RRSP & RRIF withdrawals calculator

How this works

Your RRIF minimum

From the year after you open a RRIF, you have to take out at least a minimum each year. It’s the RRIF’s value on January 1 multiplied by a factor the CRA prescribes for your age on January 1. If you chose, when you set up the RRIF, to use your spouse’s or common-law partner’s age, the factor is for their age instead; that choice can’t be changed later. There’s no minimum in the year you open the RRIF, and nothing is withheld from the minimum. You can take more, but not less.

At age 70 or younger the factor is 1 ÷ (90 − your age): at 65, that’s 0.0400. From 71, it comes from CRA’s chart.

Tax withheld at source

When you take money out of an RRSP, or more than the minimum out of a RRIF, your financial institution withholds tax and sends it to the CRA (and Quebec tax to Revenu Québec). One rate applies to the whole amount, set by its size. For a RRIF, it applies only to the part above the minimum.

Outside Quebec, the rate covers federal and provincial or territorial tax together. In Quebec, the CRA’s rate is for federal tax only, and Revenu Québec’s rate of 14% is withheld as well (for a single payment; regular RRIF payments above the minimum use Revenu Québec’s usual formulas). Figures shown are for 2025; the calculator uses the year you pick.

• Withholding is a prepayment, not your final tax. The withdrawal is added to your income for the year, and you claim the tax withheld on your return. If the tax the withdrawal really adds is more than what was withheld, you owe the difference when you file; if it’s less, you get it back.
• Splitting a withdrawal doesn’t change the tax you owe. The rate withheld depends on the size of the withdrawal (your financial institution is told to combine the lump sums it pays you in the year), but the tax you owe depends on your total income for the year, however many withdrawals make it up.

The tax it really adds

We work out your income tax for the year twice with the same engine as our income tax calculator: with your other income only, then with the withdrawal added. The difference is the tax the withdrawal adds, so tax brackets and credits that shrink as income rises are taken into account.

• An RRSP withdrawal is fully taxable income (line 12900 of your return). It never counts as pension income for the pension income amount, at any age, so we add it as ordinary taxable income. In Quebec it’s “other income”, which doesn’t give the amount for retirement income either.
• RRIF payments count as pension income. If you’re 65 or older on December 31, they qualify for the pension income amount; under 65, they’re taxed without it. In Quebec, RRIF payments give the amount for retirement income at any age.
• For a RRIF withdrawal, your minimum (from the first part) is counted as income both times, since you receive it either way. We also show the tax on the minimum itself, which nothing is withheld from.
• Age: the return uses your age on December 31, so we use your January 1 age plus one (we assume your birthday isn’t January 1).

What’s left out

• Old Age Security recovery tax. A large withdrawal can raise your net income above the threshold; we flag it when it does.
• Spouse or partner amounts, pension income splitting and spousal RRSP or RRIF rules.
• Deductions and other credits, such as RRSP contributions, donations and medical expenses; and benefits that shrink as income rises, such as the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (formerly the GST/HST credit) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement.
• Withdrawals with nothing withheld: Home Buyers’ Plan and Lifelong Learning Plan withdrawals, refunds of unused contributions with an approved Form T3012A, and transfers straight to another registered plan. Payers also don’t withhold from a lump sum if your total earnings for the year, including it, are less than the claim amount on your TD1 form; and if you ask, they can work out the withholding from your whole year’s income instead.
• Non-residents of Canada, who have non-resident tax withheld instead.
• In Quebec, the prescription drug insurance premium.

More in Converting your RRSP to a RRIF and RRSP basics.

Sources

The factors, withholding rates and tax figures come from our tax data for the year, taken from the CRA (and Revenu Québec for Quebec), the same data as our rates tables. How each withdrawal is reported comes from CRA’s line 31400 page and Revenu Québec’s guide to the 2025 TP-1 return (lines 122 and 154).