RRIF Minimum Withdrawal Rates 2026: Table by Age

Once your RRSP becomes a RRIF, the government requires you to withdraw a minimum amount every year, whether you need the income or not. This isn’t optional and it isn’t a suggestion; it’s how the account is legally structured to ensure it eventually pays out. Understanding exactly how that minimum is calculated, when it first applies, and how much control you actually have over the number matters, because the difference between a well-planned RRIF and an accidental one can run into tens of thousands of dollars over a retirement.

This page focuses on the minimum withdrawal itself: the rate for each age, how it is calculated, what happens in your first year, how the younger-spouse election changes it, and withdrawing more than the minimum. The conversion steps are in the RRSP to RRIF conversion guide, withholding and the rest of the rules in RRIF withdrawal rules, and the tax on a withdrawal can be estimated with the RRSP withdrawal tax calculator. Other RRIF guides are in the RRSP and RRIF guide directory.

How the Minimum Is Calculated

• No minimum in the year you open the RRIF; it starts the next year.
• The factor uses your age at the beginning of the year, or your spouse's or partner's age if you elect it.
• Up to age 70 the factor is 1 ÷ (90 − age).
• From 71 the factor is CRA's prescribed factor for your age (almost every RRIF uses the column for all other RRIFs).
• You can withdraw more than the minimum but not less.

Your RRIF minimum isn’t a fixed dollar amount. It’s a percentage of your account balance that your RRIF carrier recalculates every year based on your age, using factors set in the tax rules. There are actually two different ways that percentage gets determined, depending on how old you are:

Under age 71: the factor is a simple formula, 1 ÷ (90 − your age). At 65, that’s 1 ÷ 25 = 4.00%. At 70, it’s 1 ÷ 20 = 5.00%.

Age 71 and older: CRA switches to a prescribed statutory percentage table instead of the formula. This matters because anyone who converts in the year they turn 71 (the conversion deadline) takes their first minimum the following year, so for them this table, not the formula, is the one that applies.

Either way, the calculation itself is the same three-step process: take your RRIF’s fair market value on January 1, look up the percentage for your age that year, and multiply. There’s no rounding trick or averaging involved; it’s a straight percentage of a single snapshot value.

Worked example: Say you’re 75 on January 1, and your RRIF was worth $400,000 that morning. The prescribed factor at 75 is 5.82%. Your minimum for the year is $400,000 × 5.82% = $23,280. That’s the floor; you can withdraw more, but not less, without triggering the shortfall issue covered below.

For age 70 or younger: 1 / (90 - age). Source: Canada Revenue Agency – Chart: Prescribed factors. The factor for all other RRIFs applies to virtually every RRIF opened after 1992. Separate factors for qualifying RRIFs (ages 71 to 78) apply only to RRIFs that were qualifying RRIFs at the end of 1992, and the pre-March 1986 category is a legacy case.

Notice how the percentage doesn’t rise smoothly; it accelerates. The jump from 65 to 75 is modest, but from 85 onward the required withdrawal grows quickly, reaching 20% of the balance each year at 95 and older. If you’d rather skip the table lookup and just plug in your own numbers, the RRIF calculator does the math for any age and balance.

No Minimum in Your First Year

There is one clean exception to all of this: whatever calendar year you actually open your RRIF, no minimum withdrawal is required at all, not a full one and not a pro-rated one. It doesn’t matter whether you convert in January or December; the first mandatory minimum only kicks in the following January 1, calculated on your balance that day.

This creates a small but genuinely useful planning window. If you convert late in the year, say in November, you get a few weeks of RRIF ownership with zero withdrawal obligation, and your first real minimum won’t be calculated until over a year later. Some retirees use this to time a conversion for December specifically: it delays the first mandatory withdrawal by as much as possible while still meeting the deadline requirements, without changing anything else about the plan.

You’re still allowed to take a voluntary withdrawal in that first year if you want the income; it’s simply not required, and it isn’t measured against any minimum threshold since none applies yet.

The Younger Spouse Election

When you first open your RRIF, you get a one-time choice: calculate your minimum based on your own age, or base it on your spouse’s or common-law partner’s age instead, even if you’re the one who owns the account and receives the payments. If your spouse is younger, this lowers your mandatory minimum every single year for the rest of the RRIF’s life, because younger ages carry smaller percentage factors.

