What is the average CPP payment in Canada?

The average new CPP retirement pension at age 65 is a little over $800 a month — well below the 2025 maximum of $1,433. Most people don't reach the maximum, because it takes near-maximum contributions across roughly 39 of your working years to get there.

Why am I not getting the maximum CPP?

The maximum assumes you earned at or above the year's maximum pensionable earnings for almost four decades. Years of lower earnings, time raising kids, stretches out of the workforce, or self-employment at modest income all pull your career average — and your CPP — below the max.

How much CPP will you actually get?

Ask people what they'll get from CPP and most will name a number close to the maximum. The maximum in 2025 is $1,433 a month at age 65. The catch: hardly anyone actually gets it. The average new retirement pension is a little over $800 a month — barely more than half. If your plan quietly assumes the max, you may be counting on income that isn't coming.

What the maximum really requires

CPP is built from your earnings history. To hit the maximum you'd need to have earned at or above the year's maximum pensionable earnings (the "YMPE", about $71,300 in 2025) for roughly 39 years — close to a full career at a solid income, contributing the maximum the whole time.

The system does throw out some of your weakest years — a general "dropout" of about 17% of your lowest-earning months, plus special provisions for years you were raising a child under seven. That helps. But most people still have enough lower-earning years — school, part-time stretches, a lower-paid first decade, time out of the workforce — that their career average lands below the ceiling.

Start age scales your number, not the maximum

When to start CPP is a separate decision, and it moves your amount up or down:

Take it at 60: permanently reduced by 0.6% per month, or 36% less than at 65.
Take it at 65: your baseline.
Delay to 70: increased by 0.7% per month, or 42% more than at 65.

One thing to watch: these percentages apply to your earned amount, not the headline maximum. Delaying an average pension to 70 gets you 42% more of an average pension — not the maximum. If you want the mechanics and the breakeven, see the bridging strategy for delaying CPP to 70.

Find your real number

You don't have to guess. Your Statement of Contributions in your My Service Canada Account shows an estimate of your CPP at 60, 65 and 70 based on your actual earnings so far. That estimate assumes you keep earning at your recent rate until you start — so if you're about to stop working early, your real figure will be a bit lower.

Once you have a realistic monthly amount, the rest of the plan follows: how big a gap your savings need to fill, when to start CPP, and how it stacks up against OAS and your RRIF income. Plug your own estimate in and see it laid out year by year.