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Labour Day
Monday 7 September 2026
19 days
after the last review of this page
If you qualify and do not work it, the day pays a regular day's pay — your regular rate of wages for your normal hours of work. Work out your own figure — the calculator below runs the province's formula on your wages.
Nova Scotia has six general holidays, and the Labour Standards Code pays each one as an ordinary day: your regular rate of wages for your normal hours of work on that day. There is no averaging window and no divisor anywhere in the statute — no percentage, and nothing resembling a four-weeks-divided-by-twenty rule. The familiar 30-day average comes from the Labour Standards Division's guidance rather than from the Code, and it is aimed at people whose hours or wages vary.
Last reviewed · maintained by Ihor Bezrukavnyk · how we calculate
These are the conditions Nova Scotia puts on the day. They sit on the shifts around the holiday and on your time with the employer — not on how many hours you worked in the week itself.
Several classes are exempt from the whole of ss. 37–43, so no holiday provision reaches them: employees working under a collective agreement; farm employees whose work is directly related to the primary production of the products listed in the regulations; real estate salespersons, automobile salespersons, off-premises commission salespersons other than route salespersons, and people working on or operating fishing vessels; athletes while engaged in activities related to their athletic endeavour; and people in the manufacturing or refining processes of the petro-chemical industry, or in work directly related to those processes. The list is s. 2 of the General Labour Standards Code Regulations, N.S. Reg. 298/1990.
On a fixed schedule the Code answers this without a calculator: your regular rate times your normal hours for the day. The fields below run the other basis — the Labour Standards Division's 30-day average, which is the guidance's answer where hours or wages vary.
Wages earned in the 30 calendar days before the holiday. Whether overtime premium pay belongs in this total is not settled by the Code or the guidance.
Days you actually worked in the window — the guidance divides by these, not by 30.
This is the day itself. If you worked the holiday, time and a half for the hours worked comes on top — the section below sets out how, and what changes in a continuous operation.
The formula
regular rate of wages × normal hours of work on that day
Check what the base leaves out. Where a jurisdiction averages your wages, what it strips out of that average decides the day’s pay — and the answer is not the same across the country. The line below is this jurisdiction’s own.
Worked example
Averaging the same stretch the way the Division's guidance does — $3,520.00 of wages over the 20 days worked in the 30 calendar days before the holiday — lands on the same $176.00. On a fixed schedule the two bases agree; on a variable one they can part, and only the first of them is in the statute.
Overtime is not in the wage base
Nova Scotia has no express overtime-exclusion clause — the Code is silent on overtime in the holiday-pay context. Overtime is left out by implication only: s. 40(2) measures the day by the regular rate of wages for normal hours of work rather than by an average of what you actually earned, so there is no statutory wage base for overtime to be inside or outside of. The question does bite under the Division's averaging practice for variable hours, where the guidance says to average wages over the prior 30 days: neither the Code, nor the regulations, nor the guidance says whether overtime premium pay enters that average. That point is genuinely unresolved in the primary text.
It is the line worth checking first: if a holiday pay figure looks high after a heavy week, check what went into the base it came from — and check it against this jurisdiction, not the one next door.
| Holiday | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| New Year's Day | 1 January 2026 | Thursday |
| Nova Scotia Heritage Day (the third Monday in February) | 16 February 2026 | Monday |
| Good Friday | 3 April 2026 | Friday |
| Canada Day | 1 July 2026 | Wednesday |
| Labour Daynext | 7 September 2026 | Monday |
| Christmas Day | 25 December 2026 | Friday |
No 2026 date falls on a Saturday or Sunday. A holiday can still land on a day you personally do not work. Section 38 covers a general holiday that falls on a day that is not a working day for you. The employer must instead grant a holiday with pay on the working day immediately following the holiday, on the day immediately following your annual vacation, or on another day agreed between you. If your employment ends before that day is taken, s. 42(4) requires it to be paid out.