The catch is that it’s irrevocable. You make this election once, at setup, and it cannot be changed later, not if your spouse dies first, not if you separate, not for any reason. That permanence is exactly why it’s worth running the numbers before you convert rather than after.

Worked example: You’re 75 with a $500,000 RRIF. Using your own age, the factor is 5.82%, for a $29,100 minimum. If your spouse is 65 and you elect to use their age instead, the factor drops to 1 ÷ (90 − 65) = 4.00%, for a $20,000 minimum: $9,100 less forced withdrawal in that single year alone, all of which keeps compounding tax-deferred instead of becoming taxable income you didn’t need.

The election tends to make the most sense when your spouse is meaningfully younger (roughly five or more years), when you don’t need the extra income the higher minimum would produce, or when the priority is preserving RRIF value for your estate. It tends to matter less when your ages are close, when you actually want higher withdrawals for current spending, or when there are health considerations that make near-term access to funds more valuable than long-term deferral.

Withdrawing More Than the Minimum

The minimum is a floor, not a target. Plenty of retirees choose to withdraw more, and the right amount depends on what you’re trying to accomplish:

If your goal is minimizing tax over time, withdrawing only the minimum keeps the most money growing tax-deferred inside the RRIF for as long as possible. This tends to work best when CPP, OAS, or a workplace pension already covers your day-to-day spending, so the RRIF doesn’t need to pull its weight for current income.

If your goal is smoothing income across years, you can use the RRIF as a flexible top-up: take extra in years when your other income is low, and stick to the minimum in years when it’s already high. Because RRIF withdrawals are fully taxable, pulling more in a $30,000-income year costs far less in tax than pulling the same amount in an $80,000-income year, since the marginal rate on that last dollar is what matters, not the average.

If your goal is managing OAS clawback or a large future balance, it can sometimes make sense to withdraw deliberately more than the minimum well before the mandatory percentages become steep (typically in your late 70s and 80s). Paying tax on the withdrawal now, while your bracket is manageable, can beat being forced into much larger mandatory withdrawals later at a higher bracket, especially if the excess gets redirected into a TFSA, where it can keep growing tax-free without ever counting toward the OAS clawback threshold again.

Withdrawals above the minimum aren’t free of friction, though: they trigger withholding tax at source, unlike the minimum itself. See RRIF withdrawal rules for the full withholding tax tiers and how OAS clawback is actually calculated, and use the RRSP withdrawal tax calculator to model an above-minimum withdrawal before you take it.

RRIF vs. LIF, Multiple RRIFs, and Payment Frequency

A few related questions come up often enough to mention, even though they’re not really about the minimum itself:

• RRIF vs. LIF: if your account came from a workplace pension rather than an RRSP, you likely hold a LIF, not a RRIF. LIFs share the same minimum-withdrawal mechanics described above, but also carry a maximum withdrawal cap that RRIFs don’t have. See the difference between a RRIF and a LIF for the full comparison.
• Multiple RRIFs: each RRIF you hold has its own minimum, and each carrier has to pay that plan’s minimum out of that plan, so taking extra from one RRIF doesn’t cover another’s minimum. Consolidating into one RRIF is the usual way to have a single minimum. See how to open a RRIF for more on managing multiple accounts.
• Payment frequency: RRIF carriers commonly offer monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual payments; ask yours whether and how the schedule can be changed. Monthly suits retirees who want steady income; annual withdrawals (often taken near year-end) maximize the time your money stays invested.

What Happens at Death

A RRIF doesn’t simply stop when the holder dies. What happens next depends heavily on who’s named as beneficiary or successor annuitant. This is a large enough topic that it has its own dedicated pages: see what happens to your RRIF when you die for the full mechanics, tax treatment, and executor responsibilities, and successor annuitant vs. beneficiary for how to choose the right designation while you’re still setting things up.

Related Resources

• RRIF Calculator
• RRIF Withdrawal Rules Canada 2026
• RRSP to RRIF Conversion Guide
• Best Time to Convert RRSP to RRIF
• The Difference Between a RRIF and a LIF
• What Happens to Your RRIF When You Die in Canada?
• Spousal RRSP Guide
• OAS Clawback Calculator