1.0 Introduction

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) are two of the largest guaranteed income sources most Canadians will have in retirement. Both give you some choice about when to start, with available start dates ranging from age 60 to 70, depending on the benefit. That choice shapes the size of your monthly payment for as long as you receive it.

There is no single “right” age for CPP and OAS timing, no matter what a quick search online tells you. The right age for you depends on your health, your income needs, whether you are still working, and how these benefits interact with the rest of your financial plan.

In this article, we break down how CPP and OAS timing actually works, do the math on when delaying pays off, and walk through the factors and mistakes that should shape your decision. Consider this a starting point to get oriented, not a substitute for a recommendation built around your actual numbers.

One scope note: this article covers CPP as it applies outside Quebec. Quebec residents contribute to the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) instead. QPP follows similar but not identical rules, so the specific figures here are not a direct match for QPP.

2.0 At a glance

This section summarizes the CPP and OAS timing rules before the rest of the article works through the strategy.

CPP: the start window runs from age 60 to age 70. Starting before 65 reduces the payment by 0.6% for every month early. Starting after 65 increases it by 0.7% for every month late. At the extremes, that means a payment 36% below the standard amount if started at age 60 or 42% above it if started at age 70.

OAS: the start window runs from age 65 to age 70, with no option to start early. Every month of delay adds 0.6%, up to 36% more at age 70.

The trade-off: a smaller payment sooner, or a larger payment later. Which side wins for you depends mostly on how long you expect to be collecting and how much income you need now, both of which the rest of this article works through.

3.0 How CPP timing works

CPP’s standard start age is 65, with five years of flexibility on either side, 60 at the earliest, 70 at the latest.

Before 65: “payments decrease by 0.6% each month (7.2% per year), up to a maximum reduction of 36% if you start at age 60” (Government of Canada, 2026). Example: starting at 62, three years early, locks in a payment 21.6% smaller (36 months × 0.6%) for life.
After 65: “payments increase by 0.7% each month (8.4% per year), up to a maximum increase of 42% if you start at age 70” (Government of Canada, 2026). Example: starting at 68 adds 25.2% (36 months × 0.7%).
Whatever percentage you lock in follows you for as long as you collect CPP. There is no adjusting course later.
Nothing accrues past 70, so waiting any longer only costs you money.
Changed your mind? CPP allows one reversal. Request cancellation in writing within 12 months of your first payment, then repay everything you received within 12 months of that request being approved (Canada Pension Plan Regulations, section 46.2). This window is longer than the equivalent OAS window, covered below, so do not assume the two programs match on this point.
CPP is not automatic. You have to apply. Service Canada recommends doing so about six months before you want your first payment, longer if you are applying from outside Canada.
Since 2019, CPP has been phasing in an enhanced component on top of the base plan. You may see it called the “first additional” or “second additional” CPP, or CPP2. It is fully phased in as of 2025 (Government of Canada, 2026). The 0.6%/0.7% timing adjustments apply the same way to every dollar of CPP, enhanced or base, so an enhanced CPP does not change the timing math in this article, it only changes the size of the payment being timed.

4.0 How OAS timing works

OAS differs from CPP in one major respect: there is no option to start it early. Age 65 is as early as OAS gets.

Waiting past 65 adds 0.6% a month: “payments increase by 0.6% each month (7.2% per year), up to 36% at age 70” (Government of Canada, 2026). Example: starting at 68 adds 21.6% (36 months × 0.6%).
Like CPP, nothing accrues past 70.
The dollar amount is adjusted quarterly for inflation. That adjustment is separate from the timing bonus, which stays fixed regardless (Government of Canada, 2026).
OAS allows the same kind of one-time reversal as CPP, but on a shorter clock. Request cancellation within 6 months of your first payment, repay within 6 months of approval (Government of Canada, 2026). CPP’s equivalent window, covered above, is 12 months, not 6.
OAS is not always automatic either. Some seniors are enrolled automatically and get a notification letter the month after turning 64. If you do not receive one, you need to apply yourself, ideally around six months ahead of your intended start date.

That covers the mechanics on both sides. The next question is when delaying actually pays off. That starts with the break-even age.

5.0 Understanding the break-even age

Before getting into the factors that drive your CPP and OAS timing decision, it helps to understand one idea: the break-even age. Most of that advice is really just helping you guess which side of it you will land on.

The break-even age is the age at which starting later finally catches up to starting earlier, in total dollars received.

