Canadian Retirement Income Gap Planner

Compare retirement spending with the pensions you expect and the savings you estimate you will hold at retirement. This annual cash-flow tool complements the CPP/OAS claiming-age comparison and one-year RRIF withdrawal planner; it does not replace them or calculate your pension entitlement. All amounts are CAD.

Pre-tax only: CPP, OAS, employer pensions and ordinary RRSP/RRIF withdrawals are modeled as gross taxable receipts. TFSA withdrawals are separate tax-free cash. Income tax, withholding and OAS recovery tax are not deducted, so these are not amounts guaranteed available to spend. A zero pre-tax gap does not prove after-tax affordability; actual savings may run out sooner.

Retirement spending and annual timeline

Retiring at 60 with endpoint 63 models three full periods: 60-61, 61-62 and 62-63; no spending or death tax is modeled at age 63. All birthdays and pension starts are simplified to January 1, each row is a full year, and withdrawals occur at year-end. Current age only determines the inflation years before retirement; this is not a working-years savings projection.

Your public-pension estimates

Enter your own gross monthly estimates already adjusted for each selected claiming age, expressed in first-retirement-year dollars. No claiming reduction/increase is applied again. If a statement uses today's dollars or future start-year dollars, put it on the same retirement-year basis first; do not inflate an already future-dollar estimate twice. The indexing assumption below applies from the first retirement year even before a delayed pension begins. Use Service Canada estimates or the separate claiming planner, not a maximum benefit or salary-based guess.

OAS must reflect your own residence eligibility and selected deferral, but exclude the 10% age-75 uplift even if you are already over 75. Under the January 1 birthday convention, the 10% increase starts in February of the modeled age-75 year: one month at the base amount and eleven at the increased amount. Later years have the increase for all twelve months. Your actual birthday and deposit dates can differ. No future maximums, recovery thresholds, GIS or residence entitlement are inferred.

Benefits already started before retirement continue in the first row. Earlier payments are not accumulated here: include any savings from them in your retirement-date balances. Enter 0 explicitly for excluded income; a start age must still be valid.

Employer pension and other retirement income

All annual income inputs use the first retirement year's dollar basis, whether payments start then or later. Increases compound from that first year. Employer pension is assumed fully taxable and continuing for life with no bridge-benefit drop. Other income must be ongoing external cash, not another draw from the savings entered below. Do not include CPP, OAS, this employer pension or RRSP/RRIF/TFSA withdrawals again. Partially taxable annuities, dividends, capital gains, foreign income, GIS/Allowance and income-tested benefits are outside this edition; do not classify their full cash amount as taxable or tax-free here.

Estimated account balances at retirement and withdrawal assumptions

Automatic gap filling: RRSP/RRIF first, then TFSA. The prior year's retained cash is used before new draws. RRIF minimums may force a larger draw; the minimum is included in, not added to, the registered withdrawal. Cash left over is retained outside both accounts at 0% nominal return, with no recontribution assumed. No starting cash balance, contributions or new deposits are modeled.

Balances receive a full year of the selected return before year-end withdrawals. RRIF minimums use the beginning balance and the shared standard own-age factor schedule. A new RRIF has no first-year minimum; the modeled RRSP converts at the end of its age-71 year, with minimums from age 72. Existing RRIFs can have earlier minimums. Only one standard own-age account status is modeled: no locked-in accounts, spouse-age election, legacy qualifying RRIFs, mixed-status funds, transfers or withdrawal ceilings. Future rules are held unchanged as a scenario, not guaranteed.

Enter your estimates and confirm the assumptions before projecting.

Formulas and timing

Let R be retirement age, C current age, a the row's starting age and t = a - R. If the spending input is in today's dollars, first spending = entered spending × (1 + spending inflation)R-C; otherwise first spending is already in retirement dollars. Each year's spending = first spending × (1 + spending inflation)t.

