Is Each Year in Canada Worth $19 a Month? How Old Age Security Works If You Moved Here Later

How each year becomes $19 a month

OAS is a monthly pension for people 65 and older. Canada's retirement income is often described in three layers, and OAS is the first. The second is the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), based on what you paid in while working. The third is your own savings, such as an RRSP or a workplace pension.

Unlike CPP, OAS is paid from general tax revenue, not from contributions taken from your pay. So the number of years you worked has nothing to do with it. Here's how it compares for people who live in Canada until 65:

For October to December 2026, the full OAS pension is $762.50 a month for ages 65 to 74. A full pension needs 40 years of residence in Canada after age 18. With fewer years, you get 1/40 of the full pension for each complete year, and 1/40 of $762.50 is about $19. Partial years don't count.

You need at least 10 years of residence to qualify, and 20 years for the pension to be paid while you live outside Canada. The amounts are adjusted for inflation four times a year, in January, April, July and October. OAS counts as taxable income.

How much difference the age you moved makes

Here's the monthly pension at 65, depending on the age you started living in Canada. These figures assume you lived in Canada continuously until 65; time spent living abroad along the way reduces your years of residence.

Someone who arrived at 35 and stayed gets 75% of the full amount, about $190 a month less than a lifelong resident. Over 20 years of retirement, that's roughly $46,000 in today's dollars. And once payments start, additional years in Canada don't increase them.

Starting later pays more

You can delay OAS up to age 70. Each month of delay adds 0.6%, so starting at 70 pays 36% more for life. For a full pension, that's $1,037.00 a month at today's rates instead of $762.50.

If you're still building up years of residence after 65, there's a catch. Delaying can raise your pension either by adding more years or through the 0.6% monthly increase on the years you had at 65, but not both. You get whichever is higher. For someone who arrived at 35, starting at 70 with the increase on 30 years gives $777.75 a month, more than the $667.19 from counting 35 years without it.

For someone who arrived late, delaying can also be the only way to qualify. A person who moved at 58 has only 7 years at 65 and can't receive OAS yet. Waiting until 68 gives them 10 years and a pension of about $190 a month. In that case, there's no 0.6% increase for the years from 65 to 68, before they qualified.

A useful guide to whether delaying pays off is the break-even point. A person with a full pension who starts at 70 gives up $45,750 they could have received from 65 to 69, and makes it back at $274.50 a month extra. Ignoring taxes and inflation adjustments, they catch up at nearly 84. Live longer than that, and starting at 70 pays more in total.

People with low incomes who expect to receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS, see below) can lose out by delaying, though. You can't get the GIS while you're not receiving OAS, and the GIS doesn't increase when you wait.

At 75, OAS goes up another 10%. The full pension for ages 75 and over is $838.75 a month, and the increase also applies to a pension that was delayed.

High incomes reduce it (the clawback)

OAS is reduced for people with high incomes. For 2026 income, the pension is cut by 15% of net income above $95,323, and the reduction comes out of payments from July 2027 to June 2028. At October to December 2026 rates, OAS disappears entirely above $155,320 of income for ages 65 to 74 and $161,320 for 75 and over. Those upper figures assume a full pension. If you receive a partial pension because you have fewer than 40 years, your OAS can be clawed back completely at a lower income.

Withdrawals from an RRSP or RRIF count toward that income, but TFSA withdrawals don't. Which account you draw from, and when, can therefore change how much OAS you keep, as we covered in our RRSP article.

Can years in Japan count?

Canada and Japan have had a social security agreement since March 1, 2008. For OAS, your years in Japan's public pension, such as Kokumin Nenkin or Kosei Nenkin, can count toward the 10-year minimum. Japanese periods after age 18 are counted, as long as you have at least one year of residence in Canada, and periods that overlap aren't counted twice. The amount, though, is still based only on your years in Canada.

In other words, the agreement lets you add the years to qualify, but not to raise the amount. Only years in Canada are worth about $19 a month each. Someone who moved at 58 and had 5 years in Japan's pension can receive OAS at 65 based on 7 years in Canada, about $133 a month, instead of nothing.

Japanese periods can also help meet the 20-year minimum for receiving OAS outside Canada. That's worth knowing if you might move back to Japan one day.

The agreement works the other way too. Japan's old-age basic pension has required at least 10 years of coverage since August 2017, and years you paid into CPP can count toward that. Japan then pays its own pension, separately, based on your Japanese years. We'll look at how Japanese and Canadian pensions compare in a later article.

Extra help for low incomes

On top of OAS, low-income seniors may receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), up to $1,138.90 a month for a single person in October to December 2026. In BC, there's also the BC Senior's Supplement.

Even if your OAS is below the full amount, you may qualify for the GIS if your income is low. What you actually receive depends not only on your years of residence but also on household income and marital status. People who came to Canada through family sponsorship generally can't receive the GIS during the sponsorship period. Under rules in effect since October 1, 2025, that restriction lasts for the whole sponsorship agreement, which for parents and grandparents is 20 years outside Quebec; how it applies depends on when and under what terms the agreement was made. We'll cover the GIS and the BC Senior's Supplement in a separate article.

Estimate your own OAS

Enter the age you started living in Canada and when you plan to start OAS. If you were in Japan's pension before moving, add those years too. The calculator also shows the increase at 75, the clawback and, if you enter your CPP estimate, your total public pension.

The same calculator is also on our OAS calculator page.

For a more accurate picture, sign in to My Service Canada Account (MSCA) and check your CPP Statement of Contributions and your estimated CPP pension at different starting ages. Enter that monthly amount in the "Expected CPP pension" box to see your OAS and CPP together.

The year you arrived stays with you

For people who grew up in Canada, OAS is close to a fixed amount. For people who moved here as adults, it's one of the clearest ways the year they arrived shows up in their retirement income. Each year makes a difference of about $19 a month for life, and 10 years is the minimum to receive anything.

The later you arrived, the more it matters when you start OAS and whether you can keep your retirement income below the clawback threshold. Next in this series, we'll look at the CPP, the second layer.

This article is general information, not financial advice. Your actual OAS is decided by Service Canada; check your own situation in My Service Canada Account.