Fixed-term contract ends early (2026): what the statute owes you

There are two completely different questions here, and the answer turns on which one you are in. If your fixed-term contract reached its end date and stopped, most Canadian statutes owe you no notice and no pay in lieu, because that ending is written into their exclusion lists. If your employer ended it early, the exclusion does not apply and the ordinary notice schedule does: 2 weeks in Ontario at eighteen months of service, rising to 8 weeks at eight years. Four jurisdictions do not exempt fixed-term work at all, and your accrued vacation pay is owed either way. This page is part of the severance pay hub.

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

When the contract simply runs out

Ten of the fourteen statutes carve the expiry of a fixed term out of the notice rules. The wording varies, and so does the fine print.

• Ontario: no notice for someone "hired for a definite term or a specific task" that has run out (O. Reg. 288/01 s. 2).
• British Columbia: the notice sections do not apply to an employee hired for a definite term, or for specific work to be finished within twelve months (BC ESA s. 65).
• Alberta: a definite term or task of twelve months or less that has now finished (ESC s. 55).
• Quebec: section 82 does not apply to a fixed-term contract or a contract for a specific undertaking that simply runs out (LSA s. 82.1).
• Manitoba: a fixed-term contract that runs out, or a specific task lasting twelve months or less that is now done (ESC s. 62).
• Nova Scotia: a definite term or task of twelve months or less (LSC s. 72).
• New Brunswick: a definite assignment of twelve months or less that has been completed, or a fixed term that has run out (ESA s. 31).
• Newfoundland and Labrador: a firm non-renewable term or a specific task of no more than twelve months that ran to its end (NL LSA s. 53).
• Prince Edward Island: hired to do a definite task lasting no more than a year (PEI ESA s. 59).
• Yukon: the end of a project or assignment the employee was hired to do over no more than twelve months (Yukon ESA s. 49).

Look at what these have in common. Nearly all of them are written about a contract that finished. A contract cut short is not the situation the exclusion describes, and Ontario says so directly: its regulation gives the exemption only where the term or task expired, and takes it away where the employment ends before that (O. Reg. 288/01 s. 2).

Four jurisdictions with no fixed-term exclusion at all

This is what most sites get wrong: they write about fixed-term contracts as if Canada had one rule.

Saskatchewan. The only exception written into the notice section is just cause. There is no carve-out for fixed-term contracts, seasonal work or construction (SEA s. 2-60). Once you have 13 weeks of service, the schedule applies to a fixed-term job like any other.

Federally regulated workplaces. The Code's individual termination division has exactly one exclusion: dismissal for just cause (CLC s. 229.1). No fixed term, no construction, no probation. If you have 3 months of continuous employment and a federally regulated employer ends your contract, the schedule applies.

The Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Their exclusion lists cover temporary layoff, exempted occupations, just cause, refusal of reasonable alternative work and failure to return from a layoff. A fixed term is not on either list (NWT ESA s. 37, Nunavut LSA s. 14.04).

Source: Employment Standards Act, 2000, s. 57 — Employer notice period. Reviewed on September 6, 2026. Notice is owed once you have 3 months of continuous service.

Source: Canada Labour Code, s. 230 — Employer's duty to give notice or wages in lieu. Reviewed on September 6, 2026. Notice is owed once you have 3 months of continuous service.

The traps in the fine print

A term longer than twelve months

Most of the exclusions are capped. Alberta, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and Yukon all limit theirs to a definite term or task of about a year or less, and British Columbia limits the specific-work version to work to be finished within twelve months. Ontario's regulation removes the exemption where the term or task runs more than twelve months. A three-year contract is not a fixed-term contract for these purposes in most of the country; it is an ordinary job with an end date on it.

The contract that keeps going after the end date

Every jurisdiction that has thought about this has the same instinct: if the work continues past the term, the term stops protecting the employer. Ontario removes the exemption where the work continues three months or more past the end of the term (O. Reg. 288/01 s. 2). British Columbia goes further and treats the job as if it had never been for a definite term, with the service clock running from the original start date (BC ESA s. 65). New Brunswick's exemption falls away if you carry on three months past the term (ESA s. 31), and Yukon's if the work runs more than a month past it (Yukon ESA s. 49). Renewal after renewal is exactly the pattern these subsections were written for.

Frustration is not the same as ending early

Several of the same exclusion lists also cover a contract that became impossible to perform or was frustrated, which is a separate item from the fixed term. Ontario adds an important limit: frustration caused by the employee's own illness or injury does not remove the entitlement (O. Reg. 288/01 s. 2).

When the employer ends it early

Once the fixed-term exclusion is out of the way, nothing about your entitlement is special. You are an employee whose employer ended the job, and the ordinary rules apply:

• The qualifying service threshold first. Below it there is no statutory notice at all: 30 days in Manitoba, 90 days in Alberta, 3 months in Ontario, 6 months in New Brunswick.
• Then the schedule, read against your completed service, not against the length of the contract. A one-year contract cut off at ten months is measured by the ten months.
• Working notice or pay in lieu, at the employer's choice, covered in working notice vs pay in lieu.
• Statutory severance where it exists. Ontario at 5 years of service with the payroll or mass-termination condition met; federally at 12 months of continuous employment, the greater of 2 days' wages for each completed year and 5 days' wages (CLC s. 235).

Your contract may say something different, and the statute does not stop it from promising more. What it stops is less: these Acts set a floor, and a contract term that pays below the statutory minimum does not lower the minimum. A fixed-term contract that ends early can also raise a claim outside the statute entirely, because the promise was work for a fixed period. That is a common law question about your contract, this site does not calculate it, and the place to take it is a lawyer in your province. Common law notice vs statutory minimums sets out where the line falls.

Vacation pay is owed on the last day either way

The vacation provisions of all fourteen statutes are triggered by employment ending, not by the reason for it, so they apply to an expiry as much as to an early termination. That is the money most people on fixed-term contracts forget to check, because the pay is often quoted as an all-in figure.

The percentage comes from your length of service: 5.77% in Saskatchewan from the first year, the highest minimum in the country, against 4% in Ontario and most of the rest. British Columbia is worth a special mention for short contracts, because vacation pay there accrues from the first days of employment even though the right to take time off arrives much later (BC ESA s. 58). The deadlines are in final pay deadlines by province and the arithmetic in vacation pay when your job ends.

A worked example

Nadia signed a two-year contract with an Ontario employer at $1,300 a week. Eighteen months in, the employer ends it with no notice.

• Does the exclusion apply? No, twice over. The contract did not run out, it was cut short; and the term is longer than twelve months, which removes the exemption in any event (O. Reg. 288/01 s. 2).
• Notice. Eighteen months of completed service puts her in the second band: 2 weeks (ESA s. 57). Paid in lieu, that is $2,600.00.
• Severance. None under the ESA. Ontario's severance pay starts at 5 years of employment and she is well short (ESA s. 64).
• Vacation pay. She earned $101,400 over the eighteen months and none of it has been paid out as vacation pay, so at 4% that is $4,056.00.
• Statutory minimum on the final pay: $6,656.00, due on the later of 7 days and her next pay day (ESA s. 11).

Move Nadia to a federally regulated employer and the shape changes. The Code has no fixed-term exclusion at all, the schedule gives her 2 weeks at eighteen months (CLC s. 230), and she also qualifies for statutory severance, because she has passed 12 months of continuous employment.