Quick answer
Above the year's income threshold — $95,323 for 2026 — OAS is clawed back at 15% of every dollar of net income over that line, up to the full pension paid. In the calculator's own worked example, $110,000 of net income is $14,677.00 over the threshold, producing a $2,201.55 recovery tax and leaving $6,797.94 of the $8,999.49 maximum annual OAS for a 65–74-year-old who didn't defer.
How this calculator works
Every dollar of net income above the year's threshold costs 15 cents of OAS, up to the full OAS pension you were paid that year — CRA calls this the Recovery Tax; almost everyone else calls it the clawback. This calculator takes your net income before adjustments, your age band, your province and any months you deferred OAS past 65, works out the maximum OAS you're entitled to for the year, applies the 15% repayment above the threshold (capped at the OAS pension you were paid), and shows what income tax the OAS you keep adds to your return.
OAS kept = OAS for the year − Recovery tax
Taxable income = net income − Recovery tax (the repayment is deducted at line 23500)
Income tax on OAS kept = Tax(taxable income) − Tax(taxable income − OAS kept)
The "income at which OAS reaches zero" row is the threshold plus the year's OAS divided by 15%, computed from the four published 2026 quarterly OAS amounts. At zero deferral it matches canada.ca's final 2026 maximum income thresholds: $155,319.60 for the 65–74 band and $161,319.40 for 75-and-over here, which canada.ca rounds up to the whole dollar — $155,320 and $161,320.
The threshold moves every year — and the withholding runs behind
The recovery tax is worked out on the same year's income and threshold: your 2026 income is compared against the 2026 threshold, and the repayment is a tax for 2026, payable with your 2026 return, by the balance-due day for the year (30 April 2027 for most people). Whatever was withheld from your 2026 OAS counts toward it: that amount appears in box 22 of the year's T4A(OAS) slip and is claimed on line 43700 of your return. If 2026 is the first year your income is over the threshold, no recovery tax will normally have been withheld from your 2026 payments, because that withholding is set from your 2024 and 2025 incomes, and the whole repayment is then added to what you owe on that return.
Withholding is only an estimate, and it is the part that runs behind. Payments from July to December are withheld using the previous year's income and payments from January to June using the income of two years earlier, taken from the return for that year once it has been filed, so the 2026 income you enter here sets the withholding that starts in July 2027, about six months after the year ends. That withholding is on account of your 2027 tax, and then your 2028 tax; it does not collect the 2026 repayment, which is due with your 2026 return. If your income falls after a high-income year, the withholding, still set from the earlier year, can be more than you end up owing; the excess is credited on that year's return (line 43700), and Form T1213(OAS) (below) exists to reduce it sooner.
| Income year | Minimum threshold | Governs withholding | That year's own repayment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | $90,997 | Jul 2025 – Jun 2026 | Payable with the 2024 return |
| 2025 | $93,454 | Jul 2026 – Jun 2027 | Payable with the 2025 return |
| 2026 | $95,323 | Jul 2027 – Jun 2028 | Payable with the 2026 return (this calculator's year) |
The threshold is indexed to inflation each year. This calculator always uses the 2026 income year's figures ($95,323 minimum threshold); if you're checking against what's actually coming off a cheque today, that's the 2025-income, $93,454 line instead — the mechanics are identical, only the two numbers differ.
Deferral and the age-75 increase both change the OAS at stake — before any clawback
Two things change your maximum OAS before the 15% rate ever applies. Deferring the start of your OAS past 65 adds 0.6% for every month you wait, up to a maximum 36% increase at age 70 (there's no benefit to waiting past 70). Separately, and permanently, OAS itself pays about 10% more from the month after you turn 75 — $838.75/month for October–December 2026, against $762.50/month for ages 65–74. OAS is re-indexed every quarter, so for the 2026 income year this calculator adds up the four published quarterly amounts, three months at each — the OAS of someone paid the maximum in all twelve months of 2026 in one age band — rather than holding one quarter's rate for the whole year. It applies your deferral bonus to the year's OAS for your age band (the 75-and-over amounts already include the roughly-10% step), so a deferred pension carries its full deferral bonus into the higher band rather than losing it.
A repayment, not a loss of eligibility
It's worth separating what actually happens from what "clawback" sounds like it means. Passing the threshold doesn't disqualify you from OAS, reduce your future entitlement, or flag your file — it triggers a straightforward repayment calculated on that year's tax return and payable with it, exactly like a benefit that phases out with income anywhere else in the tax system. The repayment is capped at the OAS pension you were paid (the Act's cap also counts any GIS and Allowance, which this calculator doesn't model), so it can never turn into a bill larger than the benefits it recovers, and it's deducted in arriving at your net income for the year (T1 line 23500), so the repaid amount is never separately income-taxed on top of being repaid.
