The sixty-second answer
An employee pays 5.95% of contributory earnings to CPP and their employer pays a matching 5.95%. A self-employed person is both, so the rate is 11.9%. For 2026 the ceiling is $74,600 of pensionable earnings, the basic exemption is $3,500, and maximum contributory earnings are therefore $71,100. The maximum employee contribution is $4,230.45 and the maximum self-employed contribution is $8,460.90. It is due with the rest of your balance on April 30.
The structural point
CPP is funded from two equal contributions. An employee has 5.95% withheld and their employer remits a matching 5.95% [1]. The employee sees one of those halves on a pay stub and often never thinks about the other.
Self-employment collapses the two roles into one person. There is no separate employer to pay the matching share, so the self-employed person pays both, at a combined 11.9% [1].
This is not a penalty on self-employment. The same total goes into the plan either way, and it buys the same entitlement. What changes is who writes the cheque and when they find out.
The 2026 numbers
Four figures define the calculation, and they move most years [1].
Maximum annual pensionable earnings: $74,600. Earnings above this do not attract a contribution under the first ceiling.
Basic exemption: $3,500. The first $3,500 is not contributory.
Maximum contributory earnings: $71,100. The ceiling less the exemption, and the figure the rate is applied to.
Rate: 5.95% each side, so 11.9% self-employed. Which gives a maximum employee contribution of $4,230.45 and a maximum self-employed contribution of $8,460.90 [1].
For comparison, the 2025 figures were a ceiling of $71,300, the same $3,500 exemption, contributory earnings of $67,800, and a maximum self-employed contribution of $8,068.20 [1]. Roughly $393 more in 2026 than in 2025 at the top end.
The exemption is shrinking without changing
A detail worth noticing. The basic exemption has been $3,500 since 1996 [1]. It is not indexed.
The ceiling, meanwhile, rises most years. The consequence is that the exemption protects a steadily smaller proportion of earnings over time. In 1996 it was a meaningful share of the ceiling; against a $74,600 ceiling it is under five percent.
For a low-earning sole proprietor this matters more than for anyone else, because the exemption is the whole of the relief available at that end of the scale.
CPP2, briefly
From January 1, 2024 there is a second additional CPP contribution on earnings above the first ceiling, up to a second and higher ceiling [1]. The CRA documents it separately and it is not included in the main rates table.
The practical point for a self-employed person is that the first ceiling is no longer the end of the calculation. Earnings above it were previously outside CPP entirely; a band above it is now contributory. Anyone whose net business income comfortably exceeds the first ceiling should treat $8,460.90 as the floor of their CPP exposure rather than the cap.
Why the bill is a surprise
An employee's CPP is withheld in small amounts across twenty-six pay periods and appears on a return only as a reconciliation. The money is gone before it is noticed.
A self-employed person's CPP is calculated once, on net business income from the T2125 [2], and appears on the return as a single number due in full on April 30 [3].
That combination - large, annual, and nobody withheld it - is why it lands badly. An owner who has mentally set aside money for income tax has frequently set aside nothing for this, and at maximum it is another $8,460.90 on top.
There is a second-order problem hiding in it. The self-employed filing deadline is June 15, but the payment deadline is April 30. So the CPP amount is due six weeks before the return that calculates it is due. Anyone estimating their April payment from income tax alone will be short by the CPP figure.
It is driven by the T2125
CPP for the self-employed is computed on net business income, which is the bottom of Form T2125 [2]. That makes the contribution a direct function of how completely expenses have been captured.
The relationship is worth stating plainly, because it changes the value of good record-keeping. A deductible expense that never made it onto the T2125 overstates net income. Overstated net income raises income tax and raises the CPP contribution alongside it, at 11.9% up to the ceiling.
So a missed receipt costs more for a self-employed person than the marginal income tax rate suggests. Below the ceiling it costs the tax and the CPP.
That is the case for capturing expenses as they happen rather than reconstructing them in May. MapleTax computes the T2125 from receipts already processed and categorised in MapleExpense, so what reaches the CPP calculation is the year's actual deductible expenses rather than the subset somebody could still find. And because the figures exist before April, the estimate that has to be paid on the balance-due day can include the CPP amount instead of omitting it.
Planning for it
Two habits make this manageable, and neither is sophisticated.
The first is setting money aside through the year at a rate that includes CPP, not just income tax. At 11.9% up to the ceiling, that is a material addition to whatever percentage you are already reserving.
The second is knowing your net income before April rather than in June. Everything about the balance-due day assumes you can estimate the year accurately six weeks before you finish calculating it, and that is a records question rather than a tax question.