Does Selling Your House Change Your OAS or GIS?

Old Age Security (OAS) is a monthly pension from the federal government for people aged 65 and over. The Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) is an extra monthly payment for OAS recipients with low income. Both are worked out from your income, and selling a house can change the income you report. This guide shows which parts of a home sale matter and which do not, using only Canada.ca and Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) pages.

What do OAS and the GIS pay, and who gets them?

Canada.ca says your OAS pension is set by your age, how long you have lived in Canada after age 18, and your income. The GIS is tax free and has an income limit. The table shows the maximum amounts for October to December 2026.

Source: Old Age Security payment amounts, Canada.ca, October to December 2026. These are maximums. Service Canada says your actual payment depends on your income, and the amounts rise each January, April, July and October with the cost of living.

The two benefits use income in different ways. The OAS pension is taxable, and Service Canada takes part of it back through a recovery tax when your income is high. The GIS is not taxable, and Service Canada says its payments can increase, decrease or stop as your income changes.

Does the sale of your main home count as income?

The CRA says that when a property was your principal residence for every year you owned it, you do not have to pay tax on the gain. You still report the sale on Schedule 3 and complete Form T2091(IND). The CRA allows the exemption only if you report both on your return. Our post on capital gains when you sell your home in BC goes through the forms.

The Canada.ca pages on OAS and the GIS that we read do not say how a home sale is counted. In our reading, the gain on your main home adds nothing to the income these benefits use, because it is not taxed. That is our opinion, and we cannot confirm it from those pages. Ask Service Canada before you list, using the "Contact us" link on its Guaranteed Income Supplement page.

Which income counts after the sale?

The sale money has to go somewhere, and what it earns is income. Service Canada's Allowance application page lists what to report as income. The Allowance is a benefit for the partner of a GIS recipient aged 60 to 64. We did not find the same list on the GIS pages, so treat this table as the closest published list and confirm it with Service Canada.

Source: Service Canada, Allowance application page, "What you must report as income" and "What is exempted as income", accessed 2026-10-17.

Two choices follow from this table. Interest on sale money sitting in a regular account counts every year. A gain on a second property, such as a cottage or a rental condo, counts in the year you sell it. The CRA's example says fifty percent of a capital gain is taxable, so half of the gain is added to your income.

The CRA sets the 2026 TFSA dollar limit at $7,000, and unused room from earlier years adds up. The CRA asks you to check your room in your CRA account and with your bank records, because an over-contribution is taxed.

How can the sale change your GIS?

Service Canada says the GIS is recalculated each July from your net income in the previous calendar year, and that payments can increase, decrease or stop. It also says the benefit is reviewed every year using your federal tax return, so the return must be filed by April 30 to avoid a gap in payments.

Here is an example. A single person receives $15,000 a year from pensions. After selling the house, the sale money earns $10,000 of interest in a year.

Source: FRIVE calculation. The limit comes from Canada.ca, October to December 2026. The amounts are an example, and Service Canada also allows deductions that this example leaves out.

At $25,000 the person is above the limit, so the GIS would stop in the July to June year that follows. Service Canada also offers one option. If your income falls because you retire or a pension is reduced, you can contact Service Canada, which can then set your payment from an estimate of your income for the current year instead of last year's.

How can the sale change your OAS?

The OAS pension is taxable. Canada.ca says you repay part or all of it when your net world income is above a threshold: $93,454 for 2025 income and $95,323 for 2026 income. You repay 15% of the amount above the threshold, and Service Canada divides the repayment into monthly deductions from your pension.

An example shows where a home sale could matter. A person aged 66 has other net income of $70,000 in 2026 and sells a rental condo at a gain of $100,000.

Source: FRIVE calculation using the Canada.ca recovery tax page and the CRA's fifty percent example. The repayment applies to the July 2027 to June 2028 period. If the repayment is split evenly over 12 months, it is $308.46 per month. The example ignores deductions.

Without the gain, the same person's income of $70,000 is below the threshold and there is no repayment. The gain on a second property is what creates it. The same sale of a main home would bring no taxable gain.

What should you do before you list the house?

These steps are our suggestions. Your accountant and Service Canada know your facts, and this guide does not.

First, confirm whether the house is your main home. If it is, the CRA rule above applies. If it is a second property, ask your accountant what the taxable gain will be, because it counts in the year you sell.

Second, choose the year of the sale on purpose when you can. Income in one calendar year sets the benefit for the July to June year that follows. A sale that completes in December and one that completes in January fall in different income years.

Third, plan where the sale money will sit. Ask your accountant how much of it can go into your TFSA room, and what the rest will earn. Our posts on reverse mortgages and downsizing and on selling and renting show other ways to use the money from a house.

Fourth, file your tax return by April 30 every year. Service Canada uses it to review your benefit, and it says payments can be disrupted when a return is missing.

This guide is general information about published rules. It cannot replace advice on your own tax return or benefits. Confirm tax questions with your own accountant, and benefit questions with Service Canada, before you sign a contract.

Next step

The sale price of the house is the first number in every example above. Ask us for a free home value, and a BC-licensed REALTOR® will email you a price range based on recent sales of homes like yours. Then try the downsizing calculator to see what you keep after costs. You do not have to sell with us. The rest of our downsizing guide covers every step of the move.