Quick answer
In Canada, overtime is ordinary taxable income with no special tax rate, and most jurisdictions pay it at 1.5 times your regular wage once your hours pass a weekly or daily threshold, such as 44 hours a week in Ontario. In the calculator's Ontario example ($32.00 an hour, 40 regular hours plus 8 more in one week, paid biweekly), 4 of the 8 hours are past the threshold, so the 8 hours pay $320.00 before tax and about $203.29 (63.5%) after tax.
How this calculator works
Pick your jurisdiction, enter an hourly rate or an annual salary (either way, the calculator derives your hourly rate from your regular hours per week), then enter how many extra hours you worked beyond your regular hours in that one heavy week and how often you're paid. It pays those hours for the before-tax figure, but only the hours that are actually overtime at your jurisdiction's overtime rate. Where the statute has a weekly threshold and no daily one (Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador), the calculator counts those hours for you: it adds your regular and extra hours, takes the part above the weekly threshold (never more than the extra hours you entered) as overtime, pays any remaining extra hours at your regular rate, and says so in a note. Where the statute also has a daily threshold, the calculator cannot see which days you worked the extra hours, so it takes the overtime hours as you enter them. It then estimates the after-tax value the way payroll actually estimates withholding: assume this pay period repeats all year, work out the tax on that hypothetical annual income with and without the overtime, and take the difference. That's genuinely how CRA's periodic withholding method works, which is also why your pay frequency changes the after-tax estimate even though it never changes your gross overtime pay.
Hours past the threshold = the extra hours you enter; in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador, the part of (regular + extra hours) above the weekly threshold, up to the extra hours entered
Overtime rate = 1.5× your regular hourly rate (New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador: the greater of your rate and 1.5× the minimum wage)
After-tax estimate = [Net(annualized pay WITH the overtime) − Net(annualized pay WITHOUT it)] ÷ pay periods per year
No, overtime isn't taxed at a special rate
There's a persistent myth that overtime pay is taxed at a higher rate than regular pay, as if the government singles it out. It isn't — CRA's Employers' Guide (T4001) tells employers to deduct CPP contributions, EI premiums and income tax from overtime pay: paid in the pay period it was earned, it is added to your regular pay and the deductions are made on the total in the usual way; paid in a later period, it is treated as a bonus. What actually happens on a heavy overtime week is a withholding effect, not a tax-rate effect: payroll estimates your tax bracket for the year by assuming whatever you earned this period keeps happening all year, so a large overtime cheque temporarily makes you look like a much higher earner and gets over-withheld — the same mechanic behind why a bonus cheque looks so heavily taxed. None of that changes what you actually owe when you file; it just moves some of your own money from this paycheque to your eventual refund.
Thresholds vs. your contract
Every threshold and rate in the table further down is a legislated floor — the least an employer can pay once you cross it — not a cap or a typical outcome. A contract or collective agreement can promise a lower threshold (overtime after 37.5 hours instead of 44, say) or a richer rate, and that promise stands: employment standards set the minimum a jurisdiction will enforce, not a ceiling on generosity. What a contract can never legally do is set the threshold higher, or the rate lower, than the statutory minimum — a policy stating "overtime starts at 50 hours" in a 44-hour province is unenforceable to the extent it falls short of the Act.
Averaging agreements and banking overtime as time off
An averaging agreement lets an employer schedule genuinely irregular hours — heavier one week, lighter the next — and calculate overtime against the average across a multi-week period instead of week by week, so light weeks offset heavy ones. How it has to be arranged differs by jurisdiction. In Ontario, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba an employer and an employee can agree to it, with a start and an end date and a cap on the period (four weeks in the first three, 12 weeks in Manitoba). Quebec lets an employer and one employee agree in writing to stagger hours over up to four weeks, with no week more than 10 hours over the standard; staggering the hours of a whole workforce needs the CNESST's authorization, unless a collective agreement or decree provides for it. Yukon needs an order from the director, the Northwest Territories an order from an Employment Standards Officer and Nunavut a permit from the Labour Standards Officer, and Newfoundland and Labrador's Act has no averaging provision. Yukon also lets an employer and an employee agree in writing to regular days of up to 12 hours, with overtime after 80 hours in two weeks. Where a valid agreement applies, this calculator's single-week threshold display doesn't reflect your real entitlement — the relevant number becomes your average over the whole agreed period. Separately, most jurisdictions let an employer and employee agree to paid time off instead of cash for overtime, but never at the employer's choice alone: it takes the employee's agreement or request, in writing in most places, or a collective agreement. The standard conversion is 1.5 hours off per overtime hour worked, matching the 1.5× cash rate (Alberta gives at least 1 hour of time off per hour for overtime earned since 1 September 2019). Most set a deadline to use it, commonly 3, 6 or 12 months, before any unused balance must be paid out in cash; British Columbia sets no deadline while a time bank is open, only 6 months to pay or use the balance once the employer closes it. New Brunswick doesn't allow banking at all: overtime there must always be paid in cash. Nova Scotia's Labour Standards Code and Nunavut's Labour Standards Act have no provision for it either.
