How much notice you owe when you quit (2026): the rule in all 14 jurisdictions

It depends entirely on where you work. Seven Canadian jurisdictions write a notice period into the employment standards statute for an employee who resigns: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Yukon. Seven do not: Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and federally regulated workplaces. Where a period does exist it runs from 1 week in Alberta at a year of service to 6 weeks in Newfoundland and Labrador after fifteen. Whatever you owe or do not owe, your unpaid wages and your accrued vacation pay are still yours. 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

The seven jurisdictions that ask you for notice

These statutes put a written notice period on the employee, worded much like the one they put on the employer, and each one has a threshold you have to pass before it applies at all.

• Alberta. You owe nothing in your first 90 days. After that the Code sets one week, stepping up to two once you have two years in (ESC s. 58).
• Saskatchewan. 2 weeks, flat, once you have 13 weeks of service. There is no step-up for longer service at all (SEA s. 2-63).
• Manitoba. Nothing for the first 30 days, then one week, then 2 weeks from your first anniversary onward (ESC s. 62.1).
• Nova Scotia. Nothing until you have 3 months in, then one week, then 2 weeks from two years (LSC s. 73). Construction workers are outside the section.
• Prince Edward Island. The Island is the one place where the employee's duty starts later in the job than the employer's does, and it tops out at 2 weeks (PEI ESA s. 60).
• Newfoundland and Labrador. The heaviest in the country, because section 55 sets a single period "required to be given by the employer and employee". A long-serving worker who resigns owes exactly what the employer would have owed: 6 weeks after fifteen years (NL LSA s. 55).
• Yukon. Nothing for the first 6 months, then a four-rung ladder to 4 weeks at six years and beyond (Yukon ESA s. 50).

Two of those tables are below. Alberta's is the shape most of the country uses, and Newfoundland and Labrador's is the outlier everyone should see before handing in a resignation letter.

Source: Employment Standards Code, s. 58 — Termination of employment by an employee. Reviewed on September 6, 2026.

Source: Labour Standards Act, s. 55 — Period of notice. Reviewed on September 6, 2026.

The seven that ask nothing

In the other half of the country the employment standards statute is silent, or close to it, about what you owe on the way out.

• Ontario sets no general notice period for a resignation, with one exception that catches people: if you were given notice as part of a mass termination under section 58, you cannot walk before giving written notice of your own, one week under two years of employment and two weeks at two years or more. That duty disappears if the employer constructively dismissed you or broke a term of your contract (ESA s. 58).
• British Columbia sets none. The Act deals with the opposite situation instead: if you give notice and the employer cuts it short, it owes you the lesser of the wages you would have earned for the rest of your notice and the compensation for length of service it would have owed on a termination (BC ESA s. 63).
• Quebec sets none in the Act respecting labour standards, but the Civil Code does, and it names no number. Either party to an employment contract of indeterminate term may end it by giving notice in reasonable time, judged by the nature of the job, the circumstances and how long the work has lasted (CCQ art. 2091). It runs both ways, which is also why a Quebec employee can have a claim against an employer that goes beyond the statutory indemnity.
• New Brunswick asks nothing of you at any length of service (New Brunswick Employment Standards Act).
• The Northwest Territories and Nunavut both speak only to employers in their termination provisions, and neither Act contains anything that would let an employer deduct from your pay because you left without notice (NWT ESA s. 37, Nunavut LSA s. 14.03).
• Federally regulated workplaces. The Canada Labour Code sets no notice period for an employee who resigns (CLC s. 230).

Silence in the statute is not silence everywhere. A written employment contract can ask you for notice in any jurisdiction, and in Quebec the Civil Code duty applies whatever your contract says. Nothing on this page reads your contract for you.

What happens if you give less

This is where most of the fear lives, and most of it is misplaced. The statutes that impose employee notice do not attach a penalty to it in the pay rules, and several of them say so in as many words.

Your final pay deadline does not change. Alberta repealed the sections that used to deal with an employee leaving without notice; what is left is one deadline for the final pay whichever way the job ended, at the employer's choice of two dates (ESC s. 8). Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador and Yukon all use a single final-pay clock as well, with no shorter or worse version for someone who quit. The full comparison is in final pay deadlines by province.

Nothing in the Act lets your employer keep your wages. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut Acts are explicit that no provision allows an employer to hold back pay because you left without notice. Elsewhere the point is structural: these statutes define what an employer must pay and when, and a shortfall in your notice is not on the list of lawful deductions.

What the Act does not settle, it leaves to other law. None of these statutes says what an employer may recover from an employee who leaves early, and this site does not guess. If your employer has raised it, that is a question for a lawyer in your province, not for a page of statutory minimums.

Several statutes also excuse you outright. Alberta and Saskatchewan both release you from the notice if staying would endanger your health or safety, if the contract became impossible to perform, if you are on temporary layoff, or if you are quitting because the employer cut your wage rate, overtime rate, vacation pay, holiday pay or termination pay. Manitoba releases you if your employer behaves improperly or violently toward you. Nova Scotia releases you if your employer has broken the terms and conditions of your employment.

Your vacation pay does not depend on how you left

This is the single most useful thing on the page. Every one of the fourteen statutes pays out accrued, unpaid vacation pay when employment ends, and none of them makes that payment conditional on the employer having been the one to end it. Resigning costs you the notice entitlement, because that is what notice is for. It does not cost you vacation pay, unpaid wages, overtime already worked or holiday pay you had already earned.

The deadlines are the same ones the rest of the country uses: 6 days in British Columbia, 7 days in Ontario or your next pay day if that is later, 14 days in Saskatchewan, 30 days federally. Vacation pay when your job ends works through the percentages and the payout.

Two weeks is a custom, not a rule

"Two weeks' notice" is a Canadian workplace habit, and a good one, but it is not a national rule and it is not what half the country's statutes say. Where a statute does land on two weeks it is a coincidence of the bands: Saskatchewan reaches it flat from 13 weeks, Alberta and Nova Scotia at two years, Manitoba at one year, Prince Edward Island at five. Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador go well past it with service. Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the federal jurisdiction never reach it, because they never start.

The practical reading: give the notice your statute or your contract requires, and give more only because you want the reference, not because you think you owe it.

A worked example

Priya has worked seven years for a Whitehorse employer. She is paid $1,150 a week. She resigns.

• Yukon's employee ladder puts her in the top band, so she owes 4 weeks of written notice (Yukon ESA s. 50).
• She works those weeks and is paid for them normally: $4,600.00.
• Her vacation pay is owed on top. Yukon's rate is 4% at every length of service, so on $9,200 of wages earned since her last vacation payout that is $368.00.
• Both are due within 7 days of her last day (Yukon ESA s. 65).

Change one fact and the answer changes completely. The same seven years in Regina buys a flat 2 weeks. In Fredericton, Toronto or Vancouver she owes nothing at all under the statute.

Quitting and Employment Insurance

Resigning has a consequence the employment standards Act says nothing about. There are no regular Employment Insurance benefits for someone who left a job without just cause, until they work enough insurable hours in a new job to qualify all over again (EI Act s. 30). Just cause there is a legal test, not the employer's opinion and not yours: the Act lists circumstances, including harassment, unsafe conditions and a big cut in pay or hours, that can amount to it (EI Act s. 29). Service Canada decides, with reconsideration and appeal, and this site never predicts how a claim will land. Quitting or being fired for misconduct sets out the test.