How much do I need to retire at 60 in Canada?

It depends on your spending and how you time CPP and OAS. As a rough guide, you need enough to fully self-fund the years before government benefits start, then enough to cover the gap between benefits and spending for life. For $50,000 of annual spending that often lands somewhere around $800,000 to $1.1M once CPP and OAS are counted — but your own number can differ a lot.

Can I collect CPP at 60?

Yes — CPP can start as early as 60, but it's permanently reduced by 36% versus starting at 65. Many people who retire at 60 are better off living on savings for a few years and delaying CPP for a larger, inflation-indexed benefit later, especially if they expect a long life.

Can you retire at 60 in Canada?

Sixty is the classic early-retirement age in Canada, and it's very doable — but it asks more of your savings than retiring at 65 does, for two specific reasons. Understand those and the plan gets much clearer.

The gap years

Government benefits aren't there yet at 60. OAS can't start until 65, full stop. CPP can start at 60, but only at a 36% permanent discount. So the years from 60 to 65 are largely on you — your savings carry the full load before any pension shows up.

That's not a reason to grab CPP early to plug the hole. For a lot of people, the better play is to spend down savings through the gap and delay CPP for a bigger, inflation-protected cheque later. Those low-income early years are also the ideal time for a low-tax RRSP meltdown — you're pulling RRSP money out while your tax bracket is at its lowest of the whole retirement.

A longer retirement carries more risk

Retire at 60 and you might be funding 30-plus years. That stretches two risks:

Sequence-of-returns risk. A bad market in your first few years hits harder when you're withdrawing and have a long way to go. A cash buffer and some spending flexibility are worth more here than at 65.
Inflation. Three decades of rising prices erodes any fixed income. The inflation-indexed nature of CPP and OAS is a genuine asset — another argument for delaying CPP so more of your income is protected.

Roughly what it takes

A simple way to size it: cover your full spending from 60 until your benefits start, then cover the gap between spending and benefits for the rest of your life. If you spend $50,000 a year and CPP plus OAS will eventually provide, say, $25,000, your portfolio has to fund the whole $50,000 in the gap years and about $25,000 a year after that. Put a safe withdrawal rate against the long-term gap and you're often in the $800,000 to $1.1M range — but this swings hard with your spending and benefit timing, so treat it as a starting point, not gospel.

Two more practical notes: provincial health coverage continues, but any employer health and dental benefits usually stop at retirement, so budget for that. And build in flexibility — the plans that survive 30 years are the ones that can trim spending in a bad year rather than sell into a downturn.

The honest way to know your own answer is to model it: enter your savings, spending and benefit timing, and let the tool find the earliest age the numbers actually hold together.