New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador: the Act sets a floor, not a rate
Two provinces set a minimum overtime wage, worked out from the minimum wage, instead of a multiple of your own pay. In New Brunswick it is 1.5 times the minimum wage: $23.85 an hour (1.5 × $15.90, the minimum wage since 1 April 2026). In Newfoundland and Labrador it is the minimum wage times 1.5, rounded to the nearest cent: $24.53 an hour (1.5 × $16.35, since 1 April 2026). Hours past the weekly threshold (44 in New Brunswick, 40 in Newfoundland and Labrador) are paid at the greater of your own rate and that floor. Below the floor you get the floor: at $18.00 an hour in New Brunswick, six hours past 44 pay 6 × $23.85 = $143.10, the Province's own worked example. At or above the floor you get your regular rate, because the Act guarantees only the floor: at $30.00 an hour the same six hours pay 6 × $30.00 = $180.00, and in Newfoundland and Labrador at $32.00 an hour eight hours past 40 pay 8 × $32.00 = $256.00, where time-and-a-half on your own rate would have been $384.00. A contract or collective agreement may pay more than the Act requires, and that promise stands. Both minimum wages are re-indexed each 1 April and may change on 1 April 2027.
Two worked examples — how thresholds decide the hour count
Federal, canada.ca's "greater of" rule: a federally-regulated employee earns $30.00/hr and works 9-hour days, five days a week — 45 hours total. That's 5 hours over the daily 8-hour standard and separately 5 hours over the weekly 40-hour standard. The Canada Labour Code itself does not say how the two counts combine; canada.ca's page on federal hours of work says the greater of the daily and the weekly overtime is paid, so this employee is owed 5 overtime hours, not 10: regular pay 40 × $30.00 = $1,200.00, overtime 5 × $45.00 (1.5×) = $225.00, gross week $1,425.00. Run through the calculator with weekly pay and Ontario for tax purposes, that $225.00 is worth about $143.15 after payroll's estimated withholding — a 63.6% share kept.
British Columbia, the daily-and-weekly rule: this one doesn't simply take whichever count is bigger. An employee earning $25.00/hr works the same 9-hour, 5-day week (45 hours). Daily overtime: 1 hour over 8/day on each of 5 days at 1.5× = $37.50/hr, so 5 × $37.50 = $187.50. The weekly check differs: British Columbia counts only the first 8 hours worked on any day toward the 40-hour weekly threshold, so the same hours aren't paid twice — 5 × 8 = 40 hours already counted, exactly at the threshold, so no additional weekly overtime is owed. Gross week: $1,000.00 regular plus $187.50 overtime = $1,187.50.
Worked example — using the calculator
Ontario, $32.00/hr, 40 regular hours a week, 8 more hours in one week (48 hours in all), paid biweekly. Ontario's overtime threshold is 44 hours in a week, so 4 of those 8 hours are past it and 4 are not. The 4 overtime hours are paid at $32.00 × 1.5 = $48.00/hr, which is $192.00; the other 4 are paid at your regular $32.00/hr, which is $128.00; together the 8 hours bring in $320.00 before tax. Regular pay for the two-week period is 40 × 2 × $32.00 = $2,560.00, so gross pay with the extra hours added is $2,880.00. Payroll annualizes this period to estimate withholding: without the extra hours, $2,560 × 26 pay periods = $66,560; with them, $2,880 × 26 = $74,880. Net pay on those two figures comes to $51,559.14 and $56,844.78; the difference, brought back to one pay period, is ($56,844.78 − $51,559.14) ÷ 26 ≈ $203.29 — a 63.5% share kept of the $320.00, lower than this person's overall average tax rate because it's taxed at their marginal rate stacked on top, the same mechanic a bonus uses. If this is a one-off heavy week, the amount actually owed at tax time is based on real annual income, not this annualized guess — some of what's withheld here may still arrive later as a refund.
