OAS rises 1.4% on October 28 — and it's now 3% ahead of where it was a year ago

Service Canada has posted the next Old Age Security adjustment: a 1.4% increase for the October-to-December 2026 quarter, first paid on October 28. It's the third raise this year and the largest — January was 0.3%, April 0.1%, July 1.2% — and it takes OAS to 3.0% above October 2025.

The new monthly maximums

• $762.50/month if you're 65 to 74 (up from $751.97 — about $10.53 more).
• $838.75/month if you're 75 or older (up from $827.17 — about $11.58 more). The 75+ rate still carries the permanent 10% top-up from 2022.

Three payments land at the new rate this quarter: October 28, November 26 and December 22. Over those three cheques, the raise is worth roughly $32 for a 65-to-74-year-old on the full pension — about $126 a year if it held.

GIS moves with it. The Guaranteed Income Supplement is indexed by the same 1.4%, so the maximum for a single recipient goes from $1,123.17 to $1,138.89 a month. The income cut-offs for GIS rise too — which matters if you were sitting just above one. The GIS calculator runs your own numbers.

Quarterly indexing only moves one way. If CPI dips, OAS stays flat. So the October figure is your floor until at least January.

Why OAS is 3% up and CPP is only 2%

If you collect both, you may have noticed the two pensions don't move together. That's by design:

• OAS is re-indexed every quarter, comparing the latest three months of CPI against the last three months that produced a raise.
• CPP is re-indexed once a year, in January, comparing the average CPI from November to October against the same twelve months a year earlier.

For 2026, CPP went up 2.0% — the average CPI from November 2024 to October 2025 (163.6) against the year before (160.4). OAS, checking in every three months, has already caught up with 2026's inflation. CPP is still paying you for 2025's.

Over a long retirement the two track the same index and end up in the same place. In a year when inflation re-accelerates — it's been sitting around 3% since summer — OAS simply gets there first.

What that says about January's CPP raise

The January 2027 CPP adjustment uses the twelve months from November 2025 to October 2026. Six of those months are already in: CPI ran from 165.0 to 168.0 between January and April, and headline inflation has been near 3% since. Barring a sharp reversal this fall, the 2027 CPP increase should land somewhere in the 2.5% to 3% range — roughly in line with where OAS already is. Service Canada confirms the figure late in the year.

Two things the raise doesn't change

• The clawback threshold. For income earned in 2026, the recovery tax still starts at $95,323 of net world income and takes 15 cents of every dollar above it. A bigger OAS cheque means more dollars exposed if you're over the line — check your position with the OAS clawback calculator.
• Your GIS entitlement from July. GIS is recalculated each July from the previous year's return; the October change only re-indexes the amount, it doesn't re-test your income.

If you're deferring OAS past 65, indexing still works for you: the 0.6% per month deferral bonus is applied to whatever the pension is worth when you finally start, so every quarterly raise lifts your eventual base too.

The takeaway

An extra $10 or $11 a month is not a windfall. The more useful number is the 3.0% year-over-year figure — it's the clearest reading yet of what inflation has actually done to a fixed retirement income in 2026, and it's a preview of the CPP raise coming in January. If your plan assumed 2% indexing, this is the quarter to update it.

OAS and GIS amounts: Service Canada, Old Age Security payment amounts. CPP indexation: Service Canada, Canada Pension Plan amounts and the Consumer Price Index. Clawback threshold: CRA 2026 tax parameters. Calculators by Metrestick.