CPP, CPP2 & EI Max-Out Calculator

Because all three are calculated against an annual ceiling, not an ongoing percentage of every dollar you ever earn. CPP applies 5.95% to pensionable earnings between the $3,500 basic exemption and the $74,600 Year's Maximum Pensionable Earnings (YMPE) for 2026, capping annual base CPP at $4,230.45. CPP2 adds a further 4% on earnings between the YMPE and the higher $85,000 Year's Additional Maximum Pensionable Earnings (YAMPE), capping at $416. EI charges 1.63% up to the $68,900 Maximum Insurable Earnings (MIE), capping at $1,123.07. Once your year-to-date earnings push the relevant contribution to its cap, your employer legally must stop deducting that specific amount for the rest of the calendar year, then start fresh at $0 again on 1 January.

CPP2 is a second, separate tier introduced in 2024 on top of base CPP, designed to gradually increase retirement benefits for higher earners. Base CPP (5.95%) applies to the classic pensionable-earnings band from the $3,500 exemption up to the YMPE ($74,600 for 2026). CPP2 (4%) applies ONLY to the extra band between the YMPE and the YAMPE ($85,000 for 2026), a strip of earnings that didn't attract any CPP contribution at all before 2024. If your salary is below the YMPE, you'll never pay CPP2 at all; only earners crossing $74,600 in a year see it appear on their pay stub.

No, not in the sense of a refund at year-end (unless you were genuinely over-deducted, e.g. across multiple employers, which the CRA reconciles on your T1 return). Maxing out simply means the deduction STOPS for the rest of the year: your gross pay per period stays the same, but your take-home pay rises because less is being withheld. The CPP contributions themselves still count toward your eventual CPP retirement pension entitlement; they're not lost, just no longer deducted once you've paid the annual maximum.

Each employer withholds CPP, CPP2, and EI from zero again, independently, because employers don't share your year-to-date totals with each other. If you max out with Employer A in June then start with Employer B in July, Employer B will start deducting CPP/CPP2/EI from scratch, potentially over-withholding across the two employers combined for the year. The CRA reconciles this: any CPP/CPP2/EI you overpaid across multiple employers gets credited back to you when you file your T1 return, but you won't see it show up as an early take-home bump the way a single-employer max-out does. This calculator assumes one employer for the full year; a job change will make your real experience diverge from what's shown here.

Yes, usually earlier. This calculator assumes perfectly even earnings every pay period, but a lump-sum bonus paid in a single period pushes your year-to-date cumulative earnings up in one jump, which can trigger CPP2 or push CPP/EI toward their caps faster than the smooth, evenly-spread model shown here. If you're expecting a mid-year bonus, treat the max-out periods above as a slightly conservative (later) estimate; your real max-out date is likely to land a bit sooner.

CPP2 and base CPP are federal programs and apply identically across every province and territory except Quebec, which runs its own parallel QPP2/QPP with its own (broadly similar, not identical) rates and maximums. EI is also federal and uniform nationwide. This calculator's figures apply outside Quebec; if you're in Quebec, use QPP/QPP2 rates instead.

Because EI's Maximum Insurable Earnings ($68,900) is actually LOWER than CPP's YMPE ($74,600), so EI reaches its own (lower) ceiling on a smaller amount of year-to-date gross pay than CPP2 does. CPP2 only starts accruing once you cross the YMPE at all, and doesn't finish until you cross the higher YAMPE ($85,000), so at most salary levels above roughly $85,000/year, the order tends to run EI first, then base CPP, then CPP2 last, exactly the pattern the calculator's worked example above shows.

It uses the confirmed 2026 CRA/Service Canada figures: CPP basic exemption $3,500, YMPE $74,600 (5.95% rate, $4,230.45 max), YAMPE $85,000 (CPP2 4% rate, $416 max), and EI MIE $68,900 (1.63% rate, $1,123.07 max). It assumes even earnings across every pay period, a single employer for the full year, and no mid-year hire, three simplifications that rarely hold exactly in the real world, see the FAQ above on bonuses and employer changes. This is a planning estimate, not a payroll calculation; your employer's actual payroll system may apply slightly different per-pay-period rounding.