Overtime thresholds and rates by jurisdiction, 2026
Every jurisdiction's threshold, its overtime rate, and the provision each figure was read from, with the date the source itself carries. Each jurisdiction's statute or regulation was read again directly on 7 October 2026; the audit trail below lists what was read.
| Jurisdiction | Overtime threshold | Overtime rate | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal (Canada Labour Code) | 8 hrs/day or 40 hrs/week (canada.ca: whichever gives more OT) | 1.5× regular wage | Canada Labour Code ss. 169, 174, current to 21 Sep 2026; canada.ca, 26 Aug 2026 |
| Alberta | 8 hrs/day or 44 hrs/week ("8/44 rule") | at least 1.5× wage | Employment Standards Code ss. 21–23, current as of 26 Nov 2025 |
| British Columbia | 8 hrs/day (12+ at 2×) or 40 hrs/week ‡ | 1.5× (2× beyond 12 hrs/day) | Employment Standards Act ss. 35, 40, 42, current to 22 Sep 2026 |
| Manitoba | 8 hrs/day or 40 hrs/week | 1.5× wage | Employment Standards Code ss. 10, 17, 18, current as of 5 Oct 2026 |
| New Brunswick | 44 hrs/week | at least 1.5× minimum wage ($23.85/hr) † | Employment Standards Act s. 16, consolidated to 12 Jun 2026; Reg. 2022-15 ss. 5, 9; gnb.ca, as of 1 Apr 2026 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 40 hrs/week | at least 1.5× minimum wage, rounded to the cent ($24.53/hr) § | Labour Standards Act s. 25 and Regulations ss. 5, 8, 9, both consolidated to 7 Jul 2026; gov.nl.ca, 26 Feb 2026 |
| Northwest Territories | 8 hrs/day or 40 hrs/week (32 in a stat-holiday week) | at least 1.5× wage | Employment Standards Act ss. 7, 9, office consolidation of 21 Sep 2026 |
| Nova Scotia | 48 hrs/week (most employees) ◊ | 1.5× wage | Labour Standards Code s. 40(4), consolidation of 1 Jan 2025; novascotia.ca, 1 Oct 2026 |
| Nunavut | 8 hrs/day or 40 hrs/week (32 in a general-holiday week) | at least 1.5× wage | Labour Standards Act ss. 4, 11, consol. current to 13 Jun 2022 |
| Ontario | 44 hrs/week | 1.5× regular rate | Employment Standards Act, 2000 s. 22, in force from 1 Jan 2026; ontario.ca, 5 Feb 2026 |
| Prince Edward Island | 44 hrs/week (lowered from 48, 30 Jun 2026) | 1.5× wage | Employment Standards Act ss. 15, 24, current to 30 Jun 2026 |
| Quebec | 40 hrs/week ‖ | 1.5× wage (50% premium) | Act respecting labour standards ss. 52, 53, 55, current to 12 Aug 2026 |
| Saskatchewan | 8 hrs/day (10 on a four-day schedule) or 40 hrs/week — whichever gives more OT ¶ | 1.5× wage | Saskatchewan Employment Act ss. 2-17, 2-18, consolidation posted 31 Dec 2025 |
| Yukon | 8 hrs/day or 40 hrs/week # | 1.5× wage | Employment Standards Act ss. 6, 8, unofficial consolidation of 21 Apr 2023 |
† New Brunswick's Act (s. 16) and Regulation 2022-15 (s. 9(c)) guarantee a minimum overtime wage of 1.5 times the minimum wage, not 1.5 times your own rate. With the minimum wage at $15.90 since 1 April 2026 that is $23.85 an hour, the figure gnb.ca gives. The calculator pays the greater of your own rate and that floor. The minimum wage is re-indexed each 1 April (Reg. 2022-15 s. 6), so the figure is due for re-checking after 1 April 2027.
§ Newfoundland and Labrador's Labour Standards Regulations (s. 9(4)) set the minimum overtime wage at the minimum wage rate times 1.5, rounded to the nearest cent: $24.53 an hour from a minimum wage of $16.35, both effective 1 April 2026, as the Province announced on 26 February 2026. The calculator pays the greater of your own rate and that floor. Both figures are re-set each 1 April.
‡ British Columbia's 2× rate for hours beyond 12 in a single day, and its rule counting only the first 8 hours of each day toward the 40-hour weekly threshold, are not separately modelled by the calculator above — it applies a flat 1.5× to whatever overtime hours you enter.
