Free tool · Canada · Limits from the Canada Revenue Agency
Enter your earned income from last year, your pension adjustment, and any unused room you carry forward, and see your new RRSP room worked out step by step from the Canada Revenue Agency's own rule: 18% of earned income, capped at the annual dollar limit, minus your pension adjustment, plus unused room. This is an estimate only. Your exact deduction limit is printed on your Notice of Assessment and in your CRA My Account.
The annual limit is the maximum new RRSP room you can create in that year. The limits come from the Canada Revenue Agency's table of registered plan limits.
Your earned income from the previous year, generally your employment and self-employment earnings. Investment income and pension income do not count as earned income for this calculation. The 18% is calculated on last year's earned income, not this year's.
Your pension adjustment is the value of the pension benefits you earned last year through a workplace registered pension plan or deferred profit sharing plan. It is shown in box 52 of your T4 slip. If you have no workplace pension plan, enter 0.
Room you did not use in earlier years carries forward and adds to this year's limit. Your Notice of Assessment shows your unused room at the end of the preceding year. If you have never had unused room, enter 0.
The estimate follows the Canada Revenue Agency's rule exactly: start with unused room, add the lesser of 18% of last year's earned income and the annual limit, then subtract your pension adjustment. It does not include a pension adjustment reversal or a past service pension adjustment, which are rare and need the figures from your plan administrator. Read the assumptions below, then check your Notice of Assessment for the figure that applies to you.
The rule. The Canada Revenue Agency calculates your RRSP deduction limit as follows: your unused RRSP deduction room at the end of the preceding year, plus the lesser of 18% of your earned income in the previous year and the annual RRSP limit, minus your pension adjustment (or your prescribed amount for connected persons, if that applies instead), plus any pension adjustment reversal, minus any net past service pension adjustment. The Agency points to chart 3 of Guide T4040, RRSPs and Other Registered Plans for Retirement, for the full self-calculation. This calculator covers the common case: unused room, plus the lesser of 18% and the annual limit, minus the pension adjustment.
The annual limits. The Agency's table of registered plan limits gives the RRSP dollar limit as $33,810 for 2026, $35,390 for 2027, and $36,390 for 2028. The 2025 limit was $32,490. The limit is a cap on the new room you create in a year. Your total deduction limit can be higher than the annual limit, because unused room from earlier years is added on top.
Worked example. Take $90,000 of earned income in the previous year, a $4,000 pension adjustment, and $12,000 of unused room. 18% of $90,000 is $16,200, which is less than the 2026 annual limit of $33,810, so the new room before the pension adjustment is $16,200. Minus the $4,000 pension adjustment, that is $12,200 of new room. Plus the $12,000 of unused room, the deduction limit is $24,200. Each step is arithmetic from the Agency's rule above.
When the cap binds. 18% of earned income reaches the 2026 limit of $33,810 at $187,833 of earned income. Above that income, the annual limit is the smaller figure, so the new room before the pension adjustment is $33,810 no matter how much more you earned. For 2027 the cap binds above $196,611 of earned income, and for 2028 above $202,167.
The pension adjustment. Your pension adjustment is the total of your pension credits from all plans in which your employer participates in the year, not including RRSPs or pooled registered pension plans. A pension adjustment in a year reduces the amount you can contribute to an RRSP in the next year. It can be zero, but it is never a negative amount. If your pension adjustment is larger than 18% of your earned income, your new room for the year is zero, and only your unused room from earlier years remains. This calculator floors new room at zero in that case.
Going over the limit. If you contribute more than your RRSP deduction limit, you generally have to pay a tax of 1% per month on the contributions that exceed your deduction limit by more than $2,000. Check your Notice of Assessment before you contribute, and if you are close to the limit, contribute less than the estimate rather than more.
How long you can contribute. Generally you can contribute to your RRSP until December 31 of the year you turn 71, and only when you have an available deduction limit. Contributions made in the first 60 days of the following year can count for the previous tax year. For the 2025 return, contributions made from March 4, 2025 to March 2, 2026 qualified.
What this calculator leaves out. A pension adjustment reversal, which restores room if you leave a workplace plan before your benefits vest; a net past service pension adjustment, which reduces room when a defined benefit plan is upgraded for past service; the prescribed amount for connected persons; and qualifying transfers to your RRSP, which the Agency excludes from the deduction limit calculation. If any of those apply to you, use the figures on your Notice of Assessment, not this estimate.
Sources: Canada Revenue Agency, How contributions affect your RRSP deduction limit (the full formula, the 1% per month tax on excess over $2,000, the age 71 rule, and the March 4, 2025 to March 2, 2026 contribution window for the 2025 return) and Canada Revenue Agency, MP, DB, RRSP, DPSP, ALDA, TFSA limits, YMPE and the YAMPE (the RRSP dollar limits of $33,810 for 2026, $35,390 for 2027, and $36,390 for 2028), and Canada Revenue Agency, Pension Adjustment (PA) (the 18% overall limit, and that a pension adjustment reduces the next year's RRSP room and is never negative), all opened at build time on November 7, 2026. No figure on this page comes from anywhere else. Where a figure could not be verified on an opened official page, this page says to check the official page instead of stating it.
Next step: read the full step-by-step guide: How to Open an RRSP in Canada