Vacation pay when your job ends (2026): what you're owed on the final pay

Vacation pay you have earned and not been paid is owed on your final pay in every Canadian jurisdiction, and it does not matter how the job ended. Fired, laid off, let go in a group, dismissed for cause, or quit with no notice at all: the percentage of your wages is still owed. It runs from 4% of gross wages at the start of a job to 8% for long-service federally regulated employees, and Saskatchewan starts everyone at 5.77%. What changes between jurisdictions is the rate, what counts as wages, and how fast the money has to reach you. 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 rate in every jurisdiction

Reviewed on September 6, 2026.

Vacation time and vacation pay are two different entitlements

Most statutes give you a number of weeks off and a percentage of your wages, and they do not arrive at the same moment. When the job ends, only the percentage matters, because you can no longer take the time.

British Columbia makes the split obvious: vacation pay starts accruing after a handful of calendar days of employment, but the right to take 2 weeks off does not arrive until you have completed a full year of employment (BC ESA s. 58, BC ESA s. 57). Quebec gives an employee under a year one working day of leave per month of service while the indemnity accrues in the background (LSA s. 67). Saskatchewan sets the entitlement as a fraction of your wages, three fifty-seconds and later four fifty-seconds, which is where its unusual percentages come from (SEA s. 2-27).

So a short-service employee who never earned a day off is still owed vacation pay on every dollar of wages. Saskatchewan says it in as many words: it is owed whether or not you ever completed a full year (SEA s. 2-29). Newfoundland and Labrador owes it once you have worked a few consecutive work days (NL LSA s. 9). Alberta pays 4% of everything you earned where the first annual vacation never came due (ESC s. 42).

What counts as wages for the percentage

The base is not always your gross pay, and the differences are real money over a long job.

• Overtime. Manitoba excludes overtime from the base, along with wages in lieu of notice and the vacation allowance itself (ESC s. 39). Other statutes word it differently, so check your own.
• Board and lodging. Prince Edward Island counts the cash value of meals and lodging in wages (PEI ESA s. 34); Nova Scotia counts board and lodging too, outside construction (LSC s. 35); Manitoba counts them as well.
• Other statutory payments. New Brunswick's definition of wages excludes public holiday pay, vacation pay itself, gratuities and honoraria (ESA s. 1), so tips do not raise the percentage there.
• The reference year. New Brunswick runs its vacation pay year from July 1 to the end of June rather than from your hire date (ESA s. 24), which is unique in Canada and changes what "this year's wages" means when you leave.

Manitoba also uses its own term for the money: the Code calls it a vacation allowance rather than vacation pay. It is the same entitlement.

When the money has to arrive

Several statutes give vacation pay its own clock, separate from the rest of the final pay, and it is usually the faster of the two.

• Nova Scotia gives the employer 10 days from your last day for the vacation pay specifically, while ordinary wages follow the normal pay cycle (LSC s. 34).
• Saskatchewan gives 14 days (SEA s. 2-29), Newfoundland and Labrador 7 days (NL LSA s. 9) and Yukon 7 days (Yukon ESA s. 25), and federally regulated employers 30 days (CLC s. 188).
• The Northwest Territories and Nunavut simply say "without delay" (NWT ESA s. 25, Nunavut LSA s. 19).
• Prince Edward Island pays by the last day of the next pay period and does something no other province does: accrued vacation pay is held in trust for you and ranks ahead of the employer's other creditors, including the government (PEI ESA s. 34). If your employer goes under, that matters.

Everywhere else vacation pay rides along with the rest of the final pay, on the deadline your Act sets for wages. Those deadlines are compared side by side in final pay deadlines by province.

Quitting does not cost you your vacation pay

This is the single most common misunderstanding about vacation pay, and it costs people money every week. Nothing in any Canadian employment standards statute lets an employer keep accrued vacation pay because you resigned, gave short notice or left on bad terms. Ontario says so plainly: quitting, being fired for cause, or being on a fixed-term contract makes no difference to it (ESA s. 38). Alberta pays it out however the job ends (ESC s. 42). Prince Edward Island pays it out for any reason (PEI ESA s. 34).

The same is true when the employer alleges just cause. Cause, where the statutory standard is met, removes the notice and the termination pay. It does not reach the wages you already earned or the vacation pay on them. That is set out in fired for cause: what you are still owed.

A worked example

Devon has completed six years and, since the last time vacation pay was paid out, has earned $9,000 in gross wages without taking any vacation. The job ends. Nothing else about the ending changes this line.

• In British Columbia the rate at six years is 6%, so the vacation pay owed is $540.00 (BC ESA s. 58).
• In Saskatchewan the rate at the same service is 5.77%, giving $519.30, because Saskatchewan's fractions do not land on a round percentage.
• In Nova Scotia six years is still on the lower rung, 4%, giving $360.00. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick make you wait longer for the higher rate than any province except Newfoundland and Labrador.
• In a federally regulated job the rate at six years is 6%, or $540.00, rising to 8% at longer service.

The wage figure is invented; every percentage comes from the section named in the table. The calculator on each jurisdiction page asks for the gross wages since your last vacation payout and how much vacation pay you have already been paid for that period, and does this arithmetic with your own numbers.

What EI does with the vacation pay on your last cheque

Employment Insurance treats vacation pay paid out because the job ended as separation money, the same category as severance and pay in lieu of notice. Under the permanent rule in the EI Regulations it is allocated to the weeks after your last day and delays the start of benefits, though it never reduces the number of weeks you are owed. For many people the accrued vacation pay is the biggest single line on the final statement, which is why it surprises so many people.

A temporary measure currently switches that treatment off, and it carries an end date.

How the allocation works, and what happens when the measure lapses, is in severance pay and EI. Apply when the job ends rather than waiting for the money to run out: the date your benefit period begins is what decides the treatment.