‖ Quebec's 40-hour threshold (s. 52), 50% premium (s. 55) and staggering rules (s. 53) were read in the Act itself on legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca, current to 12 August 2026. To stagger the hours of a whole workforce an employer needs the CNESST's authorization, unless a collective agreement or decree provides for it; an employer and an individual employee can instead agree in writing to stagger hours over up to four weeks, with no week more than 10 hours over the standard, without it.
¶ Saskatchewan: overtime is the greater of the daily and the weekly totals (Saskatchewan Employment Act s. 2-17(2)(d)). The daily threshold is 8 hours, or 10 hours where the employer schedules four 10-hour days (s. 2-18(1)(b)), and 8 hours a day for an employee who averages fewer than 30 hours a week (s. 2-18(4)); the weekly threshold drops by 8 hours for each public holiday in the week (s. 2-17(2)(c)); overtime is 1.5 times the hourly wage (s. 2-1(o)).
# Yukon: the Employment Standards Act, ss. 6 and 8, read in the Yukon government's unofficial consolidation (a PDF dated 21 April 2023; the Table of Public Statutes lists no later amendment to those sections). Hours over 8 in a day are overtime and are left out when the hours over 40 in the week are counted; the weekly hours drop by 8 for each general holiday in the week (s. 8(2)), which the calculator does not model.
◊ Nova Scotia's general threshold is 48 hours today. S.N.S. 2026, c. 17 (assented to 18 September 2026), s. 4, changes it to 44 hours and adds hours the employer permits, planned for 1 April 2027 under s. 7(1); this calculator uses 48 until then. Several groups are outside the general rule and earn 1.5× the minimum wage after 48 hours instead (Minimum Wage Order (General) s. 10), and construction and property maintenance employees earn 1.5× their wage after 110 hours in two weeks; neither is modelled.
What this does not model
It does not derive your overtime-hour count from a work schedule. In the eight jurisdictions with a daily threshold (the federal jurisdiction, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the three territories) you enter the overtime hours yourself, so British Columbia's 2× rate beyond 12 hours a day and the exact daily-versus-weekly comparison behind a “greater of” rule aren't modelled. In the six with only a weekly threshold it counts the hours past the threshold for you, but it still can't see an averaging agreement, a modified-work permit or a role-based exemption, any of which can change whether your hours are legally overtime at all. If the regular hours you enter are themselves more than the weekly threshold, the part past it is overtime too, but the calculator leaves it in your regular pay at your regular rate and shows a note. It leaves out holiday weeks (the weekly threshold drops by 8 hours for each general holiday in the federal jurisdiction and Yukon, and by 8 hours for each public holiday in Saskatchewan; it is 32 hours in a holiday week in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut; Quebec counts paid holidays and annual leave as days worked), industry thresholds (Ontario sets 50, 55 or 60 hours for road building, hotels and restaurants with room and board, local cartage and highway transport, among others, and the federal trucking rules differ by driver), and Nova Scotia's separate rules for the groups outside its general threshold. For a fixed salary in Ontario the regular rate is the week's pay divided by the non-overtime hours actually worked, up to 44, and a fixed salary already pays for every hour up to 44: $66,560 a year with 40 regular hours is $1,280.00 ÷ 44 = $29.09 an hour, against the $32.00 this calculator derives from those 40 hours, and the extra hours below 44 would add no pay. Enter 44 regular hours instead, as the note beside that box says, and the calculator uses the $29.09 rate and pays only the hours past 44. With your set hours, its method matches a salary that is adjusted with the hours worked, which is how Ontario's guide treats it. In New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador the legislation guarantees a salaried employee only the minimum wage and the minimum overtime wage for the hours worked, so whether a salary above those floors pays anything more for extra hours depends on your contract; the calculator assumes it does, at the hourly rate it derives.
FAQ
Is overtime actually taxed at a higher rate than my regular pay?
No — there's no special "overtime tax rate." Overtime pay is ordinary employment income: it's added to whatever you've already earned in the pay period and taxed, CPP'd and EI'd exactly like the rest of your wages (and in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut it carries the 2% payroll tax like the rest of your pay). What genuinely differs is withholding on a single heavy pay period, because payroll estimates your tax bracket for the year by assuming that period's pay repeats all year — a one-off overtime week can look like a raise it isn't, and get taxed at the higher bracket that assumption implies. Your actual tax bill at year-end depends on your real total income for the year, not any single period.
What's the difference between a daily and a weekly overtime threshold?
