EI in Quebec (2026): your economic region, the hours you need, and the lower premium

Quebec has twelve Employment Insurance economic regions, and for August 9 to September 5, 2026 most of them sit at the strictest end of the national scale: 700 hours of insurable employment to qualify, because unemployment there is low. South Central Quebec is the extreme case at 2.6%. At the other end, Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine needs 630 hours and pays a qualifying claim of 17 weeks rather than 14 weeks. Montreal is in between at 665 hours. Regular benefits themselves are federal and the same as in the rest of Canada; only the premium you pay is different.

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

Quebec's EI regions this period

The Act, the hours table and Schedule I are federal, and they are explained in full on the EI hub. Quebec's regions sit in the same national table as everyone else's. The estimator above is preset to Quebec, so you can read your own answer from your hours and your best weeks.

Source: EI Program Characteristics (economic regions, rates, hours and weeks). Table for the period August 9 to September 5, 2026; it is replaced every four weeks.

Finding your region on that list

The names follow Service Canada's own map rather than the province's administrative regions, and several of them will not be what you expect. The region called Quebec is the Quebec City area, not the province. Hull is the Outaouais, across the river from Ottawa. South Central Quebec runs south of the St. Lawrence between Montérégie and the Eastern Townships. Central Quebec, North Western Quebec, and Lower Saint Lawrence and North Shore each cover a large stretch of the interior and the coast. Montreal is the metropolitan area, and Montérégie beside it is a separate region with its own rate.

Your region is the one where you ordinarily live when your claim starts. Someone living in Gatineau who worked in Ottawa is in the Hull region, which this period needs 665 hours.

What the Quebec table shows this period

Quebec holds the low end of the national unemployment scale right now. Eight of its twelve regions are at the top of the hours requirement, the same figure the Act sets for any region at or under the first rate band, and South Central Quebec's 2.6% is the lowest rate on the national table. In practice, if you live outside the highest-rate regions you have to show the largest number of hours the Act ever asks for, and you draw the shortest schedule of weeks once you do.

The exception is the east. Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, at 8%, needs 630 hours and reaches 40 weeks at the top of the hours column, against 36 weeks in the low-rate regions. Trois-Rivières, Montreal and Hull share the middle band. It is worth checking the row for your own region before you assume anything: two regions that touch each other can be a full band apart, and the table is replaced every four weeks.

Why your premium is lower than in the rest of Canada

Quebec runs the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan, which pays maternity, paternity, parental and adoption benefits to Quebec workers instead of EI. Because EI does not carry those benefits in Quebec, the EI premium is set lower there: 1.3% of insurable earnings instead of 1.63% everywhere else, on the same ceiling of $68,900.00 per year. Your employer's share is reduced in the same proportion, and a separate provincial premium funds the parental plan.

That is the whole difference. Regular benefits after a layoff are federal: the same 55% rate, the same weekly maximum of $729.00 per week, the same hours table, the same Schedule I, the same regional cycle. Sickness, compassionate care and caregiving benefits also remain federal in Quebec.

A worked example

Josée was let go from an office job in Montreal. Her ROE shows 980 insurable hours in the last year, and her best-paid weeks averaged $825.00 in insurable earnings.

• Montreal's rate this period is 6.5%, so she needs 665 hours to qualify. Her 980 hours clear it.
• Her benefit is averaged over her 21 best-paid weeks.
• Weekly benefit: $825.00 × 55% = $453.75, well under the 2026 ceiling of $729.00 per week, so she is paid the full rate before tax.
• Her number of weeks comes from Schedule I and lands between 15 weeks and 38 weeks. The estimator above reads the exact cell from her hours.

If Josée had lived in the Quebec City region on identical hours and pay, her weekly benefit would be the same to the cent, but she would have needed 700 hours to qualify at all.

Your severance and your Quebec claim

Quebec's Act respecting labour standards does not have a separate statutory severance pay: what people call severance here is the indemnity that stands in for notice, and it is worked out on the Quebec termination pay page. What that money does to an EI claim is decided federally, and right now the usual answer is wrong.

While that measure holds, an indemnity or a severance package does not push your benefits back, and there is no unpaid week at the front of the claim. From October 11, 2026, unless the sections are extended, that money is allocated to the weeks after your last day and benefits start when it runs out (EI Regulations s. 36), behind a waiting period of 1 week (EI Act s. 13). Apply in the week you are let go either way.