Transferring your pension to Questrade

Learn more about how to transfer your pension to Questrade. When your employment ends, or you retire, in many cases you will be given the option to transfer the RPP (Registered Pension Plan) to either a Locked in RRSP (L-RSP) or a LIRA, depending on which jurisdiction the pension is governed under.

Retired recently, or ended your employment with a company that provides a pension? Good news, in many cases, you are now able to ‘take control’ of your retirement funds, and manage the investments on your own.

For new and existing Questrade clients, you can transfer in your former pension plan account in a few short and easy steps. You can also either transfer in as cash, or as your actual investments (in-kind) depending on the originating (sending) institution. And as always, if the company you’re coming from charges transfer fees, we will cover your transfer-in fees up to $150 per account, check out our brokerage transfer in article for more information.

Important considerations before your transfer

When your employment ends, or you retire, in many cases you will be given the option to transfer the RPP (Registered Pension Plan) to either a Locked in RRSP (L-RSP) or a LIRA, depending on which jurisdiction the pension is governed under.

The details of your RPP’s jurisdiction can be found either on your monthly statements, or by contacting the institution holding the account directly. In most cases, a provincial jurisdiction (Alberta, Ontario, etc...) means the RPP will transfer into a LIRA, and a federal jurisdiction will transfer into an LRSP.

The outgoing institution may also add other costs to the transfer on top of the transfer fees themselves.

We strongly recommended speaking with the outgoing institution first to understand if any other charges may occur.

One example to consider would be the Deferred Sales Charge (DSC) attached to many mutual funds if the transfer is to be requested as In-Cash, where the mutual fund would be liquidated (sold) before the transfer completes.

Questrade unfortunately cannot reimburse any deferred sales charges, and will only rebate the transfer fee itself.

End-of-year transfer requests for RIFs (Retirement Income Funds) or LIFs (Life Income Funds) may be placed on hold until the new year.

We strongly recommended speaking with the outgoing institution first to understand if any other charges may occur.

The exact date varies from year to year, and may differ based on your pension plan, but it is typically from late November onwards.

Fund cut-off dates are usually released to financial institutions in late October, at which time you can contact our support staff (opens in a new tab) to learn the cut-off dates for your RIF or LIF.