Old Age Security (OAS)

OAS is earned by living in Canada, not by working. To receive it you must be 65 or older, be a Canadian citizen or legal resident (or have been one on the day before you left Canada, if you live abroad), and have lived in Canada for at least 10 years after turning 18, or 20 years if you live outside Canada. Work history does not matter: you can receive the pension if you never worked, or while you are still working.

That makes OAS the base layer of Canadian retirement income, beneath the contributory Canada Pension Plan, and it matters most for people who spent years out of paid work, such as caregivers.

Residence or contributions in a country that has a social security agreement with Canada may help you reach the minimum. The agreement only helps you qualify, though: the amount is still based on your actual years in Canada after 18.

If Service Canada can enroll you automatically, it sends a letter around your 64th birthday. If no letter arrives, or you want to delay your start, you apply yourself, online once you are at least a month past your 64th birthday.

A full OAS pension requires 40 years of residence in Canada after age 18. With fewer years you get a partial pension: one-fortieth of the full amount for each year, as long as you meet the minimum. Someone who arrived at 40 and lived in Canada until 65 would have 25 years and receive 25/40, or 62.5%, of the full pension.

For July to September 2026 the maximum is $751.97 a month for ages 65 to 74 and $827.17 for 75 and older, because OAS rises automatically by 10% the month after your 75th birthday. Amounts are reviewed every January, April, July and October against the Consumer Price Index and raised to reflect any rise in the cost of living; they never fall when prices drop. The July 2026 update added 1.2% for the quarter, leaving payments 2.3% higher than a year earlier.

That quarterly cost-of-living adjustment tracks prices more closely than the once-a-year January increase on CPP.

You can start OAS at 65 or delay it for up to five years. Each month of delay adds 0.6%, or 7.2% a year, up to 36% at 70. At July to September 2026 rates, that turns $751.97 a month at 65 into $1,022.68 at 70. Waiting past 70 adds nothing, and the 10% increase at 75 applies either way.

Delay is a bet on a long life. Ignoring taxes and investment returns, someone who waits from 65 to 70 gives up five years of payments and must live to about 84 before the larger checks catch up, a simple break-even age test. Delay can make more sense for people still working past 65, whose OAS would be partly clawed back anyway, and for people who want more guaranteed income late in life.

It rarely helps low-income seniors. You cannot receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement unless you receive OAS, and the supplement does not grow when you delay OAS, so Service Canada tells anyone eligible for it to apply now. Retroactive OAS payments are limited to 11 months and cannot cover months you chose to defer.

OAS is income-tested at the top. If your net world income for a year is above the recovery threshold, you repay 15% of the excess, up to the whole pension. For 2025 income the threshold is $93,454, and the pension disappears completely at $152,062 of income for ages 65 to 74 and $157,923 for 75 and older. The threshold rises with inflation, to $95,323 for 2026 income.

The repayment runs on a delay. Based on your tax return, Service Canada divides the amount owed into monthly deductions from OAS payments for the following July to June, so 2025 income sets the recovery taken from July 2026 to June 2027.

Because the test uses net income, almost anything taxable counts: RRIF and RRSP withdrawals, CPP and workplace pensions, interest, and the taxable part of capital gains. Inside the clawback range, each extra dollar of that income costs 15 cents of OAS on top of regular income tax, which adds 15 points to your marginal tax rate. Withdrawals from a TFSA are the exception: the CRA says they never reduce OAS or the Guaranteed Income Supplement. The trap resembles the US Social Security tax torpedo, where extra income pulls more of a benefit into the tax bill.

OAS has a low-income companion. The Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) is a monthly, tax-free payment for OAS recipients with low income. For July to September 2026, a single senior with income under $22,800 can receive up to $1,123.17 a month on top of OAS. Because the GIS shrinks as other income rises, retirees who expect to qualify watch how much taxable income their savings will produce.

OAS and CPP are easy to confuse but work very differently. CPP is earned by contributions, can start as early as 60 and is never clawed back. OAS is earned by residence, starts no earlier than 65 and is recovered at higher incomes. Most retirees receive both; the table below compares the three. For Americans, the closest match is Social Security, which ties benefits to earnings the way CPP does; the US has no residence-based pension like OAS.