How much EI pays in 2026: the 55% rate, your best weeks and the weekly maximum

Regular Employment Insurance benefits pay 55% of your average weekly insurable earnings, worked out over your best weeks of pay in the qualifying period, up to a ceiling of $729.00 per week in 2026. Two things decide your own figure: what you earned in those weeks, and how many weeks your region makes you divide by. Everything else on this page is a variation on that one sentence, including the ceiling that stops high earners short and the family supplement that can lift a low-income parent above the 55%.

Updated September 6, 2026 · Figures verified against the statutes of each jurisdiction · see all figures and their sources

The formula, in one line

Add up the insurable earnings of your best weeks in the qualifying period, divide by the number of best weeks your region uses, and take 55% of the result. That is your weekly benefit, and if the answer comes out above $729.00 per week, you are paid the maximum instead. The rate itself is s. 14(1) of the Employment Insurance Act:

"The rate of weekly benefits payable to a claimant is 55% of their weekly insurable earnings" (EI Act s. 14).

The phrase that does the work there is "weekly insurable earnings", because the Act has its own way of turning a year of pay into one weekly number.

Your best weeks, and the number you divide by

Your weekly insurable earnings are not last week's pay and not your yearly salary spread over the calendar. They are the average of your best-paid weeks in the qualifying period, and how many of those weeks go into the average is set by your region's unemployment rate on the table in s. 14(2). The higher the unemployment where you live, the fewer weeks are averaged, which normally works in your favour: a shorter list of your best weeks leaves out more of the thin ones.

Source: Employment Insurance Act, s. 14 - Rate of weekly benefits and best weeks. Reviewed on September 6, 2026. Your weekly benefit is worked out from the average of your best weeks of insurable earnings in the qualifying period. The higher the unemployment rate of your region, the fewer weeks the average is divided by.

The divisor runs from 22 weeks in the regions with the least unemployment down to 14 where it is highest. It is also the column called "Number of Best Weeks" on the regional table, so you can read your own straight off the regions page for August 9 to September 5, 2026.

Here is the part people get wrong. If you have fewer weeks with earnings than the divisor, your earnings are still divided by it. The Act does not shrink it to fit. Weeks with nothing in them are averaged in as zeroes, and that pulls the benefit down hard.

A worked example

Ravi's region sits at the low-unemployment end of the table, so his divisor is 22. He earned $1,200 a week when he worked.

• A full year of work. Take 22 weeks at $1,200, which is $26,400 of insurable earnings in his best weeks. Divided by 22, that is $1,200.00 a week. At 55%, his benefit is $660.00 a week.
• The same job, eighteen weeks of it. Ravi was only on the payroll for eighteen weeks, at the same $1,200, so $21,600 in total. The divisor does not move. His average is $981.82 a week and his benefit is $540.00.

Same rate of pay, same employer, and a much smaller cheque every week of the claim. That gap is the single biggest reason two people who earned the same wage get very different cheques, and it is also why a region with high unemployment can pay more than a region with low unemployment on identical earnings.

The ceiling, and who hits it

Insurance stops at a ceiling. The maximum insurable earnings for 2026 are $68,900.00 per year: pay above that line is not insured, you do not pay premiums on it, and it does not count when your benefit is worked out. The ceiling is set fresh every January.

Divide it across the year and you get the weekly earnings figure at which the ceiling starts to apply, $1,325.00. Above that, 55% of your average would come out above the weekly maximum, so the weekly maximum is what you are paid: $729.00 per week in 2026.

Take Meena, whose best weeks average $1,600. The formula gives $880.00 a week, and she is paid $729.00 per week. Take Ana, whose best weeks average $900. The formula gives $495.00, which is under the ceiling, so that is what she gets. The maximum is a lid, not an entitlement, and most claimants are nowhere near it.

The family supplement

One thing can push the rate above 55%. If you have children and your family income is low, you can be paid up to 80% of your average weekly insurable earnings instead. The supplement is worked out from net family income, and it disappears once that income reaches $25,921.00. The closer your family income sits to that line, the smaller the top-up.

You or your partner also has to be receiving the Canada Child Benefit. Whether the supplement applies, and how much of it, is worked out on the claim. Ana, above, would go from $495.00 to as much as $720.00 a week if her family qualified for the full supplement. Even with it, the weekly maximum of $729.00 per week still applies. Sources: EI Act s. 16 and EI Regulations s. 34.

What comes off before the money lands

EI benefits are taxable income. Federal and provincial income tax is withheld from each payment before it reaches you, so the amount in your account is smaller than the weekly benefit above. The tax withheld is not always the whole amount you owe on the benefits, so a year with EI in it can produce a balance at tax time. EI premiums themselves are not charged on EI payments.

What you pay in

Premiums are a percentage of your insurable earnings, up to the same ceiling of $68,900.00 per year. Outside Quebec the employee rate for 2026 is 1.63%, so an employee earning $50,000 pays $815.00 over the year, and nobody pays more than $1,123.07 (1.63% × $68,900.00 per year)^{calculation 1}. Your employer pays a higher rate on top of that.

In Quebec the employee rate is 1.3%, because the province runs its own parental insurance plan and part of the coverage sits there instead. That is the only difference Quebec makes to this page. Regular benefits, the 55% rate, the weekly maximum, the hours and the regional table are federal and identical across the country. Source: CEIC premium rate release (2026).

What lowers the amount

• Gaps in the qualifying period. The divisor stands whether or not you have that many weeks with earnings, as the example above shows.
• The ceiling. Earnings above $68,900.00 per year a year are invisible to the formula.
• Work while the claim is running. Money you earn in a benefit week is deducted on a sliding scale. See working while on a claim.
• Money paid because the job ended. Under the permanent rule, severance, pay in lieu of notice and vacation pay are allocated to the weeks after your last day and push the start of benefits back. See severance pay and EI.

What does not lower it: the reason you were let go, your age, your savings, or your spouse's income, apart from the family supplement test above.

What is different right now

The rate, the ceiling and the best-weeks divisor are the permanent law and no temporary measure touches them. What the measures below do change is when the money starts, which for most people matters just as much as the weekly figure.