How do we plan for financial independence as a couple, especially if one of us earns less or not at all?

In United States

• Spousal IRA — if you file jointly, a spouse with little or no pay of their own can still contribute to an IRA, as long as your combined contributions do not exceed the taxable compensation on the joint return. The 2026 limit is $7,500 each, or $8,600 at 50 and over.
• Social Security spousal benefit — a spouse can receive up to half of their partner’s benefit at the partner’s full retirement age. It can be claimed from 62 at a reduced rate. If you qualify for more than one benefit, you are paid the highest, not the sum.
• Survivor benefit — a widow or widower can receive from 71.5% of the deceased spouse’s benefit, rising with the age at which it is claimed to 100% at their own full retirement age.

In Canada

• Spousal RRSP — you contribute to an RRSP in your spouse’s or common-law partner’s name, using your own contribution room and claiming the deduction yourself. If they withdraw in a year when you contributed to any of their spousal RRSPs, or in either of the two years before, all or part of the withdrawal can be taxed as yours. The 2026 RRSP dollar limit is $33,810.
• Pension income splitting — you can allocate up to 50% of eligible pension income to your spouse or partner on your tax returns. Under 65 this is mainly life-annuity payments from a pension plan; RRIF and RRSP annuity income qualify from 65.
• CPP pension sharing — spouses living together can share their Canada Pension Plan retirement pensions once either of them is receiving one, in proportion to the time they lived together while contributing. It is separate from pension income splitting.

In United Kingdom

• Marriage Allowance — a spouse or civil partner whose income is below the Personal Allowance can transfer £1,260 of it to a partner who pays basic-rate tax, cutting the partner’s tax by up to £252 a year.
• A pension with no earnings — someone with no earnings can still pay up to £2,880 a year into a personal pension and receive 20% tax relief on it, so £3,600 goes in.
• State Pension is your own — the new State Pension depends on your own National Insurance record: 35 qualifying years for the full amount (£241.30 a week in 2026/27) and at least 10 for any. A parent registered for Child Benefit for a child under 12 gets National Insurance credits, even if they choose not to receive the payment — so register.
• Little passes to a widow or widower — under the new State Pension, inheriting part of a spouse’s pension is possible only in limited cases, such as a marriage or civil partnership that began before 6 April 2016.

In Europe

How couples are taxed, whether a non-earning spouse builds any pension of their own, and what a survivor receives are all national rules, and they differ widely. What EU rules do ensure is that pension rights earned in several member states are not lost. You apply in the country where you live or last worked. Each country where you paid in calculates and pays its own part, and periods in different countries are added together so that short spells still count.

Each country pays only from its own pension age. Some EU countries pay no survivor’s pension at all. For each country either of you has worked in, check what a surviving spouse would receive, whether years spent caring for children earn pension credits, and whether couples are taxed jointly or separately.

In Australia

• Spouse contribution tax offset — contribute to your spouse’s super and you can claim a tax offset of up to $540 (18% of up to $3,000 of contributions) when their income is under $37,000. It phases out as their income rises to $40,000 (2025–26 rules), and the contributions must not be ones you claim a deduction for.
• Contribution splitting — you can ask your fund to move up to 85% of a year’s concessional (before-tax) contributions to your spouse’s account, usually in the following financial year.
• Concessional cap — $32,500 a year from 1 July 2026 (it was $30,000), and unused amounts can be carried forward for up to five years, subject to conditions.

In New Zealand

• KiwiSaver without a job — you can join through a scheme provider if you are not working. The government adds 25 cents for every dollar you contribute, up to $260.72 a year (on $1,042.86 of contributions), for members aged 16 to 65 with income under $180,000 — and voluntary contributions count.
• NZ Super is paid to each person. From 1 April 2026, a couple who both qualify receive $984.28 a fortnight each before tax, against $1,294.74 for a single person living alone.
• Relationship property — after a marriage, civil union or de facto relationship of more than three years, relationship property is generally divided equally if you separate, unless a court finds that extremely unfair. It covers what you gained during the relationship, and unpaid work such as caring for children counts as equal in value to paid work.

In Singapore

• Topping up a spouse’s CPF — cash top-ups under the Retirement Sum Topping-Up scheme earn tax relief of up to $8,000 a year for yourself and a further $8,000 for family members. For a spouse, their income in the previous year must be $8,000 or less (no income test if they have a disability). It applies to cash top-ups, not CPF-to-CPF transfers.
• Matched Retirement Savings Scheme — for eligible citizens 55 and over (or with a disability) with low retirement savings, the government matches cash top-ups dollar for dollar, up to $2,000 a year and $20,000 in a lifetime. Top-ups that attract the grant no longer qualify for tax relief.
• Nominate — CPF savings are excluded from your estate and cannot be covered by a will, so each of you needs a CPF nomination for your savings to go where you intend.

In Hong Kong

Tax-deductible voluntary contributions to MPF can be made only by people who already hold an MPF contribution or personal account, or belong to an MPF-exempted ORSO scheme. The deduction is capped at HK$60,000 a year, shared with qualifying deferred annuity premiums, and the money is locked until 65. A spouse with no MPF account of their own therefore builds savings in ordinary accounts in their own name.

For tax, the married person’s allowance is HK$290,000 from 2026/27 (HK$264,000 before). It is available when your spouse had no income chargeable to salaries tax, or when you elect joint assessment.

In Japan

• Category III insured persons — a dependent spouse aged 20 to 59 of an employee in the Employees’ Pension Insurance is covered by the National Pension without paying premiums themselves, provided their annual income is under ¥1.3 million and less than half the earner’s. Those years count toward their own basic pension.
• iDeCo — a Category III spouse can join and contribute up to ¥23,000 a month.
• Spouse deduction (配偶者控除) — ¥380,000 (¥480,000 for a spouse aged 70 or over) when your total income is ¥9 million or less. For 2026 income it applies when your spouse’s total income is ¥620,000 or less — a salary of up to ¥1.36 million. Above that, the special spouse deduction tapers off.

In India

A non-earning spouse in India can hold pension and savings accounts of their own. The National Pension System is an individual account open to citizens aged 18 to 85, including NRIs and OCIs. It must be opened by the subscriber themselves, not on someone else’s behalf.

• Atal Pension Yojana — open to people aged 18 to 40 who are not, and have not been, income-tax payers. If the subscriber dies, the spouse receives the same pension for life.
• Clubbing — under section 99 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, income arising to your spouse from assets you transfer to them can be taxed as your income. Giving your spouse money to invest does not by itself move the tax on its returns to them.
• Nominations — add or update a nominee on every account, deposit and policy, as each is governed by its own rules.

In Malaysia

• i-Sayang — a husband who is an EPF member can have 2% of his own monthly employee contribution transferred to his wife’s EPF account. Both must be under 75 and the marriage registered under Malaysian law. Once started, it cannot be cancelled except on the wife’s death or divorce.
• i-Simpan — any EPF member under 75 who is a Malaysian or permanent resident can contribute voluntarily, up to RM100,000 a year across all voluntary channels.
• i-Suri — for women under 60 registered in the eKasih database, the government adds 50 sen for every ringgit contributed, up to RM300 a year and RM3,000 in a lifetime.