A weekly threshold counts total hours across the whole week and pays overtime only once that total is crossed — work 6-hour days all week and you can hit 40+ hours without ever exceeding a daily limit. Six jurisdictions have only a weekly threshold: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The other eight (the federal jurisdiction, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the three territories) also pay overtime for any single day that runs long, even in a week that stays under the weekly total. Where a jurisdiction has both, the laws combine the two counts differently: Alberta and Saskatchewan pay whichever total is greater, British Columbia and Yukon leave the hours over 8 in a day out of the weekly count, and Manitoba's Code and Nunavut's Act do not say. For federal employees, canada.ca says the greater of the daily and the weekly overtime is paid; the Canada Labour Code itself does not say.
What is an averaging agreement, and does it change my overtime?
It's a formal arrangement — written, and in some jurisdictions needing a government order or permit — that lets an employer schedule irregular hours (say, four 10-hour days one week and three the next) and calculate overtime against the average over that whole period instead of week by week. Done properly, it can mean fewer hours legally count as overtime even though some individual weeks run long, because the shorter weeks offset them. It is not something an employer can apply retroactively or informally. Ontario, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba let an employer and an employee agree to it within limits; Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut need an order or permit (Yukon also lets an employer and an employee agree in writing to regular days of up to 12 hours, with overtime after 80 hours in two weeks); Newfoundland and Labrador's Act has no averaging provision. In Quebec the CNESST's authorization is needed to stagger the hours of a whole workforce (a collective agreement or decree can provide for it instead), but an employer and an individual employee can agree in writing to stagger hours over up to four weeks without it. If you're not sure whether one applies to you, ask for it in writing.
Can my employer give me time off instead of paying overtime in cash?
In most jurisdictions, yes, but never at the employer's choice alone: it takes your agreement or request, in writing in most places, or a collective agreement. The usual conversion is 1.5 hours of paid time off for every overtime hour worked, matching the usual 1.5x cash rate, though Alberta gives at least 1 hour of time off per overtime hour for overtime earned since 1 September 2019. Most jurisdictions also set a deadline (commonly 3, 6 or 12 months) to actually use the banked time, after which unused time must be paid out in cash; British Columbia sets no deadline while a time bank is open and gives 6 months only once the employer closes it. New Brunswick doesn't allow banking overtime at all — it must be paid in cash — and Nova Scotia's Labour Standards Code and Nunavut's Labour Standards Act have no provision for it either.
Do New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador pay overtime on my own rate or on minimum wage?
Both provinces set a floor, not a rate. New Brunswick's Act requires overtime at a rate of not less than one and one-half times the minimum wage, and Newfoundland and Labrador's regulations set a minimum overtime wage of 1.5 times the minimum wage, rounded to the nearest cent; neither says 1.5 times your own rate. So the hours past the weekly threshold are paid at the greater of your regular rate and that minimum overtime wage: below it you get the minimum overtime wage, and at or above it you get your regular rate, with no statutory premium, because the Act guarantees only the floor. A contract or collective agreement may give more, and that stands. Nova Scotia also uses 1.5 times the minimum wage, for several of the groups outside its general overtime rule.
Does being salaried mean I'm not entitled to overtime?
Not automatically — being paid a salary instead of an hourly rate doesn't by itself remove your overtime entitlement. What can remove it is a specific, legally defined exemption for your role: certain managers and supervisors, some professionals, and a handful of other job categories are exempt in most jurisdictions, but the tests are narrow, and a job title alone ("manager" on a business card) doesn't always hold up if the actual duties don't match. This calculator doesn't check for exemptions — if you're salaried and unsure whether overtime rules apply to you, your provincial or federal labour standards office can tell you based on your actual job duties.
How is overtime calculated in Alberta?
Alberta uses the 8/44 rule: overtime is owed on whichever count is greater, hours beyond 8 in a day or beyond 44 in a week, at a minimum of 1.5 times the regular wage. Because Alberta has a daily threshold, the calculator cannot tell which of your hours came on which day: pick Alberta, enter the overtime hours you worked, and it pays them at 1.5 times your rate and shows the overtime before and after tax. Alberta also gives at least 1 hour of time off per overtime hour for overtime earned since 1 September 2019, which the calculator does not model.
This page is general information based on published 2026 federal and provincial employment-standards rules and CRA payroll guidance, not legal, tax or employment advice. Your own contract, collective agreement or employer's actual payroll practice may differ — talk to your provincial or federal labour standards office, or a licensed professional, about your specific situation.