Section 41(2) is the general case: an employer that requires an employee to work on a day the employee is entitled to as a holiday with pay must pay the amount the employee would otherwise have received for that holiday, and at a rate at least equal to one and one-half times the regular rate of wages for the time worked that day. On the example above that is $176.00 plus $264.00 for an eight-hour shift at $33.00 an hour: $440.00. The holiday pay stacks on the premium rather than replacing it.
Section 41(3) gives the employer of an employee in a continuous operation two options: the same holiday pay plus one and a half times the regular rate for the time worked, or a holiday granted and paid under s. 40 on the working day immediately following the employee's annual vacation, or on another day agreed upon. Section 41(1) defines the term — industrial establishments running without cessation over each seven-day period, trucking and vehicle operations, telephone and other communications operations, and any operation normally carried on without regard to Sundays or public holidays.
Whether the day off is moved under s. 38 because the holiday was not a working day for you, or under s. 41(3) because you work in a continuous operation, the day itself is paid under s. 40 — the regular rate for normal hours, $176.00 in the example. Section 42(4) requires the deferred day to be paid out if your employment ends before you take it.
Whether hours worked on a holiday also count toward the week’s overtime threshold is a separate question with a separate answer in each province. Check it against the overtime rules for Nova Scotia rather than assuming it either way.
The Labour Standards Code pays a general holiday at your regular rate of wages for your normal hours of work on that day: eight hours at $22.00 is $176.00. The Code prescribes no averaging window and no divisor. Where hours or wages vary, the Labour Standards Division's guidance says to average wages over the 30 calendar days before the holiday and divide by the days actually worked in that window; that is administrative guidance, not statutory text.
Section 42(1) sets two conditions: pay received or receivable for at least fifteen days during the thirty calendar days immediately before the general holiday, and work on your scheduled working day immediately before it and immediately after it. Section 42(2) waives the second where the employer directed you not to report on either of those days. There is no probationary waiting period in the Code, though a new hire will often fail the fifteen-of-thirty test for a holiday early on.
The Code has no express overtime-exclusion clause; it is silent on overtime here. Section 40(2) measures the day by the regular rate of wages for normal hours of work rather than by an average of actual earnings, so on the statutory basis there is no wage base for overtime to be in or out of. Under the Division's 30-day averaging practice for variable hours, neither the Code nor the regulations nor the guidance says whether overtime premium pay enters the average — that point is unresolved.
Under s. 41(2), outside a continuous operation, the employer owes the holiday pay you would otherwise have received plus at least one and a half times your regular rate for the time worked. Eight hours at $22.00 is $264.00 of premium, and with $176.00 of holiday pay the day comes to $440.00. In a continuous operation, s. 41(3) lets the employer choose that combination or a paid day off after your annual vacation or on another agreed day instead.
Not under the Labour Standards Code. The Code's six general holidays are New Year's Day, Nova Scotia Heritage Day, Good Friday, Canada Day, Labour Day and Christmas Day. Remembrance Day is governed by the separate Remembrance Day Act, with its own rules and its own coverage, so the formula on this page does not decide what you are owed for it.
Section 38 moves the day rather than dropping it: the employer must grant a holiday with pay on the working day immediately following the holiday, on the day immediately following your annual vacation, or on another day agreed between you. That deferred day is paid under s. 40 like any other, and s. 42(4) requires it to be paid out if your employment ends before you take it.
Section 39 allows it in two ways: through a collective agreement that substitutes another day, with notice to the Director, or with the Director's approval where a majority of the affected employees concur. So a workplace calendar can lawfully differ from the six dates listed above. Section 2(ga) also lets a regulation designate further general holidays, but none is currently prescribed.
A holiday sits inside a week that has its own rules — Nova Scotia pays overtime after 48h in a week with no daily threshold. Overtally runs that side of the arithmetic, hour by hour, and shows every line behind the total.
iPhone & Android — coming soonEvery 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.