OAS Payment Amounts Canada 2026

The current OAS payment amounts Canada pays in 2026 — the maximum monthly pension for each age group, the income ceilings that end it, and exactly what every year of waiting past 65 is worth in dollars.

Last updated: July 2026 · Service Canada · Amounts for July to September 2026

How to Read This Table

Two numbers decide your OAS: your age and your income. Everyone 75 and over receives 10% more than the 65-to-74 group — an automatic increase that arrives the month after your 75th birthday and needs no application. Income works in the other direction: earn above the ceiling in the right-hand column and the recovery tax removes the pension entirely. Between those poles the amounts below are maximums, not guarantees; a full pension requires 40 years of residence in Canada after age 18, and fewer years produce a proportionally smaller amount.

OAS Maximum Payment Amounts 2026

These are the amounts for the July to September 2026 quarter. The recovery tax actually begins much earlier than the ceilings above — at $93,454 of 2025 income — and reduces the pension gradually from there until it reaches zero at the figures shown.

What Deferring to 70 Is Worth

You cannot start OAS before 65, but you can delay it as late as 70. Each month you wait adds 0.6% to the pension permanently — 7.2% a year, reaching 36% at age 70. These are Service Canada’s own figures at the current quarter’s rates.

There is no advantage to waiting past 70 — the increase stops there. Two situations make deferral a mistake outright: if you qualify for the Guaranteed Income Supplement you should start OAS now, because GIS is only paid alongside an active OAS pension, and if you are already over 70 you are simply forgoing payments.

Understanding Your OAS Payment

OAS moves more often than any other federal pension. Amounts are reviewed four times a year — in January, April, July and October — and adjusted for increases in the Consumer Price Index. The protection is one-directional: when the cost of living falls, payments hold steady rather than dropping. This quarterly rhythm is why a figure you saw in the spring will not match what arrives in the autumn, and why any site quoting OAS amounts without naming the quarter is quoting something stale.

The amount you personally receive depends on residence, not contributions. Forty years in Canada after age 18 earns the full pension; twenty years earns half of it. This is the fundamental difference between OAS and CPP — you can have never worked a day in Canada and still collect OAS, while CPP pays nothing without contributions. Because of it, immigrants who arrived in middle age frequently receive a partial OAS for life, and the 10-year minimum residence rule is what stands between a partial pension and none at all.

Remember that OAS is taxable income and no tax is withheld unless you request it. It also interacts with the rest of your retirement income in a way that catches people out: the pension counts toward the income that determines your tax bracket, but it is excluded from the income used to calculate its own recovery tax. GIS, the Allowance and the Allowance for the Survivor work differently again — those are not taxable and are not reported as income.