Every number this calculator uses is listed on this page, with how confident we are in it and where it came from. Nothing is hidden behind “trust us”.

This is a calculator, not financial advice. It produces estimates for planning. It is not a tax return, not a payroll system, and not a substitute for an accountant or a licensed advisor. If you need an exact figure for a filing or a legal purpose, use the CRA’s own tools or talk to a professional.

What it is: a model built carefully, checked against primary figures, and corrected in public when it is wrong. The section on known gaps is the honest part. It lists what the model does not yet do, including a bug found and fixed the day before this page was written.

How confident we are in each number

Each figure carries a confidence tier, set in the code itself rather than on this page. This page is generated from those tiers, so it cannot claim a confidence the engine does not actually record.

On sourcing, precisely. Government figures were confirmed against the published pages of canada.ca and Retraite Québec, then cross-checked against independent sources reproducing the same tables. They were not retrieved by automated request, because both sites refuse those. So the honest description is confirmed and cross-checked, not CRA-sourced. That is why the tier on most figures here reads “cross-checked” rather than “published CRA figure”.

A worked example. The maximum OAS for ages 65 to 74 in the July to September 2026 quarter was $751.97. canada.ca stated the amount for 75 and over in the same quarter as $827.17, and that rate is exactly 10% higher by statute. $827.17 divided by 1.10 gives $751.97, and $751.97 times 1.10 gives $827.17. The published figure and the derived one reconcile to the cent. Two independent routes to the same number are stronger evidence than one citation, and that is the standard applied throughout.

Precision follows confidence. Where a figure is estimated rather than confirmed, results derived from it are rounded to the nearest $100 instead of shown to the dollar. Printing $12,519 from data that is only good to plus or minus $400 is its own kind of dishonesty.

What the ratings mean

CRA figurePublished CRA figure
Cross-checkedPublished figure, cross-checked
CalibratedCalibrated to an independent calculator
EstimatedEstimated, not yet sourced
Set in statuteFixed in legislation, so there is nothing to source.
FP Canada 2026Our assumption, and adjustable in the tool.
Not a figureA descriptive label rather than a number.

Every figure the engine uses

Generated directly from the calculator’s source, so this list cannot fall out of step with the tool.

What comes off your paycheque

Federal tax, provincial tax and the payroll contributions. These drive the take-home pay figure and everything built on top of it.

Figure	Value	Confidence	Notes
Federal tax brackets`CA_FED_BRACKETS`	14% / 20.5% / 26% / 29% / 33%	Cross-checked	Five bands for 2026.
Federal credit rate`CA_CREDIT_RATE`	14.00%	Cross-checked	The rate non-refundable credits are valued at.
Default inflation assumption`DEFAULT_INFLATION`	2.10%	FP Canada 2026	From the FP Canada and Institute of Financial Planning 2026 Projection Assumption Guidelines, the standard Canadian financial planners use for long-term projections. Adjustable in the tool.
Default investment return, after fees`DEFAULT_RETURN`	6.50%	FP Canada 2026	The same 2026 guidelines give 6.3% to 7.5% before fees across Canadian, US, international and emerging-market stocks. An all-stock, one-fund mix works out to about 6.5% before fees, and about 6.3% after a typical 0.2% ETF fee; the tool rounds to its 0.5% slider step. Lower it if your funds charge more.
Canada employment amount`CA_EMPLOYMENT_AMOUNT`	$1,501	CRA figure	A credit on the first slice of employment income.
Federal basic personal amount`CA_FED_BPA`	$16,452, phasing down to $14,829 between $181,440 and $258,482 of income	CRA figure	Phases down at higher incomes.
Spouse or common-law amount`CA_SPOUSE_AMOUNT`	$16,452	CRA figure
Northwest Territories cost-of-living offset`NT_COST_OF_LIVING`	up to $942, on a sliding scale by income	Estimated
Nunavut cost-of-living offset`NU_COST_OF_LIVING`	2% of net income, capped at $1,500	Cross-checked
Quebec federal abatement`QC_ABATEMENT`	16.5% of federal tax payable	Cross-checked	Reduces federal tax payable for Quebec residents. Reconciled against a published calculator's federal figure.
Quebec deduction for workers`QC_WORKER_DEDUCTION`	6% of employment income, up to $1,450	Cross-checked	Line 201 of the Quebec return. Reduces Quebec taxable income only, and applies to employment income, not pensions.

