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Canada: the overtime threshold is your province's, not the country's

Canada does not really have a national answer to this question. The federal standard of 40 hours a week covers banking, telecommunications, interprovincial transport and a few other sectors, roughly six per cent of workers. Everyone else is under provincial employment standards, and the thresholds do not agree.

Ontario is the case worth knowing, because it is the largest labour market in the country and it pays overtime only above 44 hours a week. Four hours that would earn time and a half in Quebec or under the federal code are ordinary time in Toronto. British Columbia adds a daily trigger at eight hours on top of its weekly one. The multiplier is the same one and a half almost everywhere; it is the line it starts from that moves.

Vacation follows the same pattern. Two weeks of paid vacation is the usual statutory minimum, rising with service in most provinces, commonly to three weeks after five years, and Saskatchewan starts at three. The ten days used here are the common floor, not a national entitlement, and pushing the figure to your own accrued days is worth doing before comparing a Canadian offer with an American one.

Canada is also one of only two countries here that use semi-monthly pay, twice a month on fixed dates, alongside the biweekly cycle that dominates Canadian payroll. The two are easy to confuse and are not the same: biweekly gives 26 cheques a year and semi-monthly 24, so a biweekly amount is about eight per cent smaller for the identical salary.

For how the calculation works, the formula behind it and what it leaves out, see the full guide.

Data sources

  • Canadian employment standards on hours and vacation

    Effective 2019-09-01 onward · retrieved 2026-08-30

    Federal standards; most workers are covered by their province instead, where thresholds differ.

    How we checked these figures

    Federal and most provincial rules set overtime at one and a half times after the weekly threshold, with two weeks of paid vacation as the minimum.

    Current

This calculator in other countries

Each country has its own rates, thresholds and rules, and its own page with the official sources they came from.

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Every CentExact calculator is built from the published finance formula, tested against spreadsheet, lender and tax-authority figures, and reviewed when the underlying rates or rules change.

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Figures are estimates derived from published rates and rules, current at the review date shown at the top of this page and taken from the sources listed below. Rates, fees and thresholds change; always confirm current values with the official source before relying on a result.