When to take CPP: 60, 65 or 70

You can start your Canada Pension Plan retirement pension at any age from 60 to 70, and the choice sets the amount for life. Start at 60 and it’s 36% smaller than at 65. Wait until 70 and it’s 42% larger. At the 2026 maximum, that’s the difference between about C$965 a month and C$2,141 a month. For most people in good health with other savings, waiting past 65 pays more over a lifetime. For people who need the income, or whose health is poor, starting earlier can be the right call.

What each age pays

The pension drops 0.6% for each month you start before 65 and rises 0.7% for each month you start after it. Those are fixed rules, not estimates.

Few people get the maximum. The average new pension at 65 was C$858.34 a month in July 2026. On that average, starting at 60 pays about C$549 a month and waiting to 70 about C$1,219. Your own figure is in your Statement of Contributions in My Service Canada Account, which estimates your pension at different ages.

Payments rise each January with the Consumer Price Index, so every option is inflation-protected. Delaying buys more lifetime, inflation-protected income, which is hard to buy anywhere else.

The break-even ages

Waiting means giving up payments now for bigger ones later. Comparing the totals, in today’s dollars and ignoring tax and investment returns:

• 60 against 65. The later start catches up at about age 74.
• 65 against 70. The later start catches up at about age 82.
• 60 against 70. The later start catches up at about age 78.

These come straight from the 0.6% and 0.7% monthly rules. If you expect to live past those ages, waiting usually pays more in total. They’re a starting point, not the answer: tax, your spouse and what you’d live on in the meantime all change the picture.

The rules that matter

• You don’t have to stop working. Your pension isn’t reduced if you keep working while you collect it.
• Working while collecting adds a little. If you’re under 70 and still contributing, your contributions earn a post-retirement benefit that adds to your pension each year, up to C$54.69 a month for a year of contributions at 65 in 2026. You can choose to stop contributing at 65, and contributions stop automatically at 70.
• Low years are dropped. Up to 8 years of your lowest earnings can be left out of the base calculation. Child-rearing years can also raise the pension, and earnings after 65 can replace low years before it if that raises your pension.
• The enhancement is still building. Since 2019, the CPP has been growing from replacing a quarter of covered earnings to a third, on earnings up to a second ceiling of C$85,000 in 2026. Younger workers will get more from it than today’s retirees.
• Apply ahead. You can apply up to 12 months before the start date you want.
• There’s a short way back. You can cancel your pension within 12 months of the first payment, by letter to Service Canada.
• Waiting past 70 gains nothing. The pension reaches its maximum at 70, and back payments go back at most 11 months, never earlier than the month after you turn 65.

Workers in Quebec are in the Quebec Pension Plan instead, which has its own rules and amounts.

How CPP fits with OAS and your savings

CPP is one of three decisions that need to be made together:

1. Old Age Security. OAS can also be deferred, by up to five years, for 0.6% more a month, up to 36% at 70. It has a residence test rather than a contribution test, and higher incomes repay some of it through the clawback. Our guide to OAS clawback planning covers how the two interact.
2. Your RRSP. If you retire at 62 and delay CPP to 70, you live on savings for eight years. Drawing your RRSP down in those years, at a lower tax rate, can shrink the forced RRIF withdrawals that start after 71 and help keep later income under the clawback line.
3. Your spouse. For a couple, the decision also sets what a survivor receives. See CPP survivor benefits.

Common mistakes

• Taking CPP at 60 by default because it’s available, with savings that could have covered the gap.
• Delaying CPP while drawing a large RRSP at a high tax rate, without checking whether the trade still pays after tax.
• Treating the break-even age as the whole answer. It ignores tax, the survivor, and the value of income you can’t outlive.
• Ignoring health and family history. Someone with a serious illness has good reason to start earlier.
• Waiting past 70, and losing months that back payments can’t recover.
• Planning from the maximum. Most people get far less. Use your own statement.

Questions to ask a planner

1. What’s my CPP at 60, 65 and 70, using my own Statement of Contributions?
2. Which accounts would I live on if I delay, and what’s the tax each year?
3. How does my choice change what my spouse would get if I die first?
4. Should I delay OAS too, and how close would I be to the clawback?
5. If I keep working, should I keep contributing after 65?
6. How are you paid, and do you earn anything if I buy an annuity or insurance product?

When a fee-only planner is worth it

If you’ll get close to the maximum, have an RRSP of a few hundred thousand dollars or more, a workplace pension or a spouse whose timing interacts with yours, a planner’s model is worth the fee. The choice is permanent, and the gap between a good and a careless answer can run to tens of thousands of dollars over a retirement.

A fee-only or advice-only planner charges for the analysis and earns nothing from what you do next. Among Canadian fee-only planners who publish prices, the medians are:

• C$1,900 for a one-time plan (middle half C$950 to C$3,000, from 46 firms). This is the usual way to settle CPP and OAS timing.
• C$250 an hour (middle half C$170 to C$298, from 15 firms), if you’ve done the groundwork and want it checked.
• C$2,300 a year for ongoing planning (middle half C$1,200 to C$4,000, from 21 firms).

The samples are small, so treat these as a guide. The Canadian cost guide explains how to read them.

Where to find one

Browse fee-only planners by province in the public graph: Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and Yukon. You can also start from the retirement planning specialty, the list of advisors for pre-retirees or fee-only advisors in Ontario. Many advice-only planners work by video across provinces.

For the plain definition, see the glossary entry for the Canada Pension Plan. If you have savings near seven figures, read retiring in Canada with C$1 million next.