Reducing the withholding before it happens: Form T1213(OAS)
If you can see, before your return is filed, that this year's income will land well below what triggered your current withholding — retirement, selling a rental property, a one-time payout the year before — Form T1213(OAS), Request to Reduce Old Age Security Recovery Tax at Source, lets you ask the CRA in writing (the completed form goes to the CRA, not Service Canada) to have the amount withheld reduced, rather than waiting to be reconciled at tax time.
Worked example — age 68, Ontario, $110,000
An Ontario resident, age 68 (the 65–74 band), started OAS at 65 with no deferral, and reports net income before adjustments of $110,000 for 2026.
- Maximum annual OAS: 3 × ($742.31 + $743.05 + $751.97 + $762.50) = $8,999.49 — the four 2026 quarterly maximums, three months each (no deferral, no age-75 step-up yet).
- Excess over the 2026 threshold: $110,000 − $95,323 = $14,677.00.
- Recovery tax: 15% × $14,677.00 = $2,201.55 — well under the $8,999.49 cap, so it isn't capped.
- OAS kept: $8,999.49 − $2,201.55 = $6,797.94.
- Taxable income after the repayment: the $2,201.55 repaid is deducted at line 23500, so $110,000 − $2,201.55 = $107,798.45 is what actually gets taxed.
- Income tax on that $6,797.94, as the top slice of the $107,798.45 (from $101,000.51 to $107,798.45), using the same federal-and-provincial engine as our take-home pay calculator: tax on $107,798.45 ($23,975.83) minus tax on $101,000.51 ($21,835.51) = $2,140.32.
- The calculator's result: $6,797.94 − $2,140.32 = $4,657.62 is what the OAS adds to this year's spending money, out of $8,999.49 originally paid, before the federal age amount.
- What the federal age amount would change, not counted above: for someone 65 or over the 2026 age amount is $9,208, reduced by 15% of net income over $46,432. Both ends of the slice, $101,000.51 and $107,798.45, are above $46,432 and below $107,818.67, where the age amount reaches nil, so the $6,797.94 of OAS kept uses up 15% × $6,797.94 = $1,019.69 of it. At the 14% federal credit rate that is 14% × $1,019.69 = $142.76 more federal tax. With it, the tax on the OAS kept would be $2,140.32 + $142.76 = $2,283.08, and the OAS would add $6,797.94 − $2,283.08 = $4,514.86 to this year's spending money, not $4,657.62. Ontario's own age amount was not read for this page and is not counted.
Figures above carry full precision from the same functions the calculator runs; only the write-up rounds for readability. The last item is hand arithmetic on the printed figures and the CRA's two age amount figures, not a calculator output; carried unrounded, its last two results are $2,283.07 and $4,514.87.
What this calculator doesn't model
The "income tax on OAS kept" row leaves out the federal age amount and every provincial age or pension income credit, so that it shows a plain marginal-tax-rate slice rather than a blend with an income-tested credit. For the federal age amount the effect of that choice can be stated (the incomes below are net income after the repayment is deducted, which is what the row's slice is cut from). For someone 65 or over the federal age amount is $9,208 for 2026, reduced by 15% of net income over $46,432, so it is nil from $107,818.67 up. Wherever any of the OAS you keep sits between those two incomes, each dollar of it uses up 15 cents of the age amount, which at the 14% federal credit rate is 2.1 cents of federal tax that the row does not show, so the row is too low there; the worked example above gives the size. Above $107,818.67 the age amount is already nil and leaving it out changes nothing. At low incomes the row is too high instead, and by more: a full age amount on top of the $16,452 basic personal amount would mean no federal tax on income up to $25,660, so wherever any of the OAS you keep sits between $16,452 and $25,660 the row charges 14 cents of federal tax a dollar that the age amount would cancel. Between $25,660 and $46,432 leaving it out changes nothing. For a Quebec resident each of these effects is 16.5% smaller, because the Quebec abatement reduces federal tax by that much. Provincial age amounts and pension income credits were not read for this page, so it does not say which way they move the row.
Beyond that, this tool assumes the full 40-year OAS residency pension (a partial pension would scale every OAS figure down proportionally, before any clawback applies), assumes twelve months of payments at the maximum in one age band (someone who starts OAS during 2026 receives less than the full-year figure, and someone who turns 75 during 2026 receives less than the full-year 75-and-over figure because the increase starts only the month after the birthday, so in both cases the recovery tax caps lower), skips GIS, the Allowance, and any spousal income or pension splitting, and does not apply the adjustments CRA's line 23500 page describes for line 23400 (UCCB and RDSP amounts) or the further items in the Act's definition of adjusted income. The Act caps the repayment at the total of the OAS pension, supplement and allowance included in your income (less a deduction under s. 60(n)(i)); this calculator caps it at the OAS pension alone and does not model supplements such as the GIS or the Allowance. It does not model non-residents of Canada: the Act sets different withholding and filing rules for them (s. 180.2(4)(b) and (5)(a)(ii)), and canada.ca's recovery-tax page is written for people living outside Canada. Finally, this calculator shows the repayment for the year, which is payable with that year's return, not the balance owing after the OAS tax already withheld from that year's payments is credited against it; see "The threshold moves every year" above for how withholding works.