In plain English: picture two versions of yourself. One starts collecting early and is ahead for a few years simply from the head start. The other waits. Once they start, the bigger cheques eventually catch up and overtake the head start. The break-even age is where that happens. Live past it, and waiting was the better deal. Pass away before it, and starting earlier was. Nobody can know their own lifespan in advance, so treat this less as a prediction and more as a way to frame the bet.

These numbers are not published by the government. We worked them out ourselves from the adjustment percentages in sections 3.0 and 4.0 (full calculations in Appendix A). Here are the results:

Comparison	Break-even age
CPP: start at 60 vs. 65	~74
CPP: start at 65 vs. 70	~82
CPP: start at 60 vs. 70	~78
OAS: start at 65 vs. 70	~84

A few things worth noticing in this table:

There is no single “CPP break-even age.” It depends which two starting ages you compare. The pre-65 reduction (7.2%/year) and post-65 increase (8.4%/year) are different rates, which is why.
OAS’s break-even lands later than CPP’s equivalent, because OAS’s maximum deferral bonus (36%) is smaller than CPP’s (42%).
For context: a 65-year-old Canadian man can expect to live to about 85 on average, a 65-year-old woman to about 87 (Statistics Canada, 2026). Both are past every break-even age in this table. Average life expectancy is not your life expectancy, but it is a useful sanity check on the math.
None of this accounts for taxes, inflation, the OAS clawback, or what you could have earned investing the earlier payments, all of which shift your real answer. Treat this as a starting point, not a verdict.

Why lead with this math, if the factors below usually matter more? Because it is the one piece of this decision you can pin down with certainty. Income need, how much you value guaranteed income later, and how long you will live are all judgment calls. Break-even age is not. It is arithmetic, a fixed point to weigh everything else against.

One more thing: break-even math treats this as a bet on total dollars, biggest number wins. That undersells the insurance value of delaying. A larger payment is also more guaranteed, inflation-protected income, landing in the years you are least likely to want to be managing a portfolio yourself. That does not show up in a break-even table, but it is real. It is a legitimate reason to delay even when the math is close to a coin flip.

If this section left your head spinning a little, that is normal, not a sign you are missing something. Working through break-even math against your own numbers is exactly the kind of thing we do with clients every day. You do not have to figure it out alone before you talk to someone.

6.0 What Actually Determines Your CPP and OAS Timing

Health and family longevity: the break-even age table above only tells you the age at which waiting starts to “win” mathematically. Whether that matters to you depends on how long you actually expect to live. If your health or family history points to a shorter life expectancy, starting earlier often makes more sense regardless of what the break-even math says.

Income need today: if you need the income now to cover living expenses or to avoid drawing down other savings, starting earlier can be the right call regardless of the long-term math. No break-even age matters much to your CPP and OAS timing if you cannot pay your bills in the meantime.

Whether you are still working: if you keep working while collecting CPP before 70, you and your employer continue contributing. That builds a Post-Retirement Benefit, which adds to your future CPP income. If you are self-employed, you pay both the employee and employer portions yourself, roughly double the payroll-employee rate. Weigh that cost against the PRB it buys you (Government of Canada, 2026). Working while collecting OAS does not build additional OAS. It can, however, push your income high enough to trigger the OAS clawback, covered next.

If you are already on CPP disability: CPP-D converts automatically to a CPP retirement pension at 65. No application is needed, and there is no gap in payments. The early/late timing decision in this article does not apply to that transition. Your retirement pension will be smaller than your disability benefit was, there is no floor protecting the dollar amount at conversion (Government of Canada, 2026). You can also apply for OAS and GIS at that point, and if your spouse or common-law partner is 60 to 64, they may separately qualify for the Allowance.

CPP and OAS are taxable income: both benefits are fully taxable. They are added to your other income for the year and taxed at your marginal rate (Government of Canada, 2026). Neither has tax withheld by default, you have to request that yourself. Starting either while you are still working can mean a larger-than-expected tax bill the following spring, on top of pushing you toward the OAS clawback threshold below.

The OAS clawback (Recovery Tax): cross a certain income line and the government starts taking a cut of every extra dollar you earn, until eventually your entire OAS payment is gone. The rule itself is stated plainly: once your income passes the threshold for the year, “you must repay 15% of that amount” (Government of Canada, 2026).

