Québec Pension Plan

Are you already receiving your retirement pension under the Québec Pension Plan?

You can work and continue to receive your pension. However, you must contribute to the Plan once 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 because we will automatically pay it.

• The supplement is added to your pension for the rest of your life.
• The supplement is payable as of 1 January of the year following the one in which you made contributions.
• The total supplement for the year is 0,5% of the earnings on which you contributed during the previous year.
• Your pension increases even if you are already receiving the maximum regular pension payable.
• Your pension continues to increase on a yearly basis as long as you continue to make contributions.

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 the amounts owing retroactive to 1 January.

If you are receiving a retirement pension under the Canada Pension Plan and you work in Québec, you could receive a retirement pension supplement under the Québec Pension Plan. If you contribute to the Plan, we will automatically pay you the supplement without you having to apply for it. The amount will be equal to 0,5% of the earnings on which you contributed to the Plan in the previous year.

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.

You may be entitled to a retirement pension from the country in which you worked. Receiving a pension from another country in no way reduces the amount of a pension under the Québec Pension Plan. Consult the list of countries with which Québec has a social security agreement. Then, check to see whether you are eligible to receive a pension from a foreign country.

Pensions from some countries may be reduced if you are receiving a pension from Québec.

• If you stop working before age 65 because of your health, you could be entitled to disability benefits.
• If you are receiving a disability pension Under the Québec Pension Plan, the pension will automatically be replaced by a retirement pension at age 65.
• If you are receiving an additional amount for disability, the benefit, which is added to your retirement pension, will stop being paid when you turn 65.
• If you are receiving a retirement pension Under the Québec Pension Plan and your spouse dies, you could also receive a surviving spouse's pension. The 2 pensions will then be combined.