FAQ
What is the OAS recovery tax (clawback), and is it different from losing my OAS?
It's a repayment, not a loss of eligibility. Once your net income for a year passes that year's threshold, you repay 15 cents of every dollar over the line, capped at the full OAS pension you were paid that year (the Act's cap also counts any GIS and Allowance, which this calculator doesn't model), and your eligibility for OAS itself is never affected. The word "clawback" makes it sound like a benefit is being taken away from someone who qualified for it; what's actually happening is a repayment calculated on your tax return, the same mechanism CRA uses for other income-tested benefits that phase out at higher income.
Why does the threshold in this calculator look different from what's coming off my OAS payments right now?
Because the monthly withholding runs behind the income that triggers it; the tax itself is settled on the same year's return. What's withheld from your OAS cheques today is set from an earlier tax year, using that year's own threshold, not this year's income or this year's threshold: the income of the previous year for payments from July to December, and of two years earlier for payments from January to June. This calculator is fixed to the 2026 income year and its $95,323 threshold, so it shows the repayment on your 2026 return. That repayment is payable with the return, by the balance-due day (30 April 2027 for most people), and whatever was withheld from your 2026 OAS counts toward it. If 2026 is the first year your income is over the threshold, no recovery tax will normally have been withheld from your 2026 payments, and the whole repayment is then added to what you owe on that return. The withholding that starts in July 2027 is set from your 2026 income, but it is on account of your 2027 tax, and then your 2028 tax; it does not collect the 2026 repayment. The table earlier on this page lines up each recent income year with the payment period its threshold governs.
What exactly counts as the "net income" this calculator asks for?
It starts from net income before adjustments — line 23400 of your T1 return — which already includes your OAS itself, alongside CPP, RRSP/RRIF withdrawals, employment income, investment income and most other sources. CRA's line 23500 page describes the figure it compares with the threshold as line 23400, minus any Universal Child Care Benefit (line 11700) and RDSP income (line 12500), plus a UCCB repayment (line 21300) or a repayment of RDSP income included on line 23200, or both. The Income Tax Act's definition of adjusted income (s. 180.2(1)) lists more: it also leaves out a gain from a disposition of property to which section 79 applies and a gain described in subsection 40(3.21), and it allows no deduction for split income under paragraph 20(1)(ww). This calculator applies none of these; it compares the line 23400 figure you type, as described in "What this calculator doesn't model" below.
Can I do anything before the recovery tax is actually withheld?
Two different things help two different situations. If this year's income will clearly come in below the amount CRA used to estimate your withholding — you retired, sold a rental property in a one-off year, or otherwise had unusually high prior-year income — Form T1213(OAS), Request to Reduce Old Age Security Recovery Tax at Source, lets you ask the CRA in writing to have what's withheld reduced, before your return is even filed. Separately, the repayment itself is worked out from the year's net income, so a deduction that lowers that net income before adjustments brings you closer to, or under, that year's threshold, and this calculator's "deduction needed" figure shows exactly how much. An RRSP contribution (if you have room) is one way, but you can contribute to your own RRSP only until December 31 of the year you turn 71, so it is not open at every age this page covers.
Does deferring OAS past 65, or turning 75, change how much I could lose to the clawback?
It changes how much OAS is at risk, not the 15% rate or the threshold itself. Deferring OAS past 65 increases your pension by 0.6% for every month you wait, up to 36% at age 70 — a larger pension gives the recovery tax more room to claw back if your income is high enough, but it also means more OAS survives at incomes below the point where the whole pension is repaid. Turning 75 raises the maximum OAS by roughly 10% permanently, for the same reason: a bigger pension changes both the OAS you could keep and, at high income, the dollar amount repaid — the 15% rate and the underlying income threshold don't change with either deferral or age band.
What is form T1213(OAS)?
It is the CRA form T1213(OAS), Request to Reduce Old Age Security Recovery Tax at Source, which the CRA describes as the form to be completed by individuals to request a reduction in the amount of Old Age Security recovery tax withheld. If your income has fallen since the year the withholding was based on, filing it can lower the recovery tax taken from each OAS payment before you file your return.
This page is general information based on published 2026 federal figures, not tax or financial advice. Your own return depends on details this calculator doesn't see — talk to a licensed accountant or Service Canada about your own situation.