Each pension or other income starts in the first row with a at least its entered start age. Annual CPP/OAS base = entered monthly amount × 12 × (1 + assumed pension indexing)t. OAS then uses a multiplier of 1 before age 75, 1 + 0.10 × 11/12 in the January-birthday age-75 year, and 1.10 in later years. The age uplift is not repeatedly compounded. Employer and other income use their own annual increase assumptions, also compounded from retirement. These assumed annual rates are not predictions of actual CPP annual or OAS quarterly indexing.

Registered and TFSA available balances = beginning balance × (1 + nominal return). Required RRIF minimum = beginning registered balance × standard own-age factor, except no minimum in a new RRIF's first year. Gap before savings = max(0, spending - recurring income). Use prior retained cash first. Registered draw = min(available registered balance, max(RRIF minimum, remaining gap)); TFSA draw = min(available TFSA balance, any gap still left). No separate “minimum income” is added.

Gross cash = recurring income + prior cash used + registered draw + TFSA draw. Unfunded gap = max(0, spending - gross cash). Excess gross cash is retained outside the accounts, earning 0%, and can meet a later gap before another draw. Ending account balance = available balance - its actual draw. Taxable receipts = CPP + OAS + employer pension + other fully taxable income + actual registered draw. TFSA draws, other confirmed tax-free receipts, unwithdrawn account growth and reused cash are not added to taxable receipts.

The full-year growth-before-withdrawal convention does not model monthly bills, daily volatility, intra-year depletion or sequence-of-return risk. Constant returns can make results look smoother than real retirement. A severe loss can leave less available than the RRIF minimum; only available funds are paid and the unfunded minimum is reported. No credit facility, negative account balance or invented return fills a shortfall.

A three-year hand-check

At retirement age 60, suppose annual spending is CAD 12,000, pensions and other income are zero, RRSP savings are CAD 20,000 and TFSA savings CAD 10,000. Use zero inflation and zero returns, with lifespan endpoint 63. Age 60-61 draws CAD 12,000 from RRSP, leaving CAD 8,000 plus the CAD 10,000 TFSA. Age 61-62 draws the remaining CAD 8,000 RRSP and CAD 4,000 TFSA. Age 62-63 draws CAD 6,000 TFSA and leaves a CAD 6,000 unfunded pre-tax gap.

Taxable receipts in those rows are CAD 12,000, CAD 8,000 and CAD 0 respectively, even though gross withdrawals fund CAD 12,000, CAD 12,000 and CAD 6,000. No tax amount has been calculated or deducted. That distinction is why these figures must not be described as an after-tax retirement budget.

Tax and planning limits

The existing 2026 salary-tax module has only a subset of credits and adjustments: it does not cover the full age amount, pension-income credits, pension splitting, OAS recovery or future-year rules required here. This tool deliberately does not apply a fixed tax percentage, use employment payroll deductions on pensions, or repeat 2026 thresholds across a lifetime. All scenarios are pre-tax, with no exact taxable-income, withholding or final-return claim.

Gross OAS is shown without recovery tax. GIS/Allowance, survivor benefits, QPP, post-retirement CPP benefits, changing contribution/residence records, employer bridge benefits, early-retirement penalties, foreign pensions, health costs, inheritance/death taxes, account fees beyond the net-return input and household/spousal interactions are excluded. No actual pension entitlement is inferred. A lifespan endpoint is a user assumption, not a longevity prediction. This tool does not estimate the contributions needed to reach the balances you enter.

The withdrawal order was chosen to illustrate RRSP/RRIF first; it may be tax-inefficient or affect benefits. A minimum is not a maximum. Tax-aware withdrawals can differ, so use a qualified adviser and complete income facts before implementing a plan.

Official sources and rules

Current rules inform a hypothetical multi-year scenario; they are not a promise that future legislation, benefits or account terms will remain unchanged.

Educational estimates only, not personalized financial, tax or investment advice. See disclosures, calculator methodology and editorial policy. Report an error.