For the July 2026 to June 2027 benefit period, based on your 2025 tax return, that threshold is $93,454 of net income. OAS is fully clawed back by $152,062 for ages 65 to 74, or $157,923 for age 75 and up (Government of Canada, 2026). These dollar figures reset every July based on the prior year’s tax return, so the exact numbers shift annually even though the 15% repayment rate does not. Start OAS while you are still pulling in a high income in your mid-60s and you may just be handing a chunk of it straight back to the government at tax time.

Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) eligibility: Canada.ca defines GIS as “a monthly non-taxable benefit provided to low-income Old Age Security (OAS) recipients living in Canada” (Government of Canada, 2026), meaning you cannot get it without already collecting OAS. Delay OAS and you delay GIS too. Unlike OAS, GIS does not grow the longer you wait. If your income is low enough to likely qualify, delaying OAS usually works against you.

Allowance for the Survivor: a related, often-overlooked benefit worth checking if your spouse or common-law partner has died. If you are 60 to 64, low income, and have not remarried, you may qualify for this separate, non-taxable monthly payment (Government of Canada, 2026). It depends on your own circumstances, not your late spouse’s CPP or OAS start-age decisions. It is worth checking regardless of what they had chosen.

Years of Canadian residency: hitting 65 is not, by itself, a ticket to the full OAS amount. As Canada.ca puts it, “you’re entitled to a full pension if you’ve lived in Canada for at least 40 years” after age 18 (Government of Canada, 2026). Come up short of that and “you will receive a partial Old Age Security pension” instead (Government of Canada, 2026). It is prorated at 1/40th of the full amount for each year you were here. There is a 10-year minimum just to qualify at all, or 20 years if you are applying from outside Canada.

Spent a decade or more working abroad? Your OAS math, and whether delaying it is even worthwhile, will not look like the examples in this article. One more residency wrinkle: if you end up collecting CPP or OAS as a non-resident, Canada generally withholds 25% at source under Part XIII of the Income Tax Act. That is a different mechanism from the domestic OAS clawback above. The withholding rate can be reduced by a tax treaty, depending on your country of residence (Government of Canada, 2026).

Employer pension bridge benefits: if you have a defined benefit pension from an employer, it may include a “bridge benefit,” extra income paid until age 65 on the assumption that CPP will pick up at that point. That bridge benefit typically stops at 65 regardless of whether you actually start CPP then. Delaying CPP past 65 without checking this first can leave an income gap most people do not see coming.

Tax bracket and income smoothing: where CPP and OAS income lands in your overall tax picture matters as much as the amount. Some retirees intentionally delay CPP and OAS while drawing down RRSPs or RRIFs first. The goal is twofold: reduce future mandatory RRIF withdrawals, and smooth taxable income across more years instead of taking a bigger hit later in life.

This is worth mapping out on a timeline rather than deciding on the fly. RRSPs must convert to RRIFs by age 71, with mandatory minimum withdrawals starting the following year, right around when CPP’s own deferral bonus maxes out at 70. Delay CPP to 70 without planning for this, and you can end up with a large CPP payment landing in the same year or two as mandatory RRIF withdrawals begin. In cases like this, the right timing has as much to do with your other accounts as with CPP and OAS themselves.

CPP pension sharing: if you are married or in a common-law relationship, you can apply to share your CPP retirement pensions with each other. The combined total does not change, but shifting some of the higher earner’s CPP onto the lower earner’s return can reduce the couple’s overall tax bill (Government of Canada, 2026). This is a separate mechanism from the general pension income splitting available on eligible pension income after 65. It is worth raising alongside the tax-bracket and clawback questions above. It does not happen automatically.

Spousal and estate considerations: CPP has a survivor’s pension that can pass to a spouse or common-law partner. It is generally 60% of your pension if they are 65 or older, or a flat-rate portion plus 37.5% if they are younger. That amount gets reduced if they are already collecting their own CPP (Government of Canada, 2026).

CPP also pays a separate, one-time death benefit to the estate. The base amount is $2,500, for contributors who meet the minimum contribution history, regardless of whether they had started collecting their pension. Since January 2025, contributors who die before starting a CPP retirement or disability pension, and who have no eligible surviving spouse or common-law partner, qualify for an additional top-up, bringing the total to $5,000 (Government of Canada, 2026).

OAS has no equivalent survivor or death benefit at all. If leaving income behind for a spouse matters to your plan, that alone can tilt the CPP decision toward delaying without necessarily tilting the OAS decision the same way.

7.0 Common mistakes

Most CPP and OAS timing mistakes are avoidable once you know to look for them.

Treating CPP and OAS as one decision: they have different start windows and different rules. You do not have to start them at the same time, and often you shouldn’t.

