RRIF Minimum Withdrawal Rates: What You Are Required to Take and How to Manage It
May 16, 2026
Every Canadian with an RRSP eventually reaches the same hard deadline: the end of the calendar year in which they turn 71. By that date, your RRSP must be converted to a Registered Retirement Income Fund, and mandatory annual withdrawals begin the following year. There is no discretion, no extension, and no opt-out. What you can control is how you manage those withdrawals so they cost you as little tax as possible and leave your portfolio in the best shape over the rest of your retirement.
This article covers the actual withdrawal rate schedule – for the full interactive calculator and official rate table, see the RRIF Minimum Withdrawal Rates 2026 guide, the mechanics of how the CRA calculates your minimum, the withholding tax rules that trip people up, and the most practical strategies for managing RRIF income alongside CPP, OAS, and a TFSA. And yes, this applies whether your RRIF holds GICs, a dividend portfolio, or a single all-in-one ETF like XEQT.
What Is a RRIF and When Do You Have to Open One?
A Registered Retirement Income Fund is the decumulation counterpart to the RRSP. Where an RRSP is built for accumulation, with tax-deductible contributions and tax-sheltered growth, the RRIF is designed to pay that money back out as retirement income. You cannot make new contributions to a RRIF, but the investments inside it continue to grow tax-sheltered until they are withdrawn.
The conversion deadline is December 31 of the year you turn 71. If you miss it, the CRA treats your entire RRSP balance as taxable income in that year, which is one of the most expensive tax events a Canadian retiree can trigger. Your financial institution will generally flag this for you, but the responsibility is yours.
You can convert earlier than 71 if you want. Some Canadians convert a portion of their RRSP to a RRIF at age 65 specifically to access the $2,000 pension income tax credit, which applies to RRIF income (but not RRSP withdrawals) for anyone 65 and older. More on that below. You do not have to convert everything at once, and you can hold multiple RRIFs at different institutions if that suits your situation.
Hard Deadline: You must convert your RRSP to a RRIF by December 31 of the year you turn 71. Missing this deadline means the CRA treats your full RRSP balance as income that year. For a retiree with several hundred thousand dollars in their RRSP, that single-year income spike would push almost anyone into the top federal tax bracket.
The RRIF Minimum Withdrawal Rate Schedule
The CRA sets a minimum percentage you must withdraw from your RRIF each year, based on your age (or your spouse’s age, if you elect to use that instead). The percentage rises every year, reflecting the government’s expectation that you will draw down registered savings during your lifetime rather than pass them entirely to your estate. These rates have been in place in their current form since 2015, when the federal government reduced minimums from even higher levels, and as of late 2025 Ottawa confirmed that no further reductions are coming in the current parliament.
Here are the key benchmarks from the CRA schedule, verified through Canadian tax and financial planning sources. At age 71, the required minimum is 5.28% of your RRIF’s fair market value at the start of the year. At 72, it rises to 5.40%. By 75, the rate reaches 5.82%. At age 80, you are required to withdraw 6.82%. By 85, the rate is 8.51%. At 90, it climbs to 11.92%, and by 95 and beyond, the rate reaches 20% per year. These percentages are applied against the January 1 balance of the RRIF each year, not the balance at the time of withdrawal.
The rate schedule is not designed to drain your savings by a fixed age. It is calibrated to draw down proportional amounts year by year. But as the mandatory percentages climb through your 80s and into your 90s, the required withdrawals can significantly exceed what most retirees need for living expenses, which is precisely why TFSA top-ups and income-splitting matter so much later in retirement.
These are minimums, not maximums. You can always take more out. But amounts above the minimum are subject to withholding tax at source: 10% for amounts up to $5,000, 20% for amounts between $5,001 and $15,000, and 30% for amounts over $15,000. The minimum withdrawal itself is not subject to withholding tax, which gives it a modest cash-flow advantage worth keeping in mind when you plan your payment schedule.
Key RRIF Rate Benchmarks (CRA Schedule): Age 71: 5.28% | Age 72: 5.40% | Age 75: 5.82% | Age 80: 6.82% | Age 85: 8.51% | Age 90: 11.92% | Age 95 and older: 20.00%. Rates apply to the RRIF’s fair market value on January 1 each year. The minimum withdrawal amount itself is not subject to withholding tax. Withdrawals above the minimum face withholding tax of 10% to 30% depending on the amount.
The Younger Spouse Election Most Couples Do Not Know About
When you set up a RRIF, you can elect to base your minimum withdrawal calculation on your spouse’s age rather than your own. If you are 71 and your spouse is 65, your minimum drops from 5.28% to roughly 4%. That is a meaningful difference in both annual tax liability and the amount of capital you can keep sheltered and growing inside the RRIF.
