How is your retirement pension under the Québec Pension Plan calculated?

If you are age 18 or over and your employment earnings exceed the basic exemption of $3500, you are contributing to the Québec Pension Plan (QPP), except if you are receiving a disability pension. Three factors will affect the amount of your retirement pension under the QPP:

the number of years you contributed to the Plan
the employment earnings on which you contributed
when you filed your application for your pension, that is, before or after your 65th birthday.

Remember:

You can apply for your retirement pension as soon as you turn 60, even if you are working. However, it is only on your 65th birthday that you are entitled to the full amount of your pension.
If you apply for your retirement pension before age 65, your pension under the QPP will be reduced throughout your retirement. For example, an application filed at age 60 could reduce the amount of your pension up to 36%. Think about it!
If you wait after your 65th birthday, your pension will be enhanced for each month between your 65th birthday and the time you file your application. At age 70, the enhancement of your pension will have reached its maximum.

See the Variation in retirement pension amounts according to age — 2022
table for more details.

If you apply for your retirement pension under the QPP at age 65, it will replace between 25% and 33% of the average monthly employment earnings on which you contributed. The rate is 25% in the base plan, to which is added a percentage that varies based on the number of years during which you contributed to the additional plan since it was introduced in 2019.

The retirement pension amount is adjusted, when it is paid, in January of each year, according to the increase in the cost of living. In 2022, the maximum monthly amount of the retirement pension for a new beneficiary at age 65 is $1253.59.

A financial planner can help you choose the best time for you to start receiving your retirement pension under the QPP by taking into account your financial resources and your overall needs.

Did you know that you can...

now consult your digital Statement of Participation under the Québec Pension Plan in My Account to find out the amount of employment earnings entered under your name and obtain an estimate of the amounts that could be paid to you or your family in the event of retirement, death or disability?
estimate your retirement income with our SimulR or CompuPension tools?

Once good financial planning for retirement has been carried out and you will have decided to apply for your pension, access My Account to use a pre-completed form and benefit from personalized steps.

If you received the simplified application included in the document entitled Spotlight on your retirement, you can also use it. We automatically mail it to certain persons a few months before their 65th birthday. For more information on your pension's conditions of payment, consult our website.

Update

Since November 2022, the simplified Spotlight on your retirement application is uploaded to your digital file as soon as you reach age 64 and 6 months. The payment of your pension begins the month after the application has been accepted or the month after your 65th birthday.

The Québec Pension Plan in 2020

Base plan under the Québec Pension Plan

4 199 000contributors

$16.0 Bin contributions collected

2 136 078beneficiaries

$15.6 Bin benefits paid

$86.5 Bfair value of the QPP's base plan's fund

7.4%Return on the QPP's
base plan's fund

8.3%Average return in the last 5 years

11.4%Contribution rate
(11.8% in 2021
[QPP's base plan: 10.8% – QPP's additional plan: 1.0%])

QPP's additional plan

$894.3 Min contributions collected

$1.3 BFair value of the QPP's additional plan's fund

8.0%Return of the QPP's additional plan's fund

Data taken from Retraite Québec's Rapport annuel de gestion 2020 (2020 Annual Management Report; French only)