Using a Younger Spouse's Age for Your RRIF Minimum
The box on the RRIF application form that sets your minimum by your spouse's age, and the one chance you get at it.
You're about to open a registered retirement income fund, or RRIF. Your spouse is younger than you. On the application form there's a box that sets your yearly minimum by their age instead of yours. If you tick it, your minimum comes out smaller, and it stays smaller every year for the life of the account. You can only tick it when your RRIF is opened, before it pays you anything, and once it's done it can't be changed. You lose nothing by ticking it, because a minimum is only ever the least that can come out, never a cap on the most.
Key takeaways
- Your RRIF minimum is your January 1 balance times a percentage set by an age, and the box on the form decides whose age it's worked out on.
- On your spouse's age you're on a smaller percentage every year, and the difference gets large after 85.
- You choose once, when the RRIF is opened and before it's paid you a cent. CRA says plainly that you cannot change it after that, and the Act fixes it on whoever was your spouse at that moment.
- Ticking the box doesn't limit you. You can still take more than your minimum in any year you want to.
What the box on the form actually does
A RRIF starts paying you a minimum in its second calendar year, and in every year after that.4 Your bank, credit union or insurer, which the rules call the carrier, works the amount out each January. It multiplies what's in your account by a percentage, and the percentage comes from a table keyed to an age.2 Unless you say otherwise, that age is yours. It's the one part of the calculation you get any say over.
You can ask for the percentage to be set by your spouse's age instead, or your common-law partner's.14 The tax rules call it an election, and it belongs to each RRIF on its own. CRA names both the place and the consequence. You select it on the RRIF's original application form. From that point, in CRA's own words, you cannot change it.51 You can miss it easily, and the reason is dull. It's one box on a form you sign on the same afternoon as a dozen others. Your carrier's application form is the only place it can be done, so the time to find that box is before you sign.
How much smaller does your minimum get?
Under 71 the percentage is one over 90 minus the age, which works out to exactly 4% at 65 and 3.33% at 60.3 From 71 a table takes over, starting at 5.28%.3 If you're 71 and your spouse is 65, using their age takes your first minimum from 5.28% of the balance to 4% of it. On $300,000 your first minimum is $12,000 rather than $15,840, and the other $3,840 stays in the account, earning untaxed, for at least another year.
| Whose age sets it | Age on January 1 | Percentage | Minimum on $300,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yours | 71 | 5.28% | $15,840 |
| A spouse three years younger | 68 | 4.55% | $13,637 |
| A spouse six years younger | 65 | 4.00% | $12,000 |
The money you aren't forced to take stays inside your RRIF, where whatever it earns isn't taxed until it comes out. Every dollar is still taxed when it leaves the account, and the election only changes which year.
Why the difference opens up late
Your spouse's percentage follows the same table as yours, six years behind if that's the gap between you. So in the year you'd be on the 80-year-old row at 6.82%, you'd instead be paid out on the 74-year-old row at 5.67%.3 The two percentages run close for the first ten years. The gap starts at 1.28 points, then narrows a little until your spouse turns 71 and joins the table. After that it opens up every year, reaching nine points by the time you're 95, when your own age would force a fifth of the account out. On your spouse's age you'd take about 11%.
What it adds up to over twenty years
Suppose your $300,000 earns 4% a year and nothing but the minimum comes out. That's an assumption, not a forecast, and you can change it when you run your own figures. On your own age, twenty years of minimums pay out about $338,500, and you'd reach 91 with about $137,600 left. On the age of a spouse six years younger, they pay out about $303,100, and you'd reach 91 with about $197,200 still in the account.
Roughly $59,600 more is still sheltered when you're 91, and roughly $35,400 less has been pushed into your income along the way. None of it has escaped tax. You'll pay it when the money does come out, whenever that is, and if you'd have spent the money anyway the difference shrinks to the growth it earned in between.
What changes when you tick it, and what doesn't
Tax held back at source. Nothing is withheld on your minimum.9 Anything above it has tax taken off first, at one of three rates set by how large that excess is, and if your funds are held in Quebec there's provincial tax withheld as well.8 The withholding guide works through what that costs. A smaller minimum means more of the same withdrawal sits above the line. If you take $15,840 on a $12,000 minimum, tax comes off your $3,840 of excess, where before you'd have been paid the whole $15,840 untouched. What's withheld is a prepayment against your bill rather than the bill itself, so your total for the year doesn't change.
Pension income splitting and the pension income amount. These run on your own age and the box does not touch them. Up to half your RRIF income can be reported by your spouse instead, whatever their age. What gates it is your own birthday: your payments only qualify once you've turned 65 by December 31.6 That same birthday of yours opens line 11500 and the pension income amount.7 So your spouse's age decides your minimum while your own age decides your tax. The box reaches the first of those and it doesn't touch the second.
What lands on your return. A smaller minimum is less income arriving in your name that year.4 Where that counts for most is if Old Age Security is being reduced on you, or nearly is. The clawback guide is where those numbers live.
Whose money it is. Using your spouse's age changes the percentage and nothing else about the account. It stays in your name, and you report the payments on your own return.4
If your spouse passes away first, or you separate
The Act sets the percentage by the age of the person who was your spouse or common-law partner at the time of the election.1 That wording is doing the work. The measuring life is fixed at the moment you tick the box, and nothing in the wording re-points it at whoever your spouse is later on. The Act settles the measuring life and stops there, so anything past that is worth putting to your own carrier directly.
