Canada Labour Code overtime
Around one in sixteen Canadian employees works under the Canada Labour Code rather than a provincial act, and most of them do not know it. The Code sets standard hours of eight in a day and forty in a week, pays time and a half past either, and caps the week at forty-eight. Whether it applies to you turns on what your employer does, not on where you live.
Who the Code covers
Federal jurisdiction follows the industry, not the address. A teller in a Toronto bank is federal; the shop next door on the same street is provincial. These are the sectors:
Banking
Chartered banks and authorised foreign banks
Air transport
Airlines, airports, aerodromes and air navigation
Rail and road
Interprovincial railways, trucking, buses and ferries
Marine
Shipping, navigation and port operations
Telecom and broadcasting
Telephone, cable, radio and television
Postal and courier
Canada Post and interprovincial courier work
Grain and uranium
Grain elevators, feed mills, uranium mining
First Nations
Band councils and many band-run operations
Federal Crown
Federal Crown corporations and certain agencies
The test is the nature of the employer's undertaking. If the business exists to move people, goods, money or signals across a provincial or national boundary, it is usually federal.
Everything else — retail, restaurants, manufacturing, construction, health care, most offices — runs on the employment standards act of the province it sits in.
The rules, and what each one pays
| rule | when it bites | what it pays |
|---|---|---|
| Standard hours — the day | Past 8 hours in a day | ×1.5 |
| Standard hours — the week | Past 40 hours in a week | ×1.5 |
| Maximum hours | Past 48 hours in a week | A ceiling, not a rate |
| Working a general holiday | Hours worked on the day itself | ×1.5, on top of holiday pay |
There is no double-time tier anywhere in the Code. One and a half times the regular rate is the only multiplier it uses — in section 174 for overtime and in section 197 for holiday work.
Two thresholds, one hour
When a week breaks both thresholds, the two are not added together. The Code defines overtime as hours “in excess of standard hours of work”, and an hour is either inside standard hours or outside them — it cannot be outside them twice.
overtime = daily excess + any hours still over 40 after those are set aside
Which is the same as taking the greater of the two counts. Pay the daily premium first, then apply the weekly threshold to what is left.
| the week | hours | adding both | the Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12h Monday, then 8h × 4 | 44 | 8 h | 4 h |
| 9h × 5 days | 45 | 10 h | 5 h |
| 10h × 4, then 8h × 2 | 56 | 24 h | 16 h |
| 8h × 6 days | 48 | 8 h | 8 h |
Worth being straight about this: the Code does not spell the interaction out in so many words. It follows from the definition of overtime in section 166 rather than from an express rule, and it is how the two thresholds are ordinarily administered. Where a lot of money turns on it, put the question to the Labour Program before relying on the figure.
Price your own week
The federal preset is loaded below: eight in a day, forty in a week, no hour counted twice. Every line opens into the arithmetic behind it.
Canada Labour Code, s. 169(1)(a) and s. 174(1)
live · follows the calculator
- 8h/day → ×1.5
- 40h/week → ×1.5
this week · 45 h · under the Canada Labour Code
A differential is not a separate bonus. It folds into the regular rate the multiplier is applied to, so every overtime hour that week gets more valuable — paying 1.5× on base plus 1.0× on the differential is the classic short-pay.
no signup · runs in your browser · nothing you type is sent anywhere
The full receipt — every line opens into its arithmetic
45h worked
$1,045.00
No weekly overtime owed: hours already paid a daily premium do not count again toward the 40. No hour is counted twice.
Assumes a Sunday workweek. Your employer sets this and it is printed on your stub — the app asks properly.
+$55.00 over the $990.00 a flat tracker shows for this week.
Canada Labour Code, s. 169(1)(a) and s. 174(1) · reviewed · How we calculate
This, automatically, every shift.
The app is the same engine running on every shift you work — offline, no account. It is on Google Play now; the iPhone version is next.
Overtally for iPhone — coming soonForty-eight is a ceiling, not a rate
The two numbers do independent work. Forty is where time and a half starts. Forty-eight is where the hours themselves become unlawful without an agreement. Hours forty-one to forty-eight are perfectly legal and still owe overtime.
Above forty-eight, the employer needs one of four things: a modified schedule that averages out at forty-eight, a permit from the Head of Compliance and Enforcement, genuine emergency work, or a regulation covering the class of employee. None of them touches the pay — legalising an hour does not make it cheaper.
General holidays
The Code gives ten paid general holidays, with no qualifying period — the entitlement attaches to any general holiday falling inside your employment.
- New Year's Day
- Good Friday
- Victoria Day
- Canada Day
- Labour Day
- National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (30 September)
- Thanksgiving Day
- Remembrance Day
- Christmas Day
- Boxing Day
holiday pay
wages in the 4 weeks before the week of the holiday, excluding overtime pay, ÷ 20
Paid wholly or partly on commission, with at least 12 weeks behind you? The divisor is 60 and the window is the preceding 12 weeks instead.
