income.

Critically, you cannot receive GIS without receiving OAS — which is what makes deferring OAS the wrong choice for anyone who qualifies for the supplement, however attractive the 36% deferral increase looks in isolation.