RREGOP: How Your Pension Works, From Contributions to 65

Marie is a high school teacher in Laval. She is 60, has 32 years of service in the RREGOP and an average salary of $85,000 over her five best years. When she works out her pension with the formula Retraite Québec publishes, she gets two figures instead of one: $54,400 a year until 65 and $38,904 after that.

The second one is neither a mistake nor a penalty. To see where it comes from, you have to look at the whole plan, from what you contribute while you work to what changes the day you turn 65.

Think of a working day. The RREGOP was never hired to work the full day alone for life: it counts on you also paying into the QPP, so it charges you nothing on the first part of your salary. If you retire before 65, it works the full day during those years. At 65 it cuts back its hours, and the hours it drops fall to the QPP. It cuts them back even if the QPP hasn't arrived yet.

What the RREGOP is and how much you contribute

The RREGOP covers regular and casual employees, full-time or part-time, in Quebec's public service, education network, and health and social services network. It has existed since 1973 and is administered by Retraite Québec. As of December 31, 2025, it had about 671,476 active members and 359,193 retirees.

It is a defined benefit plan. With an RRSP, you know how much you put in but not how much you will get out. Here it's the reverse: your pension comes from a fixed formula, it is paid for life and you don't carry the investment risk. Benefits for service since July 1982 are funded equally by employee contributions and the government.

Your share is deducted from every paycheque. In 2026 you contribute 8.63% on the part of your salary above $18,650, an exemption equal to 25% of the YMPE. The YMPE, the Year's Maximum Pensionable Earnings, is the maximum income on which QPP contributions are paid, and in 2026 it is $74,600. For Marie, at $85,000, the 2026 contribution is $5,726.

That exemption comes from the same arrangement: since the RREGOP counts on the QPP working alongside it, it doesn't charge you on that first part of your salary. If you earn less than the YMPE, you also get a small additional reduction. On a salary at or below 35% of the YMPE, $26,110 in 2026, you contribute nothing. Contributions are tax-deductible, and the pension is taxed when you receive it.

How your pension is calculated and when you can collect it

The base pension uses three numbers: your years of service, up to 40, multiplied by 2% and by the average salary of your five best-paid years. Those five years don't have to be consecutive. For Marie, 2% times 32 years times $85,000 gives her $54,400.

Since July 1, 2019, any one of three criteria lets you collect the pension without reduction: age 61, 35 years of service, or age 60 if age and service add up to 90. Marie's add up to 92, so she collects it in full at 60. You can leave as early as 55, but you lose 0.5% for every month before you meet the nearest of those criteria, or 6% a year, permanently, a rate in effect since July 2020. If you'd rather keep working, you can contribute until the year you turn 71.

If you leave your job before 55, the rules change. With at least two years of service, your pension is deferred. It is paid without reduction only at 65, with the same 6% a year if you claim it from 55, and coordinated with the QPP from the first payment. Before 55 you can also transfer its value to a LIRA or a LIF.

What happens at 65: coordination with the QPP

Why does the figure change at exactly 65? Retraite Québec explains it this way: 65 is also the age at which you can receive OAS and 100% of your QPP pension. The two plans share your retirement the same way they shared your contributions.

The reduction has its own formula: 0.7% for each year of service since 1966, up to 35 years, multiplied by the lower of two averages. Why 1966? It's the year the QPP was created. The first average is your salary over your last five years, which are not necessarily your best. The second is the YMPE over those same years.

If Marie retires at the end of 2026, the period runs from 2022 to 2026. The YMPE was $64,900, $66,600, $68,500, $71,300 and $74,600. Their average, $69,180, is below what she earns, so for Marie the YMPE is what counts.

Stéphane is a patient attendant (préposé aux bénéficiaires) at a CHSLD, a public long-term care centre, in Sherbrooke, with the same 32 years of service and an average salary of $52,000. Since he earns less than the average YMPE, the formula uses his salary. These are two sample calculations, under the 2026 rules from Retraite Québec, in 2026 dollars and without indexation:

Stéphane loses 35% of his pension at 65, because a 0.7% reduction against a 2% pension works out to that proportion. The same holds for anyone who earns less than the YMPE, with 35 years of service or less and the same five years as both best and last. Marie, who earns more, loses 28%. Above the YMPE, the higher the salary, the smaller the proportion: with a $100,000 average it would be 24%.

The difference comes from the QPP, which only covers salary up to the YMPE. Stéphane's falls entirely below that cap; Marie's goes past it, so the QPP replaces a smaller share of what she earned. That is why, at 65, Stéphane's RREGOP cuts back more hours. Retraite Québec also warns that your total income can drop at 65, because the reduction looks at your last years and the QPP is calculated over your whole career.

If you defer the QPP, the RREGOP doesn't wait

The law governing the plan sets the date without mentioning the QPP: the reduction applies from the month after you turn 65, or from your retirement if you retire later. Retraite Québec confirms it also applies at 65 if you claimed your QPP earlier. If you claim the QPP at 60, it arrives early and you collect both until 65, with a QPP 30% to 36% smaller for life. Even so, the RREGOP waits until 65 to cut back its hours.

