Home -> Seniors -> Sharing CPP Pension With a Spouse
You Might Save Tax by Splitting Your CPP Retirement Pension With Your Spouse
Canada Pension Plan Act s. 65.1 Assignment of retirement pension to spouse or common-law partner
If you and your spouse or common-law partner are:
 | both at least 60 years old, and |
| one or both of you are receiving a CPP retirement pension, and |
| were living together during the time one or both of you were contributing to CPP (during your joint contributory period) |
you can apply to receive equal shares of the CPP retirement pensions that you both earned during the years you were living together.
This could be beneficial if one spouse is in a higher tax bracket, but clawback of Old Age Security, spousal amount and age amount tax credits must be considered. See the tables of non-refundable personal tax credits for levels at which the tax credits are reduced or eliminated.
The CPP splitting is merely an assignment of part of the pension in order to reduce income tax. When the pension sharing/assignment ceases (upon death, or other circumstances), the pension amount of each spouse is adjusted to the amount that they were to receive before the pension-sharing arrangement.
Other pension income may also be split with a spouse in order to save tax. See the article on pension income splitting on the Personal Tax page.
Tax Tip: You may save tax by splitting CPP retirement pension with a lower-income spouse.
TaxTips.ca Resources
Service Canada Resources
Application Form For Canada Pension Plan Sharing of Retirement Pension(s)
Statement of Contributions to the Canada Pension Plan
Revised: September 25, 2024