A 25% RRIF cut and a 5% GIS boost were promised. Neither arrived.
Two retirement promises made during the election campaign did not make it into the federal budget: a 25% reduction in the mandatory RRIF minimum withdrawal for one year, and a 5% increase to the Guaranteed Income Supplement for one year. Both were widely expected. Neither appeared. If you were counting on a smaller forced withdrawal this year, you need a different plan — and there is one.
What was promised, and what passed
| Measure | Status |
|---|---|
| 25% cut to RRIF minimum withdrawals (one year) | Not in the budget |
| 5% GIS increase (one year) | Not in the budget |
| Home Accessibility Tax Credit — up to $20,000 in eligible renovations for those 65+ | Passed |
| Draft regulations to prohibit registered-account transfer fees | Committed, draft expected |
The RRIF omission drew the most criticism, and for a straightforward reason: a temporary reduction in the minimum is the single cheapest way to help retirees who are being forced to sell investments in a year they'd rather not. It was done in 2008 and again in 2020. It was not done this time.
We're not going to editorialize about whether that was the right call. The more useful question is what you can do about it.
You can build most of the relief yourself
The RRIF minimum is a floor set by a prescribed percentage of your January 1 balance. You can't change the percentage — but you have real influence over the two things it's multiplied by, and over what the withdrawal costs you in tax.
Elect your younger spouse's age. The minimum can be calculated on your spouse's age instead of your own. A spouse five years younger cuts the age-71 minimum from 5.28% to roughly 4.35% — a ~18% reduction, permanently, which is most of the way to the 25% cut that didn't happen. The election is made when the RRIF is established and can't be reversed, so it needs to be on your radar before conversion.
Withdraw in kind, don't sell. The requirement is to withdraw a dollar value, not to liquidate anything. You can transfer the securities themselves out of the RRIF and into a TFSA or non-registered account. You still pay tax on the withdrawal, but you are never forced to sell a holding into a down market — which was the entire rationale for the relief in the first place. If your objection to the minimum is "I don't want to sell right now," this solves it completely, and it's available today.
Shrink the balance before 71. The minimum is a percentage of the balance, so the balance is the lever. Drawing the RRSP down deliberately between 65 and 70 — at low marginal rates, in the window before CPP, OAS and minimums stack up — reduces every future forced withdrawal. For larger registered balances this is worth tens of thousands of dollars, and unlike a one-year policy measure, it compounds for the rest of your life.
If you were counting on the GIS increase
The GIS remains at up to $1,123.17/month for a single senior (July–September 2026 quarter), non-taxable, phasing out at 50 cents per dollar of other income. The 5% top-up would have added roughly $56/month at the maximum.
For GIS-range seniors, the levers that matter are far larger than that 5% anyway, and they're mostly about timing:
- TFSA withdrawals don't count as income for GIS. RRSP and RRIF withdrawals do. For a low-income senior, the difference between drawing $5,000 from a TFSA versus a RRIF can be a 50% clawback of the supplement — an effective tax rate that dwarfs anything in the tax brackets.
- **Drawing down an RRSP before 65** — before GIS eligibility begins — is frequently the single most valuable move available to a modest-income Canadian, and it is close to irreversible once you're past it.
Both are covered in the GIS and Allowance guide. If you're 63 or 64 and expect to qualify for GIS, this deserves an afternoon of your attention.
The honest takeaway
Policy relief that doesn't arrive is a reminder not to build a plan that depends on it. The RRIF minimum schedule has been essentially unchanged since 2015, the clawback line moves only with inflation, and the GIS phase-out is exactly as unforgiving as it was last year. The tools that actually move your outcome — account order, the spousal age election, and pre-71 drawdown — are all still sitting there, and none of them require an Act of Parliament.
You can model any of it in the withdrawal sequencer.
Not financial advice. Policy status as of publication; confirm current measures with the Department of Finance. Figures verified against CRA and Service Canada for 2026.