Should you spend your RRSP before OAS starts?
Retire at 60 and the years before 65 are often your lowest-tax years: no OAS, maybe no CPP, nothing forcing income onto your return. Leave the RRSP alone through them and it grows into larger RRIF minimums from 72, stacked on CPP and OAS — and whatever's left is taxed as income on your final return.
This runs your retirement to 95 both ways, with 2026 federal and provincial tax, CPP, OAS and its clawback, and the RRIF minimums, and compares what each leaves.
What this doesn't do. Leaving it for last only withdraws what your spending needs each year. Drawing it down early may draw more than that and reinvest the rest in a TFSA, then a non-registered account — a full meltdown — when that leaves a bigger estate. Borrowing to invest against it isn't modelled. On a lower income the early column may leave the RRSP alone from 64 to 72 instead, because each dollar drawn then would cost up to 75¢ of next year's GIS. CPP and OAS start at 65 at typical amounts.
For your own benefits, a pension, and a partner, build your full plan, free.
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