This election must be made when you open the RRIF and it is irrevocable, so it is worth thinking through before you sign the paperwork. Every major financial institution has this option built into their RRIF application. If you are part of a couple with an age gap, this is one of the most concrete tax-planning moves available to you at conversion time.
Single retirees have no equivalent option, which is a structural disadvantage that has been raised in Canadian retirement policy discussions. Writing in the Globe and Mail in late 2025, financial planner Robb Engen argued that a 25% reduction in RRIF minimums for single retirees would be a fair and targeted reform, equivalent to allowing a single person to use age 65 for their calculation rather than their actual age. That proposal has not been enacted, but it reflects a real gap in how RRIF rules treat different household structures.
Couples’ Tax Tip: When opening a RRIF, you can elect to use your younger spouse’s age for the minimum withdrawal calculation. If you are 71 and your spouse is 65, your minimum drops from 5.28% to approximately 4%. This election is irrevocable, so confirm it at the time of conversion. Also: after age 65, RRIF income can be split between spouses for income tax purposes, which can meaningfully reduce the household’s total tax bill.
The $2,000 Pension Income Credit and the Age 65 Strategy
RRIF income qualifies for the federal pension income tax credit once you are 65 or older. The credit applies to the first $2,000 of eligible pension income each year, which effectively shelters it from federal tax for most retirees. RRSP withdrawals do not qualify for this credit. That difference creates a modest but real incentive to convert at least a portion of your RRSP to a RRIF at age 65 rather than waiting until 71.
If you convert a portion of your RRSP into a RRIF at age 65, the minimum withdrawal at that age is approximately 4%. Sizing the converted amount so that the annual minimum produces roughly $2,000 in RRIF income means that income is fully sheltered by the pension income credit, letting you access it without triggering additional federal tax. The strategy works most cleanly when you are in a low tax bracket and the RRIF portfolio does not grow significantly above the threshold during the year. For retirees who are managing income carefully in their early retirement years, it is worth the conversation with a fee-only financial planner.
What Happens to Your Investments Inside a RRIF
When you convert your RRSP to a RRIF, you do not have to sell anything. The investments transfer in kind. If you are holding XEQT inside your RRSP, it moves into the RRIF without triggering a disposition. The portfolio continues to hold the same globally diversified equities across Canada, the US, international developed markets, and emerging markets, all at the same 0.20% MER. Nothing about the investment strategy needs to change at the moment of conversion itself.
What does change is that you are now required to take money out each year. For most people, especially in the early years of RRIF when the minimum runs between 5.28% and 5.82%, an all-equity portfolio like XEQT can support those withdrawals through a combination of quarterly distributions and selling a modest number of units. The early-year RRIF minimum is not dramatically different from what a standard 4% to 5% withdrawal rate looks like, and a globally diversified equity portfolio has historically supported withdrawal rates in that range over reasonable retirement horizons. If you want to understand how XEQT fits into the full picture of a diversified long-term portfolio, our complete XEQT guide covers the fund’s structure, underlying holdings, and rationale in detail.
The calculus changes later in retirement. By the mid-80s, mandatory RRIF withdrawals of 8% to 12% or more per year begin to exceed what most equity portfolios generate without drawing down principal significantly. That is by design. The question for most retirees is not whether the RRIF will eventually require selling units, but how to sequence those withdrawals in a way that minimizes lifetime tax and keeps the household in the best overall position, including preserving TFSA room and managing OAS clawback exposure.
OAS Clawback: The Income Threshold You Cannot Ignore
OAS clawback, formally known as the OAS recovery tax, begins when your net income exceeds a threshold set at $93,454 for the July–December 2026 benefit period (based on 2025 income) and $90,997 for January–June 2026 (based on 2024 income). Once you cross that threshold, you repay 15 cents of OAS for every dollar of net income above it. A retiree with net income meaningfully above the clawback threshold can lose a significant portion of their annual OAS payment before they see a dollar of it.
RRIF withdrawals count as fully taxable income and push directly against that clawback threshold. This is one of the clearest arguments for keeping RRIF withdrawals at or near the minimum, especially if your CPP and OAS combined already put you close to the limit. Pulling excess RRIF income when you do not need it for spending is effectively paying 15 cents on the dollar in clawback before you even account for your marginal income tax rate on that withdrawal.
The smarter move for most retirees who do not need excess RRIF income is to take the minimum and redirect any surplus into their TFSA. Contributions to a TFSA in retirement are not limited by income, and once inside, the money grows and compounds without ever affecting your taxable income again. In 2026, TFSA contribution room is $7,000 per year, plus any previously unused or recontribution room. A retiree who has not maximized their TFSA over the years may have substantial room available, making it a meaningful destination for redirected RRIF dollars.