Retraite Québec recommends this in its RREGOP guide: if you wait so that your QPP and OAS are higher, plan for savings to offset the drop in your RREGOP pension.

The RREGOP doesn't cut back its hours when the QPP arrives. It cuts them back on the day the calendar sets: your 65th birthday.

The QPP can be deferred to 72: each month after 65 raises it by 0.7%, up to 58.8% more. Suppose Marie claims it at 70: it would be 42% higher, indexed for life. What does she live on in the meantime? From 65 to 70, on $38,904 from the RREGOP, her OAS and whatever she withdraws from her RRSP or her TFSA. For five years, her savings work the hours the RREGOP dropped at 65, until the QPP arrives.

How much savings does it take to cover those hours? Roughly what the QPP would have paid you while you wait. We simulated it in AuraPlan with Marie: a QPP of $13,500 at 65, $230,000 across her RRSP and TFSA, and $46,000 a year in spending. If she defers it to 70, she reaches that age with about $68,000 less in savings than if she had claimed it at 65. These are 2026 dollars, with 2% inflation.

From 70 she collects a QPP 42% higher, and that increase pays her savings back little by little. With a return of 3% to 5%, she recovers the $68,000 between ages 84 and 90. We also tested other spending, savings and life expectancy, and the cost stayed close to five years of QPP. For your household, if you wait until 70, a first approximation is your own QPP at 65 multiplied by five.

Deferring can still be a good decision. That $68,000 is savings you draw sooner, not money you lose: at 89, Marie ends up with similar savings either way. When we compared complete plans in our research, the best age to claim the QPP changed from one household to another. Even so, claiming it a year or two before or after that age barely moved the result.

The difference between a good plan and a bad one lies in how you draw down your savings, year by year. And here the drop at 65 has a useful side. If you defer the QPP, the years between 65 and its start become the lowest-income years of your retirement, good for taking money out of the RRSP at a lower tax rate. That's the logic behind the withdrawal order and behind melting down the RRSP before 71. In AuraPlan, the RREGOP pension is modelled with its coordination at 65, and the years when the QPP hasn't started yet are flagged.

How much your pension rises each year

Once you're retired, your pension is indexed every January 1, but not all of it equally. It depends on when you worked each year of service, and the reference point is the increase in the QPP pension index, which was 2.0% for 2026:

• service before July 1982 rises with the full index: 2.0% in 2026;
• service from July 1982 to 1999 rises by the index minus 3 points, never below zero: 0.0% in 2026;
• service from 2000 onward rises by the greater of half the index and the index minus 3 points: 1.0% in 2026.

For someone like Marie, who started working in the mid-nineties, most of the pension falls in the third group. If the cost of living rises 2% and that part rises 1%, she loses a little purchasing power, year after year. In the same AuraPlan simulation, with inflation at 2%, every $100 of pension Marie collects at 65 buys about $76 at 89. That's why the time value of money matters in a plan with a RREGOP pension, even though the pension is guaranteed.

What you can still change

The formula of a defined benefit pension isn't negotiable, but some decisions do change the math. Two are made before you retire, one when you retire and one every year on your tax return.

Phased retirement is the first. Many people call it retraite progressive, but in the RREGOP it's called départ progressif. If your working conditions provide for it, you ask your employer for an agreement. You cut back your hours for 12 to 60 months, never below 40% of full time, and you retire at the end of the agreement. Before you sign, Retraite Québec confirms on form RSP-267 that you will qualify for your pension when it ends. Your service and salary are recognized as if you had not signed it, so your pension generally stays the same. The price: you keep contributing on your full-time salary, even though you earn less. If Marie worked at 40% under a départ progressif, she would earn $34,000 and still contribute $5,726 a year, the same as on her full $85,000 salary.

The second is buying back service, called rachat de service on Retraite Québec documents. You can buy back periods you did not contribute for, such as unpaid leave, and add them to your years of service. The cost depends on your salary and your age when you apply, and it is lower if you apply within six months after the leave. You can only do it while you're still in the plan: once you retire, the door closes.

The third is decided when you retire. If you have a spouse, they will receive, for life, half your pension if they outlive you. That pension is coordinated too: if you die before 65, the reduction applies to their pension from the following month, without waiting for that age. You can reduce your own pension by 2% to leave them 60% instead of 50%, and the choice becomes irrevocable as soon as you receive the first payment. It's a decision for the couple, as we explain in marital status and retirement.

The fourth is pension income splitting. Your RREGOP pension comes from an employer plan, so you can allocate part of it to your spouse. On the federal return you can do it at any age, and on the Quebec return from 65. How much it's worth depends on the gap between your two incomes, as we explain in pension income splitting.

One last decision remains: the QPP. Marie can claim it any time between 60 and 72, and so can Stéphane: depending on the household, claiming earlier or later can make sense. Your Retraite Québec estimate shows both RREGOP figures. Read the second as carefully as the first, because it's the one that stays with you for the rest of your life. The calendar is already written. What you still decide is who covers those hours until the QPP arrives.