Retirement benefits

CPP, QPP and OAS. These are the figures the retirement projection starts from, and every one of them is editable if you know your real number.

Figure	Value	Confidence	Notes
Average new CPP at 65`CPP_AVG`	$925	Cross-checked	January 2026. The QPP average is not published anywhere we can reach, so this figure stands in for Quebec and the tool says so on screen.
CPP contributions counted from`CPP_CONTRIB_START_AGE`	age 18	Set in statute	Used to reduce the default CPP when you stop working early. The model assumes continuous work from this age.
CPP general drop-out`CPP_DROPOUT_SHARE`	17%	Set in statute	The lowest-earning share of the contributory period that CPP ignores.
Maximum CPP or QPP at 65`CPP_MAX`	$1,508	Cross-checked	$1,507.65 a month. The QPP maximum is identical by design.
OAS increase at 75`OAS_75_UPLIFT`	+10%	Set in statute	Statutory, so the ratio is exact even though the dollar figures move quarterly.
Average OAS`OAS_AVG`	$713	Estimated	No longer used as a default. See the note on OAS below.
Years of residency for full OAS`OAS_FULL_RESIDENCY_YEARS`	40 years	Set in statute	Anything less is prorated in fortieths.
Maximum OAS, ages 65 to 74`OAS_MAX`	$762	Cross-checked	Re-indexed quarterly. See the note on OAS below.
Maximum OAS, ages 75 and over`OAS_MAX_75`	$839	Cross-checked	Exactly 10% higher by statute.
Quarter the OAS figures come from`OAS_QUARTER`	October–December 2026	Not a figure
Age amount`CA_AGE_AMOUNT`	$9,208, reduced by 15% of income above $46,432	CRA figure	A credit from 65, reduced at higher incomes.
Pension income amount`CA_PENSION_AMOUNT`	$2,000	CRA figure
OAS recovery tax (clawback)`OAS_RECOVERY`	15% of income above $95,323	Cross-checked	2026 tax year. Applied per person and capped at the OAS actually received.

Contribution room

The annual and lifetime limits for registered accounts.

Figure	Value	Confidence	Notes
FHSA annual limit`FHSA_ANNUAL`	$8,000	Cross-checked
FHSA lifetime limit`FHSA_LIFETIME`	$40,000	Cross-checked
RRSP deadline for this tax year`RRSP_DEADLINE`	March 1, 2027	Cross-checked	Contributions up to this date can be deducted on this year's return: the 60th day of the next year, moved when it falls on a weekend.
RRSP annual maximum`RRSP_MAX`	$33,810	Cross-checked	Up from $32,490 in 2025.
RRSP accrual rate`RRSP_RATE`	18.00%	Cross-checked	As a percentage of earned income.
TFSA annual limit`TFSA_ANNUAL`	$7,000	Cross-checked

Provinces and territories

All ten provinces and all three territories. The basic personal amount for each is below; the brackets behind it are sourced separately, per province.

Province or territory	Basic personal amount	Confidence
AB – Alberta	$22,769	Cross-checked
BC – British Columbia	$13,216	Cross-checked
MB – Manitoba	$15,780	Cross-checked
NB – New Brunswick	$13,664	Cross-checked
NL – Newfoundland	$13,096	Calibrated
NS – Nova Scotia	$11,926	Calibrated
ON – Ontario	$12,989	Cross-checked
PE – PEI	$14,997	Calibrated
QC – Quebec	$18,952	Cross-checked
SK – Saskatchewan	$20,381	Cross-checked
YT – Yukon	$17,952	Calibrated
NT – Northwest Territories	$18,198	Cross-checked
NU – Nunavut	$19,659	Cross-checked

A note on OAS

OAS is the only figure here that re-indexes quarterly. Everything else moves once a year, which means OAS can go stale on its own while nothing else does. So it is always shown with the quarter it came from.

It is also the one benefit that does not depend on your earnings at all. It scales only with years of Canadian residency after 18: forty years or more earns the maximum, and less is prorated in fortieths. The tool therefore defaults to the maximum rather than an average. Defaulting to an average quietly understated most people’s retirement income, which inflated the savings they appeared to need.

