Sharing of a retirement pension between spouses
Retirement pension sharing helps reduce income taxes and gives each spouse greater financial autonomy.
A portion of the retirement pension of each spouse is received by the other. This is what we call retirement pension sharing. When calculating income taxes, the income of the person with the higher salary is reduced. This portion of the pension is added to the income of the person receiving it. The total taxes payable by the couple may therefore be lower.
Who can share a retirement pension?
Both spouses do not need to have contributed to the Québec Pension Plan (QPP) to share a pension. However, both must be age 60 or over. Sharing a pension is possible for couples who are married, or in a civil or de facto union.
If both persons contributed to the
QPP, they must each receive a retirement pension for their pension to be shared. A retirement pension is not necessarily divided in equal shares. Retirement pension sharing is established based on the period where the persons lived together.
We will inform the person whose pension is to be reduced of the sharing if he or she did not apply for it. We will then inform both spouses of the new pension amounts.
End of the retirement pension sharing
Retirement pension sharing ends at the end of the month during which one of the following events occurs:
- one of the spouses dies;
- one of the spouses who did not contribute to the
QPP begins contributing. A person contributes as soon as his or her employment earnings exceed $3500;
- we receive one of the following documents:
- a judgment of divorce, annulment of marriage, separation from bed and board or annulment or dissolution of a civil union;
- a notarized joint declaration of dissolution of civil union along with a transaction contract;
- an application to terminate retirement pension sharing signed by both married spouses, or both spouses in a civil or de facto union;
- a declaration indicating that the de facto spouses have been separated for more than 12 months.
To file your application, you must complete the
Application for Retirement Pension Sharing Between Spouses Under the Québec Pension Plan and
send it to us online.
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