Retirement pension sharing between spouses

Québec Pension Plan

To reduce your income tax and provide each spouse with greater financial independence

Both spouses do not need to have contributed to the Québec Pension Plan to share the retirement pension of one of them, but they must both be at least 60 years of age.  

If the two spouses contributed to the Plan, both must be receiving their retirement pensions before their pensions can be shared. We will inform the spouse whose pension is reduced, if he or she was not the spouse who applied for pension sharing. Once a decision has been made, the two spouses will receive a letter indicating the amount of their new pensions.

Retirement pension sharing is not necessarily fifty-fifty but is based on the period of cohabitation. Pension sharing is also possible for de facto spouses.

Pension sharing stops at the end of the month in which one of the following occurs:

• one of the spouses dies
• we are informed that the spouse who never contributed to the Québec Pension Plan or the Canada Pension Plan has begun to contribute
• we receive one of the following documents:
  
  
  • a judgment of divorce, separation from bed and board, civil annulment of marriage or dissolution or annulment of civil union
  • a notarized joint declaration of dissolution of civil union accompanied with the transaction contract
  • an application to terminate pension sharing that is signed by both married spouses, both spouses in a civil union, or by one of the de facto spouses
• we are informed that the de facto spouses have been separated for more than 12 months
• one of the retirement pensions is paid under the Canada Pension Plan and that administration terminates pension sharing 

To benefit from this option, you must file an application with us. To file your application, download the Application for Retirement Pension Sharing Between Spouses form and return it duly completed by mail to:  

Retraite Québec
Case postale 5200
Québec (Québec) G1K 7S9  

You can also obtain the Application for a Retirement Pension Sharing Between Spouses form by calling us.

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