OAS Payment Amounts 2026: Your Exact Monthly Benefit by Age (Calculator)

The 2026 OAS Payment Amounts — Exact Figures by Age

Old Age Security pays a flat monthly amount set by Ottawa, adjusted quarterly for inflation. There are two maximum rates in 2026, split at age 75. Here are the confirmed Q1 2026 figures:

The jump at 75 — from $742.31 to $816.54 a month — is the permanent 10% top-up introduced in 2022. It is automatic, applied the month after your 75th birthday, and it is for life. You do not apply for it and it is not a one-time bonus; it is a structural lift to your monthly pension. That is $74.23 more a month, or $890.76 a year, simply for crossing 75.

Why Most People Don't Get the Maximum: The 40-Year Residence Rule

The single biggest reason your OAS might be lower than $742.31 is residence. OAS is not based on what you earned or contributed — unlike CPP. It is based on how many years you lived in Canada after turning 18.

To receive the full pension, you need 40 years of residence in Canada after age 18. With between 10 and 40 years, you receive a partial pension calculated at 1/40th of the maximum for each year of residence. Ten years is the minimum to qualify while living in Canada.

This is the number most newcomers and returning expats miss. If you immigrated to Canada at 45 and start OAS at 65, you have 20 years of residence — half the maximum, about $371.16 a month. That partial pension still gets the quarterly inflation adjustment and the 10% top-up at 75, but it never climbs to the full $742.31 unless you accumulate more residence years (deferral years past 65 can count). If you spent part of your adult life in a country with a Canadian social security agreement, those years may help you qualify — but they do not increase the dollar amount of the Canadian pension itself.

The Clawback: How Much Income Costs You Your OAS

OAS is the only major Canadian retirement benefit that gets taken back if your income is too high. The OAS recovery tax — commonly called the clawback — kicks in once your net world income exceeds $95,323 in 2026. Above that line, CRA recovers 15 cents of OAS for every dollar of income over the threshold, under section 180.2 of the Income Tax Act.

At the 65–74 maximum of $742.31 a month ($8,907.72 a year), the math works out so that OAS is fully clawed back at roughly $155,000 of net income. Between $95,323 and about $155,000, you keep a shrinking portion. Here is the shape of it:

The practical lever: TFSA withdrawals do not count toward the $95,323 threshold, and neither do withdrawals of your own RRSP contributions you have already paid tax on — only taxable income does. Drawing retirement spending from a TFSA instead of a RRIF in a high-income year can be the difference between keeping and losing thousands of OAS dollars. For low-income seniors at the other end of the spectrum, OAS is supplemented by the Guaranteed Income Supplement — see our companion guide on GIS eligibility and the 2026 income thresholds for who qualifies and how much it adds.

Deferring OAS to 70: What the Bigger Number Actually Costs

You can start OAS any time between 65 and 70. Every month you defer past 65 adds 0.6% to your pension, up to a maximum of 36% at age 70. Applied to the 2026 maximum of $742.31, here is the deferral schedule:

Deferring to 70 lifts the monthly maximum from $742.31 to about $1,009.54 — an extra $267.23 a month for life. The cost is the five years of payments you give up: roughly $44,538 in foregone OAS at the maximum rate. The simple breakeven sits in the early 80s. If you expect to live into your mid-80s or beyond, deferral wins. It is also a clawback tool: if you have a high-income stretch in your late 60s — still working, selling a property, drawing down an RRSP — deferring OAS keeps it out of the clawback zone until your income settles. There is no benefit to deferring past 70; the increase stops accumulating.

OAS deferral works in tandem with the same decision on CPP, which uses a steeper 0.7%/month enhancement up to 42% at 70. Coordinating the two start dates against your RRIF drawdown is where the real planning lives. For the mechanics of the OAS decision in isolation, our OAS guide and calculator walks through the residence and deferral inputs step by step.

OAS vs CPP: Two Different Pensions, Two Different Numbers

People conflate OAS and CPP constantly, but they are built on opposite foundations. OAS is residence-based and funded from general tax revenue. CPP is earnings-based and funded by your own contributions over your working life. You can — and most retirees do — collect both.

A retiree collecting the maximum of both at 65 would receive $742.31 + $1,507.65 = $2,249.96 a month from the two federal pensions — about $27,000 a year before any workplace pension, RRIF income, or investment income. Note the gap on CPP: the maximum is $1,507.65 but the average new recipient gets just $803.76, because few people contribute the maximum for the full 39 years required. OAS is the more egalitarian of the two — if you have the residence years, you get close to the maximum regardless of what you earned.

The Bottom Line on Your 2026 OAS Number

Start from the maximum — $742.31 a month at 65–74, $816.54 at 75+ — then adjust for the two things that actually move your number: residence years (anything under 40 years scales the pension down at 1/40th per year) and income (anything over $95,323 of net income claws it back at 15 cents on the dollar). Deferral to 70 is the one lever that pushes the number up, by 36%, but only if longevity or clawback management justifies giving up five years of payments.

The mistake we see most often is treating OAS as a fixed government cheque you cannot influence. You can. The residence years are set, but the income that triggers the clawback is largely under your control through TFSA-versus-RRIF sequencing, pension income splitting with a spouse, and the timing of capital gains and property sales. Those are the levers that protect an extra $8,908 a year of OAS for a couple — real money, every year, for the rest of retirement.