Research discussed by Canadian financial planners, including a detailed case study examined through the Boomer and Echo planning practice, showed that for a retiree with a seven-figure RRIF and modest external income, sticking to the minimum withdrawal strategy produced materially more after-tax estate value compared to aggressively drawing down the RRIF early. The minimum withdrawal approach also resulted in significantly less lifetime personal tax paid overall. More is not always better when it comes to RRIF withdrawals.
Managing RRIF Withdrawals Alongside CPP and OAS
Most Canadian retirees arrive at age 71 with multiple income sources stacking on top of each other: Canada Pension Plan payments, OAS, and now mandatory RRIF withdrawals. If you also have a workplace pension or significant non-registered investment income, you may find yourself in a surprisingly high marginal tax bracket despite being fully retired. The solution is not to reach for complex financial products or to hand your portfolio to an advisor charging 1.5% per year to manage it. It is to plan the order and timing of your income sources deliberately, ideally before you reach 71.
The window between retirement and age 71 is often called the “golden window” by Canadian financial planners. If you retire at 62 and your employment income disappears, you may have several years of relatively low taxable income before CPP, OAS, and RRIF minimums all arrive at once. Using those years to draw down your RRSP at a lower marginal rate reduces your future RRIF balance and therefore reduces future mandatory withdrawals. A smaller RRIF at 71 means smaller minimums, less risk of OAS clawback, and more flexibility in how you structure your income for the rest of retirement.
For Canadians still in their 50s and 60s holding XEQT or similar investments in their RRSP, this is worth thinking about now. The decisions you make in the decade before forced RRIF conversion have a larger impact on your retirement tax situation than almost anything you do after 71. Our guide to how much you need invested to retire works through the full retirement number calculation, including how RRSP and RRIF income stacks with CPP and OAS for different household scenarios.
The RRIF Reform Debate: Where Things Stand
For several years, there was genuine political momentum around reducing RRIF minimum withdrawal rates, with proposals to lower the percentages for all retirees or to raise the age at which mandatory withdrawals begin. As recently as mid-2025, the possibility of a reduced minimum was still an active discussion. By November 2025, both the Globe and Mail and Investment Executive confirmed that Ottawa had officially taken RRIF reform off the table for the current parliament. The rates you see today are the rates you are planning around.
What this means practically: if you were hoping a policy change would reduce your mandatory withdrawals, that calculation no longer applies. Build your withdrawal strategy around the rates as they stand, and look for optimization within the existing rules rather than counting on changes that did not materialize. The tools available to you inside the current framework, including the younger spouse election, the pension income credit, TFSA redirects, and income splitting after 65, are meaningful. They are just not as headline-grabbing as a policy change would have been.
For the full rate table, an interactive calculator, and year-by-year projections, visit the dedicated RRIF Minimum Withdrawal Rates 2026 guide on this site.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the RRIF minimum withdrawal at age 71? The CRA requires you to withdraw a minimum of 5.28% of your RRIF’s fair market value on January 1 of each year, beginning at age 71. The percentage rises each year after that. Your first mandatory withdrawal must come out in the calendar year after you open the RRIF, not the year of conversion itself.
Is RRIF income fully taxable? Yes. Every dollar you withdraw from a RRIF is counted as fully taxable income in the year you receive it, treated the same as employment income for tax purposes. There are no capital gains rates or dividend gross-up adjustments. This differs from withdrawals from a non-registered account, where only a portion of capital gains and eligible dividends is taxable. The one partial exception is the first $2,000 of RRIF income after age 65, which qualifies for the federal pension income tax credit.
Can I still hold XEQT inside a RRIF? Yes, completely. XEQT and other all-in-one ETFs are fully eligible holdings inside a RRIF. Your investments transfer in kind when you convert from RRSP to RRIF, meaning no sale and no taxable event at conversion. You simply begin taking your annual minimum by selling units as needed, or by using the fund’s quarterly distributions. There is no requirement to shift to a more conservative portfolio at the moment of conversion, though your own income needs and risk tolerance should guide your asset allocation decisions over time.
What happens to my RRIF when I die? If you have a surviving spouse or common-law partner named as the successor annuitant, your RRIF transfers to them without triggering a taxable event. If you do not have a surviving spouse, or if your spouse is named as beneficiary rather than successor annuitant, the full fair market value of the RRIF is added to your taxable income in the year of death. For estates with large RRIFs, this can produce a significant tax bill on the final return. It is one reason some financial planners recommend drawing down the RRIF more strategically for single retirees who have no surviving partner to receive the account.