Work the holiday and you are owed holiday pay for the day plus time and a half for the hours you actually worked. The statute says “in addition to” — the premium does not swallow the holiday pay.
A week containing a paid general holiday has its weekly standard reduced by the standard hours of that holiday — forty becomes thirty-two — and the hours worked on the holiday itself are left out of the weekly count rather than counted twice.
Who gets no overtime under the Code
Division I — standard hours, maximum hours and overtime pay — does not reach everyone:
- Managers, superintendents, and employees who genuinely exercise management functions. The test is what you do, not what your title says.
- Members of five designated professions, and only these five: architecture, dentistry, engineering, law and medicine.
- Motor vehicle operators, who run on their own regulation — standard hours of 45 a week for city drivers and 60 for highway drivers, not 40.
A caution that cuts the other way: the 2021 regulations covering road transport, postal work, marine, grain, banking, telecom, rail and air are widely misread as overtime exemptions. They are not. They exempt those sectors from the break, rest-period and schedule-notice rules only — standard hours, maximum hours and overtime pay are untouched.
If the Code does not apply to you
Most Canadian workers are provincially regulated. The thresholds differ sharply — Ontario has no daily threshold at all, Alberta and British Columbia do.
Every province and territoryAll thresholds in one tableThe main overtime calculator
Questions people actually ask
How do I know if I am federally regulated?
Look at what your employer does, not where you work. Banks, airlines, railways, interprovincial trucking and bus lines, shipping, telephone and cable companies, radio and television, Canada Post, grain elevators, uranium mining, First Nations band councils and federal Crown corporations are federal. If your employer's business crosses a provincial or national boundary as its ordinary work, it is probably federal. Everything else is provincial.
Does the Canada Labour Code pay double time?
No. Time and a half is the only multiplier in the Code. It appears in section 174 for overtime hours and in section 197 for hours worked on a general holiday, and nowhere does the Code set a second, higher tier. If your employer pays double time, that comes from your contract or collective agreement, not from the Code.
I worked 12 hours Monday and 8 hours the rest of the week. How much overtime?
Four hours. The Monday day gives four hours past the eight-hour standard, and the week totals 44. Because those four hours are already outside standard hours, they do not count again toward the forty — so the week owes four overtime hours, not eight. Adding the two counts together would overstate what you are owed by double.
Can my employer require overtime, and is there a maximum?
Yes to both. Overtime starts at 40 hours in a week or 8 in a day, and an employer may schedule it — but forty-eight is the most you may lawfully be required to work in a week without an averaging agreement or a permit (s. 171). Hours 41 through 48 are lawful and still paid at time and a half. You may also refuse overtime to carry out a family responsibility — the care or health of a family member, or their education — once you have taken reasonable steps to arrange it otherwise, unless the overtime is needed against an imminent threat to life, health, safety or property or a serious interference with the ordinary working of the establishment; a refusal on that ground cannot be punished (s. 174.1).
Can my employer give me time off instead of overtime pay?
Only if you ask for it and both of you sign a written agreement. The Code puts the request in the employee's hands. The rate is an hour and a half of paid time off for every overtime hour, it has to be taken within three months of the end of the pay period unless a longer period is agreed, and anything left untaken must be paid out in cash at time and a half within thirty days.
I am called a manager but I supervise no one. Am I excluded?
Probably not. The exclusion is for employees who are managers or superintendents or who genuinely exercise management functions — it turns on what the job actually involves, not on the title printed on the contract. An employee given a manager's title but no management function is not excluded from overtime.
How is general holiday pay calculated federally?
Take the wages you earned in the four weeks before the week the holiday falls in, leave overtime pay out of that total, and divide by twenty. If you are paid wholly or partly on commission and have at least twelve weeks of continuous employment, the window is the preceding twelve weeks and the divisor is sixty instead.
Overtally for iPhone — coming soonsources
- Canada Labour Code, s. 166 — definitions of “overtime” and “standard hours of work”
- s. 169 — standard hours, averaging, and the holiday-week reduction
- s. 171 — maximum hours of work
- s. 174 — overtime pay and time off in lieu
- s. 174.1 — the right to refuse overtime for family responsibilities
- s. 196 — general holiday pay
- s. 197 — working on a general holiday
- s. 167(2) — managers and designated professions
- Canada Labour Standards Regulations — designated professions, averaging
- Motor Vehicle Operators Hours of Work Regulations
Every figure on this page traces to the statute or agency page above. If one is out of date, tell us — corrections ship the same week.
Overtally computes what you should be paid before taxes. It does not calculate take-home pay, withholding or deductions, and it is not legal advice — it is your own record and your own estimate.