If you already have a RRIF and never ticked it
The Act puts the election on the annuitant "under the fund", which means it belongs to one RRIF and not to you.1 That catches people who convert in stages. If you open a second RRIF later with more of your registered retirement savings plan, or RRSP, money, that second fund reverts to the default of your own age, and it needs its own tick on its own application form. The deadline runs again from scratch on the new fund: before it has paid you anything.
One more thing worth separating, because the names collide. A "spousal RRIF" is a different arrangement entirely, about who put the money in and whose income it counts as when it comes back out.9 Whose age measures your minimum has nothing to do with it, and you can have one, the other, both or neither.
See it with your own balance
The calculator on the tools page will do this with your own figures. Run your own numbers, putting in your January balance. Switch the age setting to your partner's and it tells you what the minimum becomes, what it would have been on your own age, and the difference between them. It also runs the balance forward year by year.
Ticking the box, or leaving it
The case for ticking it is that a smaller minimum never stops you taking more, so in the years you don't need the money it stays where it is and keeps compounding untaxed. The case for leaving it is thinner but real: if you'd take the larger amount anyway, the tax deferred on a few thousand dollars isn't worth a decision you can't undo. If the two of you are close in age, the difference is small. A three-year gap is worth roughly half what a six-year one is, and it keeps paying every year after.
Common questions
Does my spouse have to be younger than me?
No. You can use their age either way, but an older age gives you a bigger percentage and a bigger minimum, so it wouldn't help you. It only helps when they're younger than you.
I am converting my RRSP in stages. Does one election cover all of it?
No. The Act puts the election on one fund, so if you open a second RRIF later it's back to your own age unless you tick the box on that form too. You get the same deadline again on the new fund: before it's paid you anything.
Does my spouse have to be alive for this, or still my spouse?
The Act fixes your percentage on whoever was your spouse or common-law partner at the moment you elected, so the age it measures is settled then and the wording doesn't re-point it at anyone else afterwards. Anything past that you're best asking your own carrier.
Does using my spouse's age put the income on their tax return?
No. The money is still yours and it's taxed on your return. Moving some of it onto their return is pension income splitting, a separate choice you make on your return once you're 65 or older.
Can I still take more than the minimum?
Yes, as much as you want, in any year. Tax is held back at source on whatever you take above your minimum, and what's held back is a prepayment against your bill, not the bill itself.
Further reading
- Money for Couplesby Ramit Sethi
Not about RRIFs. It's about the conversation you have before one of you signs a form that shapes the money you'll both live on.
Sources
- Justice LawsIncome Tax Act, s.146.3(1), definition of "minimum amount", element B paragraph (b): where the first annuitant so elects before any payment has been made under the fund by the carrier, the factor is the one for an individual who was the spouse or common-law partner of the first annuitant at the time of the election. Accessed 2026-09-04.
- CRAChart of prescribed factors. The table is headed "Age of the RRIF annuitant or spouse or common-law partner". Accessed 2026-09-04.
- CRAChart of prescribed factors: if the age is 70 years or younger, the factor is 1 divided by (90 minus the age). From 71 the All other RRIFs column applies, starting at 0.0528. Accessed 2026-09-04.
- CRAReceiving income from a RRIF: the carrier calculates the minimum on your age at the beginning of each year, you can elect to have the payment based on your spouse's or common-law partner's age, and you can withdraw more but not less than the minimum. Accessed 2026-09-04.
- CRAReceiving income from an RRSP: you must select this option when filling out the original RRIF application form, and once you make this election you cannot change it. Accessed 2026-09-04.
- CRAPension income splitting: you can split eligible pension income with your spouse or common-law partner regardless of their age, if you meet the other conditions and reached 65 before the end of the tax year. RRIF income is eligible where the transferring spouse or partner is 65 or older at the end of the year. Allocation is up to 50%, on Form T1032. Accessed 2026-09-04.
- CRALine 11500, other pensions and superannuation: if you are 65 or older on December 31, RRIF amounts from boxes 16 and 22 of your T4RIF are entered on line 11500. The same birthday is the gateway to the pension income amount at line 31400. Accessed 2026-09-04.
- CRATax rates on withdrawals: for residents of Canada the rates are 10% (5% in Quebec) on amounts up to $5,000, 20% (10% in Quebec) on amounts exceeding $5,000 up to and including $15,000, and 30% (15% in Quebec) on amounts over $15,000. For funds held in the province of Quebec there will also be provincial tax withheld. Accessed 2026-09-05.
- CRARRSPs and RRIFs, administrators' questions: "No withholding is required on minimum amounts." Also the spousal or common-law partner RRSP and RRIF designation, which concerns who contributed and how the income is attributed. Accessed 2026-09-05.
Educational, not financial advice. Figures verified against primary sources on the date shown.
See it in a story: "The Question That Keeps Her Up," where Joanne starts asking how thirty years of savings come back out. For the table behind the minimum, see RRIF minimum withdrawals; for the year your RRSP becomes a RRIF, the conversion guide; or browse the whole retirement hub.