CPP at 60, 65 or 70: The Math on When to Start

Starting CPP at 60 gets you 36% less every month for life. Waiting until 70 gets you 42% more. In total dollars, taking it at 65 instead of 60 comes out ahead if you live past about 74, and waiting until 70 beats 65 if you live past about 82.

The average 65-year-old in Canada lives longer than both. Statistics Canada puts remaining life expectancy at 65 at 19.7 years for men and 22.3 years for women, which takes the average man to almost 85 and the average woman past 87. On the numbers alone, most people who can afford to wait collect more by waiting.

What you'd get at 60, 65 and 70

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) retirement pension is based on how much you earned and contributed over your working life. You can start it any time between 60 and 70. Every month before 65 cuts it by 0.6%, and every month after 65 adds 0.7%, so the full range runs from 64% to 142% of your age-65 amount.

Using the average new pension at 65 ($858.34 a month in July 2026) and the 2026 maximum at 65 ($1,507.65):

These are in today's dollars. CPP rises with inflation once it starts, so the gap between them holds in real terms.

Most people don't get anywhere near the maximum, because it takes decades of earnings at or above the CPP earnings ceiling. Your own estimate is in your My Service Canada Account, and that's the number to use for everything below.

The break-even ages

Starting early gets you more cheques, and starting late gets you bigger ones. The break-even age is when the bigger cheques have caught up.

Take the 60-versus-65 case with the average pension. Starting at 60, you collect $549 a month for five years before the person who waited gets anything, about $33,000. From 65 on, the person who waited gets $309 more every month. It takes them about nine years to make up the $33,000, which brings them to just before their 74th birthday.

By 80, someone who started at 65 has collected about $23,000 more than someone who started at 60:

Average pension, in today's dollars. Canooq's calculation.

These break-even ages assume the money from an early start just sits there. If you'd invest it instead and earn 2% a year above inflation, they move out by a year or two, to about 75 for 60 versus 65 and about 84 for 65 versus 70. That's still short of the 85 to 87 the average 65-year-old reaches.

Why waiting works like insurance

Choosing when to start is partly a bet on how long you'll live, and the two ways of losing it don't cost the same.

If you wait until 70 and die at 76, you collected less than you could have, but you never had to live on the smaller amount. If you start at 60 and live to 95, you spend your 80s and 90s on a pension 36% smaller than it could have been, at the age when savings are most likely to be running thin. A bigger CPP is guaranteed, inflation-protected income for life, and buying the same thing as an annuity costs a lot.

That's the case for living on your RRSP or other savings in your 60s and letting CPP grow, if you can afford to. Canooq's retirement calculator shows how CPP, OAS and your savings add up month by month.

When starting at 60 makes sense

Starting early wins in three situations:

• You're in poor health. If you don't expect to reach your late 70s, the early cheques are worth more.
• You need the money. If waiting means carrying credit card debt or selling investments at a bad time, taking CPP at 60 costs less than paying 20% interest or selling at a loss.
• You've stopped working and have nothing else to live on. CPP at 60 can fill the gap until Old Age Security (OAS) starts at 65.

If one spouse dies, the survivor can get a CPP survivor's pension, but someone who already gets their own CPP can't receive both in full. The two are combined into one payment, capped at roughly the maximum retirement pension, with only the newer enhanced part of CPP added on top. If one of you will likely outlive the other by many years, ask Service Canada to estimate both scenarios before deciding.

How to apply

CPP never starts on its own. You apply online through My Service Canada Account, and you can do it up to 12 months before you want payments to begin. If you're past 65 and forgot, you can ask for up to 11 months of back payments, but not before the month after your 65th birthday. After 70, the pension stops growing, so apply by then.

The decision is close to permanent once payments start, so check your own statement first. Multiply your age-65 estimate by 0.64 and by 1.42 to see what you'd get at 60 and at 70.