Balancing work and retirement
During the last phase of your working life, the Québec Pension Plan provides measures to guide you progressively toward retirement.
Early retirement
If you are 60 years of age and have contributed sufficiently to the Québec Pension Plan, you can receive your retirement pension while continuing to work on a part-time or full-time basis. However, you must have contributed to the Plan for at least 1 year.
Since you continue to contribute to the Plan, you will receive a retirement pension supplement as of the following year.
Retirement pension supplement
Are you already receiving your retirement pension under the Québec Pension Plan (QPP)?
You can work and continue to receive it. However, you must contribute to the Plan as soon as your earnings exceed the $3500 basic exemption.
These contributions entitle you to an increase in your retirement pension: the retirement pension supplement.
No application needs to be filed to receive it because we will automatically pay it.
- The supplement will be added to your pension amount for the rest of your life.
- The supplement is payable as of 1 January of the year following the one during which you made contributions.
- The supplement that will be paid in 2022 in respect of income earned in 2021 is equal to 0.58% of the earnings on which you contributed. Due to the enhancement of the QPP in effect since 2019, the supplement will continue to increase until 2024, the year during which it will be 0.66% of the earnings on which you contributed during the previous year.
- Your pension will increase even if you are already receiving the maximum amount each month.
- Your pension will continue to increase on a yearly basis as long as you continue to make new contributions.
Important
Even if the supplement is payable as of 1 January, it usually takes a few months before we receive from
Revenu Québec the information required to calculate it. We will pay you the amounts owing retroactive to 1 January.
Example
Louise is receiving a retirement pension of $750 per month. In 2021, her employment earnings were $22 700. She is therefore contributing to the Québec Pension Plan based on employment earnings of $19 200 ($22 700 minus the basic exemption of $3500). On 1 January 2022, Louise was entitled to a supplement of about $9.28 a month ($19 200 x 0.58% = $111.36 a year) because of the contributions she made in 2021. If she continues to work in the following years, new supplements will then be added to her pension for each year worked.
Note that...
If you are receiving a retirement pension under the
Canada Pension Plan and are working in Québec, you could receive a retirement pension supplement under the Québec Pension Plan. If you are contributing to the Plan, we will automatically pay you the supplement without you having to apply for it. Due to the enhancement of the
QPP in effect since 2019, the percentage used to calculate the retirement pension supplement gradually increases from 0.5% to 0.66% of the earnings on which you contributed during the previous year.
Agreement on contributions to the Québec Pension Plan during phased retirement
If you are an employee 55 years of age or over (but under age 70), you can work less while contributing just as much.
You cannot receive a retirement pension under the Plan before age 60. However, at age 55, you can reduce your work hours while continuing to contribute to the Plan as if your pay had not been reduced. That means that your future retirement pension would not be reduced because you had decided to work fewer hours. To take advantage of phased retirement, your employer must be willing to make an agreement with you for that purpose.
It may be that your conditions of employment or the provisions of your company pension plan do not allow you to make an agreement on contributions during phased retirement. Ask you employer whether an agreement is possible in your case.
Note that phased retirement is not available to self-employed workers. However, the owner of an incorporated business who contributes to the Québec Pension Plan as an employee can take phased retirement.
If you are eligible and phased retirement interests, we offer on request a service that simulates the effects of an agreement on contributions during phased retirement.