How the RRIF minimum withdrawal is calculated
The minimum is set once a year. Take the RRIF's value at the start of the year and multiply it by a prescribed factor based on your age on that date. Your age on January 1, not the age you reach during the year. If you have more than one RRIF, each has its own minimum, but they all use the same factor, so working it out on their combined balance gives the same total.
Before 71, the factor is 1 divided by (90 minus your age): 4% at 65, 5% at 70. From 71 it comes from a table that rises every year, reaching 20% at 95. And in the year you open the RRIF, there is no minimum: the obligation starts the following year.
One choice is worth knowing before you sign. If your spouse is younger, you can have the factor calculated on their age. The minimum goes down: at 71, with a 61-year-old spouse, the factor drops from 5.28% to 3.45%. But the choice can only be made when the fund is set up.
What the minimum really costs you
The table tells you how much you have to take out. It does not tell you how much you keep, because that depends on what you already receive: your employer pension, your QPP or CPP, your OAS. The RRIF withdrawal sits on top of all of it, and it is taxed at the rate of the highest part of your income.
Take Rolande. She is 71, lives alone in Quebec, and receives a $40,000 employer pension, $15,000 of QPP and full OAS. Her RRIF is worth $900,000 on January 1.
Her minimum for the year is $47,520. According to this calculator, on 2026 tax tables, that withdrawal costs her $19,494. Of that, $2,417 is not income tax but OAS recovery tax. The withdrawal takes her above the $95,323 threshold, and from there each extra dollar takes back 15 cents of her pension.
That is why her last dollar withdrawn costs her 49.9%, when the tax bracket table says 41.1%. The gap is the OAS recovery tax, which the bracket table leaves out. It takes 15 cents a dollar, minus the tax she saves because what she repays is deducted from her income.
If your income sits well below that threshold, the picture is different. With a modest pension, the withdrawal may stay in a low bracket. And if your total income falls in the GIS range, each dollar taken from the RRIF can also reduce that supplement the following year. The calculator tells you when that applies to you.
When the minimum grows faster than your needs
The factor rises every year, but it applies to a balance that is shrinking. Which of the two wins depends on the return. For Rolande, at a 3% real return, her minimum barely moves: $44,706 at 90, in today's dollars.
At a 5% real return, though, the balance holds up and the minimum climbs to $64,425 at 90. That year's OAS recovery tax reaches $5,086, more than double what it was at 71. Letting the RRIF grow does not avoid the tax. It pushes it into years when the mandatory minimum is larger.
That is the underlying reason for strategies like drawing down the RRSP before 71: spreading taxable income over more years instead of concentrating it when the law no longer lets you choose.
When the minimum changes nothing
The minimum only constrains you if it is larger than what you were going to withdraw anyway. If your spending needs $60,000 a year from the RRIF and the minimum is $47,520, the minimum changes nothing: you are already taking more.
In the calculator's "Year by year" section, you can enter how much you plan to withdraw each year. The calculator tells you from what age the minimum overtakes that amount and, if your planned withdrawal empties the fund, at what age it runs out.
The tax on what you withdraw, on the other hand, can be lowered. From 65, RRIF withdrawals qualify for the pension income amount and can be split with your spouse. If you live as a couple, the calculator estimates how much splitting lowers the tax on the withdrawal: from age 65, since your spouse's age has no bearing on whether you can. And the order in which you empty your accounts matters as much as the amount. A table gives you the floor; the plan is everything you build on top of it.