Guaranteed Income Supplement 2026: amounts and rules

The Guaranteed Income Supplement is the federal benefit that keeps low-income seniors above a minimum income. It is paid each month with the Old Age Security pension, is not taxable, and depends on two things only: marital situation and the income of the previous calendar year. Assets are not tested, so a home or savings do not matter, only the income they produce. Most income counts in full, including CPP, workplace pensions and RRSP or RRIF withdrawals, while TFSA withdrawals do not count at all and employment income is partly exempt. The supplement falls by half of each dollar of income for a single person, more steeply while the top-up is still being paid, and is renewed automatically each July from the tax return. This guide sets out who qualifies, what counts as income, how the amount is reduced, and the planning choices that change it, with three worked cases. Read more

GIS in one table

The Guaranteed Income Supplement is a monthly, tax-free benefit for people who receive the Old Age Security pension and have a low income. It is the main federal anti-poverty program for seniors. The amount depends on marital situation and on income, the income being that of the previous calendar year. Maximums and limits for October to December 2026:

The limit Service Canada publishes for a spouse on the Allowance, $42,768, is the income at which the Allowance stops. Above it the pensioner's supplement continues on the scale of a spouse who receives no benefit, up to $55,392, as section 22(6) of the Act provides.

Who qualifies

Four conditions apply together. You must receive an OAS pension, which means being 65 or older with at least 10 years in Canada after 18, and having started it: a person who defers OAS receives no GIS while waiting. You must live in Canada, the supplement being suspended after six months abroad. Your income must be below the limit for your situation. And you must not be a sponsored immigrant whose sponsorship undertaking is still running, subject to the exceptions set by regulation.

Marital situation is assessed on the day before the payment period begins in July, and when it changes during the year. A common-law partner is someone you have lived with in a conjugal relationship for at least a year. Spouses who live apart for reasons beyond their control, typically because one of them has moved into long-term care, can ask to be assessed as two single people, which usually raises the household total.

What counts as income

The starting point is income as computed for tax, with adjustments set out in the Old Age Security Act.

• Counted in full: CPP and QPP pensions (retirement, survivor and disability), workplace pensions, RRSP and RRIF withdrawals, annuities, interest, dividends, the taxable part of capital gains, net rental income, foreign pensions, Employment Insurance benefits.
• Partly exempt: employment and self-employment income. The first $5,000 is not counted, then half of the next $10,000. Your own CPP and EI contributions are also deducted.
• Not counted: OAS, GIS and the Allowance themselves, TFSA withdrawals, the CPP death benefit, and social assistance paid on the basis of need.

For a couple, the incomes of both spouses are added, each after its own exemptions. That is why the calculator asks for the spouse's income separately.

How the amount falls with income

The supplement has two parts. The basic part falls by 50 cents for each dollar of income for a single person; for a couple, each spouse's supplement falls by 25 cents per dollar of combined income, so the household loses 50 cents in total. The top-up, added in 2011 and increased for single pensioners in 2016, falls by 25 cents per dollar above a small exempt amount, and disappears at a fairly low income. In the zone where both parts are being reduced, a single pensioner keeps only 25 cents of each extra dollar of income, an effective rate that matters more than income tax for most GIS recipients.

A person with a partial OAS pension has the missing part of the pension added to the supplement. Someone with 20 years in Canada and low income therefore ends up with roughly the same OAS plus GIS as a person with 40 years. The protection stops where GIS itself stops.

Three cases, October to December 2026

Rose, widowed, CPP and a small pension

Rose, 71, receives a CPP retirement pension of $600 a month and a former employer's pension of $400. Her income for GIS is $12,000 a year. Her supplement is $462.49 a month, on top of an OAS pension of $762.50. Of that supplement, $0.00 is top-up, which her income has used up; the rest is the basic part, reduced by half of her monthly income.

A couple, both on OAS

Mohamed and Leila, both 68, have CPP pensions of $750 and $450 a month, a combined $14,400 a year. Each of them receives OAS and a supplement of $335.57 a month, so the household receives $671.14 of GIS in all. Had Leila been 63, the couple would have been assessed on the Allowance scale instead, see the Allowance calculator.

A pensioner who still works

Jean, 67 and single, earns $14,000 a year from part-time work and receives $300 a month of CPP. After the earnings exemption, his income for GIS is $8,100, not $17,600. His supplement is $674.90 a month. Without the exemption on employment income he would receive much less, which is the purpose of the rule.

Applying and renewing

Service Canada sends a letter in the month after your 64th birthday if it can enrol you automatically for OAS, and the same letter covers GIS when your income information is available. If not, you apply online or on paper, and a spouse or common-law partner also gives their income information. After that, the supplement renews each July from your tax return, and from your spouse's, provided both are filed by 30 April. Anyone who does not file a return must send a renewal form instead.

When income drops, for example because of retirement or the end of a pension, you can send Service Canada an estimate of the current year's income rather than wait for the next return. When it rises, nothing needs to be done in advance: the next return adjusts the supplement from the following July.

Planning around GIS

For people likely to receive the supplement, the usual rules of retirement planning can work against them. An RRSP withdrawal after 65 counts as income and can cost half or three quarters of its value in lost supplement, on top of any tax. Drawing on the RRSP before 65, or holding savings in a TFSA, keeps it out of the income test. Delaying CPP to 70 increases a pension that will mostly be offset by a smaller supplement. Each choice can be tested in the CPP + OAS + GIS calculator; the supplement alone is calculated on the GIS calculator, and eligibility for OAS itself in the OAS eligibility guide.

Figures for October to December 2026, checked against Service Canada on 2026-10-05.