Ontario statutory holiday pay calculator (2026)

Next public holiday in Ontario

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 public holiday pay: the four work weeks before it, divided by 20. The formula is below, with a worked example you can put your own numbers into.

Ontario has nine public holidays, and the pay for each one is a single division: the regular wages behind you, divided by twenty. The Employment Standards Act calls them public holidays — stat holiday is the everyday name for the same days.

Last reviewed August 19, 2026 · maintained by Ihor Bezrukavnyk · how we calculate

Who qualifies

These are the conditions Ontario 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.

No waiting periodFull-time, part-time, casual, term, student, permanent — most employees are covered from the first day. Ontario sets no minimum length of service and no minimum number of hours before public holiday pay is calculated.
Work all of your last shift beforeThe whole of your last regularly scheduled shift before the holiday, not part of it. This is the first half of what Ontario calls the last-and-first rule.
Work all of your first shift afterThe same test on the other side of the holiday. The rule is about the shifts around the day, not about the day itself — being off on the holiday is the normal case, and it costs nothing.
If you agreed to work the holiday, work itAn employee who agrees to work the public holiday and then does not appear, without reasonable cause, does not receive public holiday pay for it.
Unless there is reasonable causeThe exception attaches to every line above. Illness and events outside your control are the ordinary examples, and it is the employee who has to be able to account for the absence.

A collective agreement can set better terms than the Act, and several sectors run on modified public holiday rules. Where both exist, the better term is the one that applies.

The Ontario formula: divide by twenty

The formula

(regular wages in the 4 work weeks before the work week with the holiday + vacation pay payable over those 4 work weeks) ÷ 20

The window is the four work weeks before the work week containing the holiday — not the four weeks before the holiday itself. A holiday on a Wednesday does not shorten the window.
Twenty is fixed. It stands for four weeks of five days whether or not you worked five days a week, so a short stretch simply produces a smaller figure.
A substitute day off is paid the same way, except that its four work weeks are the four before the substitute day. It is rarely the same number as the holiday it replaces.

Overtime pay stays out of the base. Every Canadian jurisdiction excludes it from the wages the average is taken from, so a heavy overtime week before the holiday does not lift the day’s pay. Averaging a gross figure that still has premium hours in it overstates the holiday every time.

Worked example

Regular wages · 4 work weeks × 40 h × $22.50: $3,600.00
Vacation pay payable over those weeks · 4%: $144.00
Divide by: 20
Public holiday pay for the day: $187.20

Six overtime hours in that same stretch, paid $202.50 at time and a half, change nothing above.

Overtime is not in the wage base

Overtime pay is not regular wages. Neither is premium pay, vacation pay, public holiday pay, termination pay or severance pay. Only regular wages go into the top of that fraction, so a month heavy with overtime does not lift public holiday pay by a cent.

This holds in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta alike, and it is the line worth checking first. If a public holiday pay figure looks high after a heavy week, check whether overtime was folded into the base it came from.

Ontario public holiday dates in 2026

The 9 public holiday dates that fall in 2026, in order.
Holiday	Date	Day
New Year's Day	1 January 2026	Thursday
Family Day	16 February 2026	Monday
Good Friday	3 April 2026	Friday
Victoria Day	18 May 2026	Monday
Canada Day	1 July 2026	Wednesday
Labour Daynext	7 September 2026	Monday
Thanksgiving Day	12 October 2026	Monday
Christmas Day	25 December 2026	Friday
Boxing Day	26 December 2026	Saturday

One date falls on a weekend in 2026: Boxing Day, Saturday 26 December 2026. When a public holiday falls on a day that is not ordinarily a working day for you, Ontario substitutes another working day off, paid at public holiday pay. With a written agreement, the employer can instead pay public holiday pay for the holiday itself and skip the substitute day.

Those nine are the whole list. The August civic holiday, Easter Monday, Remembrance Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation are not public holidays under the Employment Standards Act. An employer can give any of them off by policy or by contract, and then that policy sets the pay rather than the formula on this page.
Some work runs on a modified version of the public holiday rules — certain construction employees, for instance, receive public holiday pay rolled into their wages as a percentage instead of day by day.

If you work the holiday

Regular wages plus a substitute day off

This is the default when you agree to work a public holiday: your regular rate for every hour worked, plus another working day off paid at public holiday pay. The substitute day is calculated from the four work weeks before that day, so it usually differs from the holiday's own figure.

Public holiday pay plus premium pay

The alternative, available by written agreement, pays public holiday pay for the day plus premium pay — 1.5× the regular rate — for each hour actually worked, with no substitute day. On the example above that is $187.20 plus $270.00 for an eight-hour shift: $457.20.

Which one applies is not in the arithmetic

Hospitality, hospitals, continuous operations and several other sectors run their own version of the rule, in which the employer picks between the two combinations. That choice lives in an agreement or an employer policy — no calculator can derive it from the dates.

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 Ontario rather than assuming it either way.

Public holiday pay in Ontario

How much public holiday pay does Ontario owe for one holiday?

Add the regular wages earned in the four work weeks before the work week containing the holiday, add the vacation pay payable over those weeks, and divide by 20. Four full 40-hour weeks at $22.50 an hour come to $187.20 for the day. The divisor is always 20, so fewer hours in the window mean a smaller figure rather than a different formula.

Does overtime pay count toward public holiday pay in Ontario?

No. The four-week base is regular wages only, and overtime pay is not regular wages. Premium pay, vacation pay, public holiday pay, termination pay and severance pay are left out of the base as well, so what you were paid for overtime hours does not reach the calculation.

What happens if I miss the shift before a public holiday?

Ontario uses the last-and-first rule: the qualifying condition is working all of your last regularly scheduled shift before the holiday and all of your first one after it. Missing either without reasonable cause is what removes public holiday pay. Illness and events outside your control are the ordinary examples of reasonable cause.

Do part-time, casual and student employees get public holiday pay?

Yes. Ontario sets no minimum length of service and no minimum hours, and the same formula covers full-time, part-time, casual, term and student work. Because the divisor is fixed at 20, someone working two shifts a week simply arrives at a smaller daily figure than someone working five.

Boxing Day falls on a Saturday in 2026 — what then?

When a public holiday lands on a day that is not ordinarily a working day for you, Ontario substitutes another working day off, paid at public holiday pay. With a written agreement the employer can instead pay public holiday pay for the holiday itself and skip the substitute day. Boxing Day, Saturday 26 December, is the only Ontario public holiday on a weekend in 2026.

Is Remembrance Day a public holiday in Ontario?

No. Ontario's Employment Standards Act lists nine public holidays, and Remembrance Day, the August civic holiday, Easter Monday and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation are not among them. An employer can still give those days off, but the terms then come from the policy or the contract rather than from the Act.

Check the rest of the pay period

A holiday sits inside a week that has its own rules — Ontario pays overtime after 44h in a week with no daily threshold. Overtally runs that side of the arithmetic, hour by hour, and shows every line behind the total.

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sources

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.