What we deliberately simplify

It models employment income, for one person or a couple. In household mode each partner is taxed separately and the results are combined, and retirement income can include a defined-benefit pension. Self-employment and incorporated income, rental and dividend income, and union dues are not modelled, and are out of scope rather than planned.
It applies simplified averaging rather than line-by-line return math, and does not claim the full set of credits and deductions a real return can. It will not match your T4 to the dollar.
The effective tax rate includes CPP and EI. That is a defensible simplification for “what actually leaves my paycheque”, but CPP is deferred compensation rather than tax, so the figure is not comparable to a pure income-tax rate.
Retirement projections assume a constant real return. Real markets deliver good decades and bad ones, in an order nobody gets to choose. The Invest step's likely range is a partial answer to that: it re-runs the same projection two percentage points above and below the return you chose. That two-point spread is a judgement call, not a measured figure, and the range is not a probability: it does not claim your result has any particular chance of landing inside it. Nothing here models sequence-of-returns risk, where the order of good and bad years changes the answer even when the average does not.

Known gaps

Published deliberately. A gap you can read about is worth more than one you find in the results.

RRIF minimums shape the balances, but the tax figure is one snapshot. Since 18 September 2026 the year-by-year balance projection forces the CRA minimum every year from 71, on the January 1 balance, and moves any forced surplus into your non-registered account after tax at your marginal rate. The warning for earlier retirees uses the balance the plan projects at 71, not today's. What remains simple: the withdrawal tax estimate is still calculated once, at your retirement age, so it does not show how your tax bill rises as the minimum climbs in your late 70s and 80s.
CPP for a short contribution history is estimated, and runs low. Since 18 September 2026 the default CPP is reduced when the retirement age you set on the Retire tab is early (the Summary’s own “financially free at” age does not feed it yet): the average benefit is scaled by your working years against the 39 years CPP counts at 65 (47 years from 18, less the 17% drop-out). Retiring at 45 cuts it by about 30%. The average already reflects typical gaps in people’s careers, so this counts part of your shortfall twice and the estimate lands on the low side. It also assumes you worked continuously from 18 and ignores the child-rearing drop-out. Your My Service Canada estimate is always better, and entering it replaces all of this.
The QPP average benefit is unknown to us. Retraite Québec does not publish it anywhere we could reach. Quebec users see the CPP average as a stand-in, labelled as such in the tool. If you know the real figure, please send it.
Fixed on 26 August 2026: a parsing bug in custom benefit amounts. Typing a CPP estimate of $1,000 or more stored it with a thousands separator, which one part of the model read as only the digits before the comma. The retirement tab showed it correctly while the summary showed roughly a thousandth of it. Found in an internal audit, fixed and deployed the same day. If your summary looked implausibly low before that date, this was why.
Fixed on 29 September 2026: the Quebec deduction for workers was missing. Quebec lets anyone with employment income deduct 6% of it, up to $1,450 in 2026, on the Quebec return. The model left it out, so Quebec take-home pay read low for almost every worker: by $275.50 a year at $85,000, and by up to about $373 at the top rate. Federal tax and payroll contributions were unaffected. Found by an outside review that rebuilt our Quebec figures by hand from the published rules.

Where this model does more work

Not a sales pitch. These are the specific places this model does more work than a simpler one, and each is checkable.

Quebec is modelled properly, not relabelled. QPP instead of CPP at its own higher rate, the QPIP premium, the reduced federal EI rate that exists because QPIP covers parental benefits, the 16.5% federal abatement, and the Quebec deduction for workers on the Quebec return.
CPP contributions are split by tax treatment. The base portion generates a non-refundable credit, while the enhanced portion and CPP2 are deducted from income instead. These are genuinely different mechanisms.
Pension splitting is optimised, not assumed. The model searches the 0 to 50% range for the split that minimises combined household tax, which is not always the maximum transfer once credits and clawbacks bite.
The OAS clawback is capped at the OAS actually received, and tested per person rather than on household income.
The 10% OAS increase at 75 is modelled, so late-retirement income is not flat for life.
Benefit math has one implementation. The retirement and summary views call the same function. They did not always, and that difference is what caused the bug listed above.

Found something wrong?

Corrections are genuinely welcome, and this page exists partly so they are possible. If a figure here is stale, mis-tiered or simply wrong, please say so. There is a feedback link in the calculator’s footer, and errors get fixed and noted in known gaps.

This page covers where the numbers come from. For how the tool treats you, which is a different question, see how this behaves.

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Methodology: every figure, and how confident we are