RRSP contribution limits and deadline for 2026

Updated November 2026

For 2026 you can deduct RRSP contributions up to your personal deduction limit: 18% of your 2025 earned income to a maximum of $33,810, minus any pension adjustment, plus room you did not use in earlier years. The deadline for the 2026 tax year is March 1, 2027.

How your limit is calculated

The CRA calls your room the RRSP deduction limit. For 2026 it works like this:

  1. Start with your unused room carried forward from earlier years.
  2. Add the lesser of 18% of your 2025 earned income or the 2026 dollar limit of $33,810.
  3. Subtract your 2025 pension adjustment (PA), if you belong to a workplace pension or deferred profit sharing plan.
  4. Subtract any net past service pension adjustment (PSPA) and add any pension adjustment reversal (PAR). Most people have neither.

Earned income for RRSP purposes includes salary and wages and net self-employment income, among other items. Interest, dividends and capital gains do not create room. The CRA’s guide T4040 has the full definition.

Example. Priya earned $60,000 in 2025. Her employer’s pension plan reported a PA of $3,000. She has $5,000 of unused room from earlier years.

To get the full $33,810 of new room for 2026 you needed 2025 earned income of about $187,833 ($33,810 ÷ 18%) and no pension adjustment.

The pension adjustment

If you are in a registered pension plan or a deferred profit sharing plan (DPSP), your employer reports a pension adjustment on your T4 slip. It measures the value of the retirement benefit you earned that year, and it reduces next year’s RRSP room so that people with and without workplace pensions get roughly similar tax-assisted savings. A large PA is why many people in defined benefit plans have little RRSP room. Contributions to a group RRSP do not create a PA; they simply use your RRSP room. See CPP, QPP, OAS and GIS and Group RRSPs.

Carry-forward of unused room

Room you do not use is not lost. It carries forward with no time limit, as long as you can still have an RRSP (until the end of the year you turn 71). Someone who saved nothing for ten years can catch up later, which can be useful in a high-income year.

Where to find your room

The statement already includes your pension adjustment and unused room, so you do not need to do the arithmetic yourself. It does not know about contributions you made after you filed, so subtract those.

The deadline

Contributions made during 2026, and during the first 60 days of 2027, can be deducted on your 2026 return. That makes March 1, 2027 the deadline for the 2026 tax year (for 2025 it was March 2, 2026). The year you turn 71 is different: you must make your last contribution to your own RRSP by December 31 of that year.

Contributing now, deducting later

You do not have to deduct a contribution in the year you make it. You can report it on Schedule 7 as an undeducted contribution and claim it in a later year. This can make sense if your income is low this year and you expect it to rise, since the same deduction saves more tax at a higher marginal rate. The money still grows tax-sheltered in the meantime.

Example. A student contributes $3,000 in 2026 while in a 20% bracket and waits to deduct it until 2028, when she expects to be in a 30% bracket. The deduction then saves about $900 instead of $600.

Over-contributions

You can go over your deduction limit by up to $2,000 without penalty. This cushion is available only if you were 18 or older at some time in the previous year. Amounts above it are taxed at 1% per month for each month the excess stays in the plan.

Example. Your limit is $10,000 and you contribute $13,500. The excess is $3,500; minus the $2,000 cushion, $1,500 is taxable. The tax is $1,500 × 1% = $15 for every month until you withdraw the excess or new room absorbs it.

If you owe this tax, you must file Form T1-OVP and pay within 90 days after the end of the year. Also note that the $2,000 is not deductible until new room covers it. The fix is covered in Common mistakes.

Check before big contributions. Room figures on an old notice of assessment can be out of date. Look at My Account and subtract anything you have contributed since.

Sources