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Victoria Day falls on Monday 18 May 2026, and it is a statutory holiday in nine of the thirteen provinces and territories. It is not one in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland and Labrador, the four provinces whose paid-holiday lists leave it out. Quebec is the odd case among the nine: it does not observe Victoria Day, but the same Monday is the National Patriots' Day, a statutory holiday in its own right.
A statutory holiday in 9 of 13 provinces and territories.
Last reviewed · maintained by Ihor Bezrukavnyk · how we calculate
| Jurisdiction | Statutory holiday | |
|---|---|---|
| AlbertaVictoria Daypay formula → | Yes | Victoria Day |
| British ColumbiaVictoria Daypay formula → | Yes | Victoria Day |
| ManitobaVictoria Daypay formula → | Yes | Victoria Day |
| New Brunswick—pay formula → | No | — |
| Newfoundland and Labrador—pay formula → | No | — |
| Northwest TerritoriesVictoria Daypay formula → | Yes | Victoria Day |
| Nova Scotia—pay formula → | No | — |
| NunavutBirthday of the reigning sovereign (Victoria Day)pay formula → | Yes | Birthday of the reigning sovereign (Victoria Day) |
| OntarioVictoria Daypay formula → | Yes | Victoria Day |
| Prince Edward Island—pay formula → | No | — |
| QuebecNational Patriots' DayQuebec does not observe Victoria Day. The same Monday is the National Patriots' Day, and it is a statutory holiday in its own right.pay formula → | Yes | National Patriots' DayQuebec does not observe Victoria Day. The same Monday is the National Patriots' Day, and it is a statutory holiday in its own right. |
| SaskatchewanVictoria Daypay formula → | Yes | Victoria Day |
| YukonVictoria Daypay formula → | Yes | Victoria Day |
Section 4 of the federal Holidays Act says the Monday immediately preceding 25 May is a legal holiday throughout Canada, and that wording is the source of most of the confusion. It fixes a date. It does not put money in anyone's pay. Paid time off comes from whichever employment standards statute covers your job, and each legislature writes its own list: Ontario names Victoria Day in the Employment Standards Act, 2000, the Canada Labour Code names it in s. 166, and the four Atlantic provinces name it in neither.
Only seven of the nine actually use the words Victoria Day. Quebec's Act respecting labour standards lists, at s. 60(3), “the Monday preceding 25 May”, and gives the day no name at all; the name National Patriots' Day was attached by order-in-council in 2002, in place of the Fête de Dollard, without the statute changing a word. Nunavut's Labour Standards Act names the day the Governor General fixes for the birthday of the reigning sovereign, which lands on that Monday by convention rather than by the Act. One date, three routes into the law.
Where the day is statutory, you do not work it, and you meet that jurisdiction's eligibility test, you are owed holiday pay — but both the test and the arithmetic behind the figure are set jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Saskatchewan takes 5 percent of the wages of the 28 days before, Ontario divides four weeks of regular wages plus vacation pay by 20, and Nunavut pays your regular rate for the normal hours of the day if your wages are time-based — and the average of your daily wages over the four preceding weeks if they are not.
In New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador the day pays what an ordinary Monday pays: work it and you earn your normal wage, take it off and nothing in the Act requires it to be paid. Many employers close anyway, and then a policy or a collective agreement sets the terms. New Brunswick still shuts most retail under the Days of Rest Act, which is a closing rule and not a pay rule.
Questions people actually ask
Monday 18 May 2026. The date is the Monday immediately preceding 25 May, set by s. 4 of the federal Holidays Act, so it moves between 18 and 24 May. In 2026 it lands on the earliest date it can, because 25 May is itself a Monday. Most provincial statutes name the holiday and let that federal rule supply the date.
No. The Labour Standards Code gives six paid holidays in Nova Scotia: New Year's Day, Nova Scotia Heritage Day, Good Friday, Canada Day, Labour Day and Christmas Day. Victoria Day is not among them, and it is not a retail closing day either. New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador leave it off their lists as well. An employer that closes for the day is doing so by policy or by agreement, not because the Code requires it.
Quebec workers get the Monday, but not under that name. Section 60 of the Act respecting labour standards makes the Monday preceding 25 May a paid statutory general holiday, and since 2002 that day has been the National Patriots' Day. The indemnity is the same as for any other Quebec holiday: the wages of the four complete weeks before, overtime excluded, divided by 20.
Yes. Banks, airlines, telecoms, railways, ports and interprovincial trucking are federally regulated, and s. 166 of the Canada Labour Code names Victoria Day a general holiday for all of them, wherever in Canada they operate. That is why bank branches in Halifax and St. John's close on a day the provincial statute ignores. Provincially regulated jobs in those four provinces follow the provincial list.
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