RRIF Minimum Withdrawals: The Table, and What It Forces You to Do

You've been paying into a registered retirement savings plan, or RRSP, for most of your working life. In the year you turn 71 it has to become something else, and for most people that's a registered retirement income fund, or RRIF. From the year after you open one, you have to take money out every year, whether you need it or not. At 71 you take 5.28% of whatever you held on January 1, by 80 it's 6.82%, and at 95 it's 20%. You can always take more than that, but you can never take less and you can't skip a year.

Key takeaways

• Your minimum is your January 1 balance multiplied by a percentage set by your age. Nothing that happens during the year changes it.
• You get one year off. There's no minimum in the year you open the RRIF, only from the year after.
• The percentage rises every year, from 5.28% at 71 to 20% at 95.
• Nothing is held back for tax on the minimum. You get the full amount, and you settle the tax when you file.
• You can't stop the withdrawal, but you choose where the money lands. A TFSA will take it, and so will an ordinary investment account.

How much do you have to take out?

Your minimum is what your RRIF was worth on January 1, multiplied by the percentage for your age on that date. At 71 the percentage is 5.28%, so if you held $300,000 that morning, you have to be paid at least $15,840 before the year ends.¹

If you open your RRIF before you turn 71, you divide 1 by the number of years between your age and 90.¹ At 65 that gives you 4.00%. At 70 it gives you 5.00%. From 71 onward the percentages are set in a table, and they run like this.

These percentages haven't shifted since 2015, so what you plan around this year still holds next year.¹ Swap your own balance into that last column and the arithmetic works the same way.

If you opened your RRIF before 1993, an older set of percentages applies to you, and your carrier already knows.¹

The number is set on January 1

Your minimum gets calculated once a year, on the first morning of it, and then you're stuck with it.² In a good year you won't notice. In a bad one you will, because if your account falls after January 1, what you owe doesn't fall with it.

Say you held $300,000 on January 1 and by April you were down to $255,000. You still owe $15,840, worked out on the higher figure, and you're now selling a bigger slice of a smaller account to find it.

You don't have to work any of this out yourself. Your carrier, the bank or insurer holding the RRIF, calculates your minimum and puts it on your January statement. What that statement won't show you is what the withdrawal does to the rest of your income that year.

When does the first payment start?

The year after you open it. You have no minimum at all in the calendar year you set your RRIF up, so if you convert in September, your first required withdrawal isn't until the following year.³

That free year matters if you're converting late, because you get twelve months of choosing your own number before the percentage is set for you.

You don't have to wait for 71, either. You can move your RRSP into a RRIF at any age, and plenty of people do it in their sixties to get taxable income flowing while their rate is still low.⁵ Convert at 65 and your first minimum is 4.00% rather than the 5.28% you'd meet at 71.

Joanne is 61 and a few years from finishing work. If she converts at 65 with $300,000, her minimum starts at $12,000 a year instead of $15,840, and she gets six years of smaller, steadier withdrawals before the percentages get larger. Her next step is a projection of her income in each of those years, not a decision made at 70. The Question That Keeps Her Up follows her working out what she's actually got.

There's one thing you give up when you open a RRIF. You can't contribute to it again.⁴ So if you're still earning and you still want RRSP room, converting early costs you that.

What you can still decide

You can't stop the withdrawal itself. Four things around it are still yours to choose.

1. Whose age your percentage uses. If your spouse or common-law partner is younger than you, you can have your minimum worked out on their age rather than yours, and it comes out smaller every year afterwards.⁵ The catch is timing. You have to choose it on your original RRIF application form, and once you've made that election you can't change it, not later and not if they pass away first.⁵

2. When you convert. Go early and you get a lower percentage and a longer, flatter run of withdrawals. Wait and you get more years of untouched growth, then a bigger number when it starts.

3. Where the money goes after it leaves. You don't have to spend it. A TFSA will take it and shelter whatever it earns from then on, and an ordinary investment account takes the overflow once you've used your TFSA room up. Your account has to empty over your lifetime, which doesn't mean your spending has to rise to match it.

4. Whose return it gets taxed on. Once you're 65, your RRIF income counts as eligible pension income, so you and your spouse or common-law partner can elect to move up to half of it onto their return.⁷ Turning 65 also makes it eligible for the pension income amount, a federal credit worth up to $2,000.⁸ Neither reaches you before 65, which is why converting at 60 is a different decision from converting at 65.

Nothing is held back for tax on the minimum. Your carrier withholds nothing on it, by design, so you're paid the full amount and the tax on it is yours to settle by April 30.⁶ Anything you take above the minimum does have tax withheld, at 10% up to $5,000, 20% over $5,000 and 30% over $15,000, with lower federal rates in Quebec.⁶ If a surprise bill in April would wreck your spring, you can ask your carrier to withhold on the minimum too.⁶

Put your own balance and age into the RRIF minimum calculator and you'll get this year's number, plus the tax withheld on anything you take above it.

How much you'll be taking out at 85

The percentage more than triples between 71 and 95, so you'd expect the withdrawals to grow into something you can't manage. On most balances they don't, because each year's percentage lands on a smaller account than the year before.