Choosing early just because it feels safer: taking CPP or OAS early without actually comparing the break-even age against your own health and financial situation.

Starting OAS early while still earning a high income: this is one of the most common ways people trigger an avoidable clawback.

Deferring OAS without checking GIS eligibility: if your income is low enough to qualify for the Guaranteed Income Supplement, delaying OAS means giving up GIS too, with no compensating increase for the wait.

Assuming the decision is fully reversible: both CPP and OAS allow a one-time reversal, but only if you request it within a set window (12 months for CPP, 6 for OAS) and then repay everything received. Miss that window, even by a little, and the choice is locked in for good.

8.0 Summary

Both CPP and OAS timing come down to the same basic trade: a smaller payment now, or a larger one later, but the rules and the right answer are not identical for each.

The right CPP and OAS timing for you depends on your health, your income needs, your work status, your years of Canadian residency, whether GIS or an employer pension bridge benefit is in play, how close you are to the OAS clawback threshold, and the tax bill both benefits add to your return once they start.

Because these are largely permanent, high-stakes decisions, they are worth getting right the first time. At Kinridge, we do not pick a start age off a chart. We run your specific numbers through a handful of scenarios: living a long time, living a shorter time, working longer than planned, a market downturn early in retirement. Then we see how CPP and OAS timing holds up against each one, alongside the rest of your plan. If you would like to run your own numbers with us before you apply, that is what we are here for.

9.0 Sources

Government of Canada. (2026). CPP retirement pension: When to start your pension – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Old Age Security: When to start your retirement pension – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Old Age Security pension recovery tax – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Repayment of Old Age Security pension – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Canada Pension Plan Post-Retirement Benefit (PRB) – Overview – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Old Age Security – Do you qualify – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Guaranteed Income Supplement – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Survivor’s pension – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Canada Pension Plan Regulations, section 46.2 (12-month cancellation and repayment window for CPP retirement pension).

Government of Canada. (2026). Death benefit – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2025). Backgrounder: Changes to the Canada Pension Plan (2025 death benefit top-up to $5,000).

Government of Canada. (2026). Canada Pension Plan enhancement – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Pension sharing – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Allowance for the Survivor – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Rates for Part XIII tax – Canada.ca.

Government of Canada. (2026). Contributions to the Canada Pension Plan – Canada.ca (self-employed contribution rules).

Government of Canada. (2026). Receiving your benefit – CPP disability benefits – Canada.ca (conversion to retirement pension at 65).

Government of Canada. (2026). Adults 65 years and older and the CRA – Canada.ca.

Statistics Canada. (2026). Health-adjusted life expectancy in Canada: Recent trends at birth and age 65 years, 2019, 2020 and 2023.

Appendix A: How the break-even ages in section 5.0 were calculated

This part is here for the numbers-minded among you, if you want to check our work or run your own scenario. It is not required reading.

The formula: if you compare starting at an earlier age A against a later age B, and each age has its own payment adjustment factor relative to age 65 (call them f(A) and f(B), where age 65 itself is a factor of 1.00), the break-even age X is where cumulative payments are equal:

f(A) × (X − A) = f(B) × (X − B)

Solving for X:

X = (f(B) × B − f(A) × A) / (f(B) − f(A))

CPP, age 60 vs. age 65: starting at 60 gives a factor of 0.64 (a 36% reduction). Starting at 65 gives a factor of 1.00.

X = (1.00 × 65 − 0.64 × 60) / (1.00 − 0.64) = (65 − 38.4) / 0.36 = 26.6 / 0.36 ≈ 74

CPP, age 65 vs. age 70: starting at 65 gives 1.00. Starting at 70 gives 1.42 (a 42% increase).

X = (1.42 × 70 − 1.00 × 65) / (1.42 − 1.00) = (99.4 − 65) / 0.42 = 34.4 / 0.42 ≈ 82

CPP, age 60 vs. age 70: comparing the two extremes directly, 0.64 versus 1.42.

X = (1.42 × 70 − 0.64 × 60) / (1.42 − 0.64) = (99.4 − 38.4) / 0.78 = 61 / 0.78 ≈ 78

OAS, age 65 vs. age 70: starting at 65 gives 1.00, starting at 70 gives 1.36 (a 36% increase).

X = (1.36 × 70 − 1.00 × 65) / (1.36 − 1.00) = (95.2 − 65) / 0.36 = 30.2 / 0.36 ≈ 84

CPP and OAS Timing 2026: When Is the Best Time to Start?