Using this site in Canada

First, set the picker

Every page on this site has a country selector in the top bar. Setting it to Canada does three things: it changes the currency symbol and number formatting, it loads Canada starting figures into the jurisdiction-sensitive input boxes, and it shows a short note on any calculator that works differently here.

What it does not do is change the arithmetic. There is one engine underneath all twenty-six calculators and it is the same for everybody. The country layer only sets defaults — and every one of those defaults stays editable, because a national average is a starting point rather than your situation. Your choice is remembered on your device and sent nowhere.

The translation layer

The calculators use deliberately generic language so that one set of tools works everywhere. Here is what each generic term means in Canada.

CPP is set up properly. OAS needs a second run.

The pension deferral calculator is configured as CPP when you pick Canada: standard age 65, available from 60, reduced 0.6% for each month taken early — 7.2% a year, to a maximum 36% at 60 — and increased 0.7% for each month deferred, 8.4% a year, to a maximum 42% at 70. Those rates are statutory and the presets match them exactly.

OAS is a separate decision with different numbers. It starts at 65, cannot be taken early, and can be deferred to 70 at about 0.6% a month — roughly 7.2% a year, or 36% in total. If you want to think about OAS deferral, run calculator 03 a second time with the earliest age set to 65, the reduction set to zero and the uplift set to 7.2%.

The trap: RRIF minimums meet the OAS clawback

This is the Canadian interaction worth understanding, and the site models exactly half of it.

From the end of the year you turn 71, your RRSP becomes a RRIF and a prescribed percentage must come out every year — 5.28% at 71, rising to 11.92% at 90 and 20% from 95. It is fully taxable as income whether or not you needed it. The calculators implement this properly.

What they do not implement is the OAS recovery tax. Above a net income threshold — in the region of ninety-odd thousand dollars, indexed annually, so check the current figure — you begin repaying OAS at 15 cents in the dollar. Since RRIF withdrawals count as income for that test, a large forced withdrawal can trigger a clawback you did not choose, effectively adding 15 percentage points to your marginal rate.

The consequence for using this site: when calculator 02 compares withdrawal orders, it is scoring the RRSP/RRIF path on income tax alone. The real cost of leaving a large RRSP to compound until 71 can be higher than the screen shows. If the comparison is close, the answer probably tilts further towards drawing the RRIF down earlier than the calculator suggests — which is the reasoning behind the drawdown strategies you will see discussed elsewhere.

Capital gains, and one piece of stale advice to ignore

Half of a capital gain is taxable at your marginal rate. The inclusion rate is 50%.

This is worth stating plainly because a great deal of commentary published in 2024 still says otherwise: the proposed increase in the inclusion rate to two-thirds was cancelled on 21 March 2025. If you read something suggesting you should have realised gains early to beat the change, it is out of date. The site's 25% default for tax on investment returns reflects the 50% inclusion rate applied to a typical marginal rate.

Care costs vary more here than anywhere else on the site

Long-term care in Canada is provincially funded, and the gap between a subsidised bed and a private one — and between provinces — is enormous. The $45,000 figure the picker loads is a placeholder and little more.

Of the four countries here, this is the input most worth replacing before you take calculator 07 seriously. Your provincial health authority publishes the actual rates and the subsidy rules that apply where you live.

What this site deliberately does not model here

This is the important section, and it is deliberately blunt. The calculators contain no tax logic and no means-testing logic of any kind — not for Canada, not for anywhere. Where a page asks for a tax rate, it is a number you type in and the calculator multiplies by it. That design decision means the site cannot be wrong about the law, because it never states any; but it also means the following are entirely absent from every answer you will get:

• The OAS recovery tax, which adds an effective 15 percentage points to your marginal rate above the threshold. The most consequential omission for Canadians.
• Federal and provincial income tax brackets, which differ substantially between provinces.
• The Guaranteed Income Supplement and its own means test.
• The deemed disposition on death, which can create a large capital gains bill inside an estate that owes no estate tax.
• Pension income splitting between spouses, which is one of the more valuable levers available and needs bracket-level modelling.
• Provincial long-term care subsidies and their means tests.
• Quebec's separate arrangements, including QPP, which differs from CPP in places.

None of these are oversights — they are the price of one honest engine that works in four countries rather than four half-modelled ones. But the OAS clawback in particular is large enough that a Canadian withdrawal-order conclusion should be checked against it before you act on it.

The Canada defaults, and how far to trust them

These are the figures the picker loads. Confidence is recorded honestly: verified means checked against a current published source, indicative means a reasonable planning figure that varies enormously and should be replaced with yours, and n/a means the concept does not apply here.

Every one of these is audited in full, with the primary source and the date it was checked, in the tax assumptions audit. If a number here looks wrong to you, that is the document to check — and the one to tell us about.

Where to check the official figures

Nothing on this site should be the last word on a Canada rule. These are the primary sources:

• Canada.ca — when to start your CPP retirement pension. Sign in to My Service Canada Account for your own estimate rather than the maximum.
• Canada.ca — Old Age Security, including the deferral rules and the current recovery tax threshold, which is indexed annually.
• CRA — RRIF prescribed minimum factors, and the rules on converting an RRSP by the end of the year you turn 71.
• Your provincial health authority for long-term care rates and subsidies, which is the only figure that applies to you.
• Quebec residents — Retraite Québec for QPP, which differs from CPP in places.

Where to start

Start with pension deferral for the CPP decision, then run it again for OAS with the rates above. After that, withdrawal strategy — but read the clawback section above first, because it changes how you should read the result.

If you have not used the site before, start here works out which calculators are worth your time, the numbers you'll need covers gathering your figures, and the plain-English list defines every term the site uses.