Canadian benefits 2026: everything your household receives, in one calculation

What the one-calculation approach changes

Canada pays its income support through a dozen programs run by three different bodies. The Canada Revenue Agency handles the Canada child benefit, the Groceries and Essentials Benefit, the workers benefit and most provincial credits, all calculated from your tax return. Service Canada runs the Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement. Employment and Social Development Canada runs the new Canada Disability Benefit. Each has its own page, its own income test and its own calendar, and the official calculators follow the same split. A household that wants to know what it will actually receive has to piece the answer together.

The calculator at the top does that assembly. It starts with the pensions, because OAS and GIS enter the family net income that the CRA uses for every other credit. It then applies the child benefit, the Groceries and Essentials Benefit and the workers benefit, and adds the program of your province. When a rule links two benefits, the engine follows it in the order the administrations do. When a province does not publish a rule, the result says so instead of filling the gap.

What $5,000 more income does to the child benefit

Children under 18

Family net income

$

Child benefit lost per year

$675

At your income	$10,828
With $5,000 more	$10,153

Children aged 6 to 17, July 2026 to June 2027 amounts.

Full child benefit calculator →

Three households, three different answers

The two-parent family in Ontario described above gets most of its support from the Canada child benefit. At $60,000 of family net income it sits in the first reduction band, where the federal amount shrinks by 13.5% of income above $38,237 for two children. It also qualifies for a small amount of workers benefit because the second earner’s pay is partly exempt, and for the Ontario sales tax credit. Its total, about $14,410, would change by several hundred dollars with each $5,000 of income: the household is at the steepest part of the curve.

The single senior in Nova Scotia has almost no tax-based credits. Nearly all of the money comes from OAS and GIS, and the GIS is what moves: every dollar of CPP or pension income reduces it, by fifty cents for the basic supplement and faster for the top-up. That is why deferring CPP, or drawing a RRIF earlier, has a different payoff for a low-income retiree than for a middle-income one. Our page on RRIF withdrawals, GIS and the clawback works through the trade-off.

The single worker in Manitoba has no children and no pension. The workers benefit is the largest single payment, $1,665 for 2026, half of which can arrive in advance in July, October and January. Manitoba has no benefit program administered by the CRA, so the provincial line is empty, and the renters credit is claimed on the tax return instead.

Why the July 2026 benefit year matters

CRA benefits run on a benefit year from July to June, calculated on the previous year’s return. The amounts on this site are those of July 2026 to June 2027, built on 2025 income. The Canada child benefit maximum is $8,157 for a child under 6 and $6,883 for a child aged 6 to 17. The Groceries and Essentials Benefit replaced the GST/HST credit with a 25 % increase, after a one-time top-up paid on June 5, 2026. The Canada Disability Benefit rose to $204.20 a month. Federal pensions follow a different clock: CPP is indexed each January (2.0 % in 2026), and OAS and GIS are reviewed every quarter, so the October 2026 figures are already higher than those of July.

The pensions in the calculation

Old Age Security is paid from 65 to anyone with at least ten years in Canada after age 18. The full pension, $762.50 a month from October to December 2026, needs 40 years; it rises by 10% at 75. Recovery tax takes back 15% of net income above $93,454. The Guaranteed Income Supplement adds up to $1,138.90 a month for a single person whose income, OAS aside, stays under $23,112. A spouse aged 60 to 64 of a GIS recipient can receive the Allowance, up to $1,448.06.

CPP is different in kind: it depends on what you contributed. The maximum at 65 in 2026 is $1,507.65 a month, but the average new pension was $858.34 in July 2026. The home calculator therefore does not estimate CPP; it counts CPP inside the income you enter. The CPP calculator starts from the figure on your Service Canada statement and shows the effect of starting anywhere between 60 and 70.

OAS and GIS for a single senior

Yearly income without OAS

$

OAS + GIS per month

$1,225.50

Old Age Security	$762.50
Guaranteed Income Supplement	$463.00

October to December 2026, age 65 to 74, 40 years in Canada.

GIS calculator →

Provincial programs: what the calculator includes

Each province adds its own layer, and the rules differ more than the names suggest. Ontario combines three credits in the Trillium Benefit and pays it monthly when the total exceeds $500. Quebec pays its family allowance through Retraite Québec and runs its own pension plan, the QPP. British Columbia reduces its family benefit in two steps with a guaranteed minimum in between. Alberta adds a working component that grows with earnings. The Atlantic provinces and the territories run smaller child benefits and sales tax credits through the CRA. Where a province publishes the full formula, the calculator applies it; where it publishes only a maximum and a threshold, the calculator shows the maximum, marks it, and keeps it out of the total.

Dates: when each payment lands

The calendar above is built from the CRA and Service Canada schedules. CPP and OAS arrive together near the end of each month; the child benefit around the 20th; the Groceries and Essentials Benefit in early January, April, July and October; the Ontario Trillium Benefit around the 10th. If a deposit is missing, the CRA asks you to wait 5 working days before calling about the child benefit, and 10 for the other benefits it pays. Dates for 2027 have not been published yet and will be added when they are.

How the figures are checked

Every amount sits in one parameter file with its source and the date it was read. Automated tests replay the CRA’s own charts, for example the Groceries and Essentials Benefit table at $14,000, $50,000 and $60,000, and the published zero points of the workers benefit, before each release. The method page lists every formula and every limit, including the GIS model, which is fitted to Service Canada’s quarterly table rather than taken from the Act. Errors reported to us are checked against the source and turned into a test.

What the calculator does not do

• It does not cover Employment Insurance, social assistance in each province, or benefits for veterans and First Nations, which follow their own rules.
• It assumes a full OAS pension; the partial pension page handles fewer than 40 years in Canada.
• It uses the general federal workers benefit rates, which Quebec, Alberta and Nunavut replace with their own.
• It cannot see your file: shared custody, a mid-year move, a new spouse or a late return all change the real amount.