OAS Clawback Threshold 2026: The Three Numbers

You look up the OAS threshold and three different numbers come back: $90,997, $93,454 and $95,323. None of them is wrong, and they are not competing.

They are three bills at three different moments. One is already settled. Another is being deducted from this month's deposit. And the third you are running up right now, with this year's income, even though nobody has sent it to you yet.

When the OAS clawback starts, and which year it is calculated from

You are almost always after one of two things, and each has a different answer.

"Why did my deposit drop?" Then it is the 2025 income that matters, and its $93,454 threshold. That return decides the payments from July 2026 to June 2027, the ones landing now.

An example, with the government's own numbers. If your 2025 net income was $100,000, you subtract the threshold and $6,546 sits above it. 15% of that difference is $981.90, spread across twelve deposits: about $82 less each month. Service Canada sends a letter with the exact amount it will withhold, before the first deduction.

"How much income can I have this year without being cut?" Then it is the 2026 threshold you want, $95,323. It is the only one of the three you can influence: how much you take from the RRSP before December, whether you realize a capital gain, which account the money sits in. That bill is paid from July 2027.

Between the withdrawal that lifts your income and the deduction it triggers, up to eighteen months can pass, and what OAS means for your plan sets out that lag in full.

A large withdrawal does not touch your OAS this year. It eats into next year's, when the money is already spent.

So an earlier year's number does not expire. The 2024 threshold ruled until June of this year, and it is still the right answer for anyone checking a deposit from then.

The 2026 OAS clawback rules, and the two years before

Each income year carries three numbers: where the clawback starts, and where OAS runs out altogether depending on whether you are under or over 75. All three come from the same federal table.

2024. Its threshold was $90,997, and OAS ran out at $148,451 up to age 74 and at $154,196 from 75. It covered the deposits from July 2025 to June 2026.

2025 is the one in charge today. If something was withheld this month, it came from here: the threshold is $93,454 and the ceilings are $152,062 and $157,923. It covers July 2026 to June 2027.

And 2026 is still being written, with what you earn and withdraw between now and December. It starts at $95,323, with expected ceilings of $155,109 and $161,088, and will not touch your deposit until July 2027.

What counts is your net world income, not only what you generate in Canada. A foreign pension, rent from an apartment in another country and interest on an account outside Canada weigh exactly as much as a RRIF withdrawal.

Why the ceiling is an estimate and the threshold is not

The 2026 ceilings carry a footnote in the government's table and the entry threshold does not. The entry threshold is set by indexation at the start of the tax year, and there it stays. The ceiling is not an independent figure. It is the threshold plus your annual pension divided by 0.15, because that is the point where handing back 15 cents on the dollar consumes the entire pension.

That annual pension cannot be known in advance, because OAS benefits are adjusted four times a year, in January, April, July and October, in line with the Consumer Price Index. Until the last adjustment lands, the annual total is a forecast. That is why the government marks those ceilings as estimates from January to September and treats them as final from October to December.

This explains something that confuses anyone comparing sources. You may have seen $154,708 given as the 2026 ceiling, while the federal table says $155,109. Both numbers come out of the same formula with different annual pensions: one uses the amount already known, the other the amount the government projects. The gap is $401, and it disappears in October.

The same formula explains the second ceiling. At 75, OAS rises by 10%: more pension, every month, for life. The ceiling rises by 10% for exactly that reason, because there is 10% more pension to recover. The one thing to keep in mind is that the entry threshold does not move with age: it starts at the same point at 66 as at 80.

Who actually pays

Before you worry, one figure to put this in scale. According to the responsible ministry's own notes, about 8% of OAS pensioners are subject to the recovery tax.

Our simulations point the same way. We evaluated seven Quebec households, chosen with different characteristics to cover a wide variety of cases. They run from a woman on her own with $85,000 saved to a man on his own with close to two million. Five never hand back a dollar across the whole retirement.

The two who do pay have no wealth in common: what they share is income they cannot switch off. Marc receives an employer pension come rain or shine, whether he needs it that year or not. Yvon retired alone, and his RRIF forces him to take out more each year than he spends. Both come to around $35,000 of clawback across retirement. Marc and Céline's case is told in full in pension income splitting.

The threshold table gives you the number, but it does not tell you whether it will reach you. It is rarely salary that pushes a household past the mark: it is the income that arrives on its own, decided years earlier.

A voluntary withdrawal can be brought forward, spread out or replaced with money from the TFSA, which does not count as net income. A mandatory RRIF minimum and an employer pension cannot. That is why the order in which you empty your accounts and the whole puzzle weigh more than the year's threshold. For a couple, pension income splitting takes advantage of the fact that the threshold is measured per person.

Of the three bills, two are closed and no longer open to discussion. The third is being written now, with decisions that are still yours.