How to Read Your RREGOP Statement: The Numbers That Count

You open your RREGOP Statement of Participation and see pensions everywhere. Retraite Québec publishes a sample statement in French, for a 50-year-old we will call Julie. Its English sample shows a different member, with different figures. On Julie's first page there are six: $17,300, $8,600, $29,800, $19,400, $22,700 and $12,400. On the second, a total of $86,566. Which one is her pension?

None of them yet. Each figure answers a different question, and almost all of those questions start with an "if".

Think of the sign with a map that you find at a trail junction in a Quebec park. It marks one spot, vous êtes ici (you are here), and several destinations, each with its distance and time. None of them is your destination until you pick one, and the times assume you keep the same pace. Your statement works the same way: it says where you were on a December 31 and where you would end up, depending on when you leave.

Three possible dates: what you would collect depending on when you leave

The first thing on your statement is the Estimated amount of your retirement pension section. These are the destinations on the sign: three retirement scenarios, each with its date, age and amounts. Your statement may show different ones, depending on your situation. Here are Julie's, as of December 31, 2024:

That makes five of the six pensions, and Julie would only receive the ones in the row she picks. The first row is early and costly: she can leave from 55, but with 0.5% less for every month she is short of her date without a reduction. She would be 60 months short: 60 times 0.5% makes 30%, about $7,400 less a year, permanently.

The second is the date she meets one of the three criteria for no reduction. For Julie it is the 90-factor: at 60, her age and her years of service add up to more than 90.

Always read both amount columns. Pensions drop at 65 because of coordination with the QPP, and the amount on the right is the one that stays with you for the rest of your life. At 65, Julie would collect $22,700 rather than $19,400 because she would have added five more years of service.

Like the times on a sign, these amounts assume you keep the same pace: that you stay in the plan until you retire, on the same terms as on December 31. If you plan to move to part-time, your numbers will be different.

They also assume a salary, and which one depends on whether you could already collect a pension, with or without a reduction. That generally happens from 55, and your statement shows it: in that case it has one more scenario, dated January 1, with what you could collect from that date. If it is there, the amounts use your average salary. If it is missing, as on Julie's statement, they use the base salary for the year of the statement, with no future raises: $50,873.

Your statement does not say what your pension is. It says what it would be, depending on the day you leave.

Your rights: what you would have if you turned back

The sixth pension is further down. In Your rights, Julie sees $12,400 a year, payable at 65, or from 55 with a reduction. Next to the $29,800, it can look like bad news.

That figure is about the past: it is what she would have if she had left her job on December 31, 2024, under the deferred pension rules. It is the way back from the spot on the map, and Julie will not take it if she keeps working.

The $86,566 total on the second page is not a pension either. It is her Contributions with interest: what Julie put in, plus interest. Her pension comes from a formula, and that sum does not measure it. Your RRSP room is not here either: it depends on box 52 of your T4.

Two counts of years of service: how much and when

On a trail, the time you have been walking and the kilometres you have covered are not the same thing. If you slow down, the clock keeps running and you cover fewer kilometres. If you stop, the kilometres stop. Your statement keeps both counts in the Years of service and contributions section:

• Years of service for pension calculation purposes. These are your kilometres: they go into the formula and set how much you receive. They count the time you worked: a full-time year adds 1, and a year at 60% adds 0.6. Unpaid absences add nothing, except those you bought back or those covered by the plan's bank of up to 90 days.
• Years of service for pension eligibility purposes. This is your time on the trail, and it sets when you can leave without a reduction. Here a part-time year generally counts as a full 1, and an unpaid absence takes nothing away.

If you always worked full-time with no absences, the two figures match. If there was part-time work or absences, the eligibility figure is higher: Julie has 22.93 eligibility years and 19.42 calculation years. If you buy back a period, it adds to both. And at 61, age alone is enough to leave without a reduction.

Here is the trap on the first page: under each scenario, your statement prints your eligibility years, but the amounts come from your calculation years. On her date without a reduction, November 4, 2034, Julie sees 32.78 years. If you put them into the formula, 2% times 32.78 years times $50,873, you get about $33,350. Her statement says $29,800.

Why? The amount uses her calculation years: the 19.42 she had at the end of 2024, plus the 9.85 she would work full-time from then until November 4, 2034. That makes about 29.3 years, and 2% times 29.3 years times $50,873 gives about $29,800.

The mistake also works the other way. If Julie looked at her calculation years to find out when she reaches the 90-factor, at 60 she would get 89.3 and think she was still short. With her eligibility years she gets 92.78, and she already qualifies. If your two figures match, none of this affects you.

If you want to do your own math

Your actual pension does not depend on what you calculate: when you retire, Retraite Québec works it out with the data your employers send it. Your own math is for planning ahead.

Your average salary. The formula uses your five best-paid years, and Julie's statement shows the salary for only one year. To see the others, ask for your état de participation, which gives your history year by year, with no pension estimates. Average the five highest, which do not have to be consecutive.

Your full-time salary, if you work part-time. The formula counts what you would earn full-time, so cutting your hours does not lower your average. The Retraite Québec tool asks you to annualize your salary: with $20,000 at 50%, you enter $40,000. If you have a phased departure (départ progressif), the salary on your statement already includes what you would have received without that agreement.

Other dates. The Pension Estimator lets you try a departure date other than the three on your statement, with your two counts at hand. The tool uses your current salary, without indexing it, so the result is still an estimate. If you plan to claim your pension in the next 4 to 24 months, you can submit an Application for a Pension Estimate from My Account.

Before you use any figure, check the date

A sign you have left behind tells you where you were, not where you are. Your statement stops at December 31 of one year and comes out the following fall: Julie's was issued on October 29, 2025. The 2025 statements go into My Account from mid-October to the end of December 2026.

So even with the most recent one in hand, you already have almost another year of service. With one you saved years ago, the gap grows: it leaves out those years of service, and its scenarios still rest on the job you had then. Look up the latest one in My Account before you plan, and if a figure for one of your jobs does not reflect your situation, talk to your employer, who sends that data.

In AuraPlan, when you add your RREGOP, we ask for the year of your statement, your two counts of years of service and your average salary. The plan keeps adding to your years of service from that date for as long as you stay in that job.

Julie has spent more than twenty years in the public service. Her statement shows her where she is and what is ahead of her, and with that she can choose where she wants to go.