Spousal RRSPs: how they work

A spousal or common-law partner RRSP is an RRSP that belongs to your partner but that you pay into. You get the tax deduction; your partner owns the savings and, once a waiting period has passed, withdrawals are taxed as their income. For a couple, it’s a way to build retirement savings in two names instead of one.

How it works

• You contribute, your partner owns it. Your partner is the plan’s annuitant, the person it will pay retirement income to. Generally, only the annuitant can withdraw from an RRSP.
• You claim the deduction. The receipt shows you as the contributor and your partner as the annuitant, and you deduct the contribution on your own return, the same way as for your own RRSP. See RRSP basics for how the deduction saves tax.
• The label sticks. Any of your partner’s RRSPs that you contributed to is a spousal RRSP. So is an RRSP that received money from a spousal RRSP, and a RRIF that received money from one.

The contribution room is yours

What you put into your own RRSPs and into spousal RRSPs shares one limit: your RRSP deduction limit, shown on your notice of assessment. A spousal RRSP doesn’t give you extra room.

Age works differently, though. You can contribute to a spousal RRSP until the end of the year your partner turns 71, even if you’re older and can no longer pay into your own RRSP. Your deduction is still limited to your available room.

If you die, your legal representative can contribute to your surviving partner’s RRSP in the year of death or the first 60 days of the following year, and claim the deduction on your final return, up to your deduction limit for that year.

The three-year rule on withdrawals

If your partner takes money out of a spousal RRSP, and you contributed to any spousal RRSP for them in the year of the withdrawal or either of the two years before, some or all of the withdrawal is taxed as your income instead of theirs.

As the CRA’s worked example in Guide T4040 shows, the amount taxed to you is generally the lesser of:

• what you contributed to all spousal RRSPs for your partner in those three years, and
• what your partner withdrew.

For example, for a withdrawal in 2025, contributions you made in 2023, 2024 and 2025 count. The CRA’s advice: if you don’t want any of a withdrawal taxed to you, don’t contribute to any of your partner’s RRSPs in the year they withdraw or in the two years before.

Your partner works out how much each of you reports on Form T2205. The tax slip is usually in your partner’s name, and whoever the slip is issued to claims the tax that was withheld, but each of you reports income according to the form.

The rule doesn’t apply if, at the time of the withdrawal, you were living apart because your relationship had broken down, or either of you wasn’t a resident of Canada. It also doesn’t apply if the contributor dies in the year of the withdrawal, to amounts your partner is treated as receiving because they died, or to some direct transfers to another registered plan or annuity.

Two more things to watch. A transfer from a spousal RRSP to your partner’s first home savings account that’s treated as a taxable withdrawal can fall under the same rule. And if your partner takes money out under the Home Buyers’ Plan or the Lifelong Learning Plan, you may not be able to deduct contributions you made to their spousal RRSP in the 89 days before.

When it becomes a RRIF

An RRSP generally has to mature by the end of the year the owner turns 71, when the money is withdrawn, moved to a RRIF or used to buy an annuity; see converting your RRSP to a RRIF. A RRIF that receives money from a spousal RRSP is a spousal RRIF.

Your partner must take at least a yearly minimum from a RRIF, starting the year after it’s set up. Only amounts above that minimum can be taxed back to you under the three-year rule. The minimum is your partner’s income.

Does it still help with pension income splitting?

Couples can also jointly elect to move up to half of one partner’s eligible pension income to the other’s return, which does some of the same job. See pension income splitting. But splitting has limits that a spousal RRSP doesn’t:

• Age. RRIF payments and RRSP annuity payments count as eligible pension income only if the person receiving them is 65 or older at the end of the year (or received them because their spouse died). Withdrawals from a spousal RRSP, once you’re past the three-year window, are taxed to your partner whatever their age, which can matter if you retire before 65.
• Lump sums. Ordinary RRSP withdrawals aren’t eligible pension income at any age, so they can’t be split on your returns.
• Half at most. You can allocate up to 50% of eligible pension income. Withdrawals from a spousal RRSP outside the three-year window are taxed entirely to your partner.

The two aren’t either-or. Each of you is taxed separately, at rates that rise with income, and both are ways to even out your incomes. Like splitting, a spousal RRSP moves income onto your partner’s return, so both change each partner’s net income. That affects amounts based on one person’s income, such as the age amount and the Old Age Security repayment.

What to do

1. Check your RRSP deduction limit before contributing; spousal contributions use your room.
2. Keep track of the years you contribute, and plan withdrawals for a year when you haven’t contributed for three calendar years: that year and the two before.
3. If your partner withdraws within that window, have them complete Form T2205 so each of you reports the right amount.
4. Once RRIF payments start, remember the minimum is always taxed to your partner, but amounts above it can be taxed to you if you contributed recently. Our RRSP and RRIF withdrawals calculator shows the tax on a withdrawal.