Take that $300,000 at 71, growing at 4% a year, with only the minimum coming out. At 71 you take $15,840. At 85 you take about $17,455, which is 8.51% of a balance that has fallen to roughly $205,000.

The percentage rose by more than half over those fourteen years, but your payment only rose by about a tenth.

You'd see something different if your balance kept growing faster than you took money out, which happens on bigger accounts and strong returns. On those, a large minimum can reach your Old Age Security. For the 2026 income year that threshold sits at $95,323 of total income, and every dollar over it costs you 15 cents of your pension.⁹¹⁰ Converting part of your RRSP in your sixties keeps the yearly amounts smaller.

Your balance falls the whole way, and that's what the percentages are built to do. A RRIF is designed to empty over your lifetime, so if you're counting on yours to still hold a large amount in your nineties, you'd need returns well above what you're taking out.

What most people do with the money

Most people who still have a salary or a pension covering their costs put the minimum straight into a TFSA and leave it invested, because the withdrawal is forced and the spending isn't. It keeps growing, and nothing it earns from then on gets taxed.

If you need the income, the usual choice is the minimum and nothing more, because anything above it is taxed the same way, and there's rarely a reason to pull next year's tax bill into this year.

People with a younger spouse or common-law partner and no need for the cash usually elect the younger age when they open the account, because once that election is made it keeps working every year with nothing further to decide.

And a fair number convert part of an RRSP in their mid-sixties rather than all of it at 71, so the taxable income reaches them in smaller pieces across more years.

None of this is a rule for you. What else you report in the same year changes which one makes sense.

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Common questions

What happens if I don't take my RRIF minimum?+

It is not really a decision you can make. Your carrier is required to pay you the minimum every year, so the money comes out whether you ask for it or not. You choose when in the year it happens and whether you take more.

Do I pay tax on the whole RRIF withdrawal?+

Yes. Every dollar you take out of a RRIF is taxable income in the year you receive it, at your normal rate. Nothing is withheld on the minimum, so the tax on it is due when you file, by April 30 of the following year.

Can I take my minimum in shares instead of cash?+

Yes. Your minimum can be paid out in kind, meaning you move investments out of the RRIF rather than selling them. The full value still counts as your taxable income for the year. It saves you from selling at a bad moment. It does not save you tax.

Can I put money back into a RRIF?+

No. Once your RRIF is open, you cannot make any further contributions to it. If you are still earning and want to keep contributing, that has to happen in an RRSP before the end of the year you turn 71.

Does my minimum change if my spouse is younger than me?+

Only if you elected to use their age when the RRIF was set up. It is a one-time choice made on the original application form, and it cannot be undone afterwards.

Will my RRIF withdrawals affect my Old Age Security?+

They can. RRIF income counts toward the income the Old Age Security recovery tax is measured against. For the 2026 income year, total income above $95,323 means repaying 15% of the excess.

Further reading

• Retirement Income for Lifeby Frederick Vettese🍁 Canadian

  Canadian, and specifically about the drawdown half of retirement rather than the saving half.

Sources

1. CRAChart, prescribed factors: the required percentage at each age from 71 to 95 and older, and the 1 divided by (90 minus age) calculation below 71. Accessed 2026-09-02.
2. CRAMinimum amount from a RRIF: the minimum is the fair market value of the property held at the start of the year multiplied by the prescribed factor. Accessed 2026-09-02.
3. CRAReceiving income from a RRIF: the minimum starts the year after the RRIF is established, the payout period runs for life, and more may be withdrawn but not less. Accessed 2026-09-02.
4. CRASetting up a RRIF: once established, no further contributions may be made. Accessed 2026-09-02.
5. CRAReceiving income from an RRSP: the options up to the end of the year you turn 71, and the spouse or common-law partner age election, which must be made on the original RRIF application and cannot be changed. Accessed 2026-09-02.
6. CRARRSPs and RRIFs frequently asked questions, section 7: no withholding is required on minimum amounts; lump-sum rates of 10%, 20% and 30% apply above the minimum, with lower federal rates in Quebec; tax on the minimum is due by April 30 of the following year. Accessed 2026-09-02.
7. CRAPension income splitting: RRIF payments are eligible pension income where the transferring spouse or common-law partner is 65 or older at the end of the year. Accessed 2026-09-02.
8. CRAPension income amount, line 31400: up to $2,000 federally, with RRIF income qualifying without condition at 65 or older. Accessed 2026-09-02.
9. CRAIndexation adjustment for personal income tax and benefit amounts: the old age security repayment threshold by income year, $95,323 for 2026, $93,454 for 2025, $90,997 for 2024 and $86,912 for 2023. Accessed 2026-09-06.
10. Service CanadaRepayment of Old Age Security pension: for someone who lives in Canada, net income before adjustments at line 23400 above $93,454 for 2025 brings a repayment of 15% of the excess, entered on lines 23500 and 42200 and collected as a monthly recovery tax from July 2026 to June 2027. Accessed 2026-09-06.

Educational, not financial advice. Figures verified against primary sources on the date shown.

A RRIF withdrawal is taxed as ordinary income, the heaviest of the four treatments, and how investment income is taxed in Canada sets it beside the others. The retirement guides cover the rest of the drawdown question, from when to start CPP to which account to empty first.