EI Maternity and Parental

EI Maternity and Parental Benefits: Standard vs Extended, in Total Dollars

In 2026, EI maternity benefits pay 55% of your average insurable weekly earnings, up to $729 a week, for 15 weeks. Standard parental benefits pay the same 55% for up to 35 more weeks. Extended parental benefits pay 33%, up to $437 a week, for up to 61 weeks. Over the whole leave, the extended option pays about 3% more in total dollars (an extra $1,142 at the maximum) but stretches it over 76 weeks instead of 50, so each week pays roughly 40% less than the standard parental rate. This guide totals both options at four earnings levels, shows the week-by-week cumulative cash, and works through how a couple can share the weeks. In the example couple, with weekly earnings of $1,000 and $1,500, the choice of which parent takes the weeks moves the household's EI cash by $5,370.

The 2026 rates, weeks and caps

Everything below comes from the Government of Canada's EI maternity and parental pages, checked on October 23, 2026.

Four rules sit behind that table.

1. Insurable earnings are counted before tax, over the past 52 weeks or since your last claim, whichever is shorter. Tips, bonuses and commissions count when they are insurable.
2. The weekly cap comes from the maximum insurable earnings. The 2026 maximum is $68,900 a year. Divide by 52 and you get $1,325.00 a week, and 55% of that is $728.75, shown by the government as $729. At 33% the figure is $437.25, shown as $437. Anyone averaging more than about $1,326 a week of insurable earnings is at the cap.
3. You choose standard or extended when you apply for parental benefits, and the choice is locked once a parental week has been paid to you, or once a payment has gone to the other parent when benefits are shared. When parents share, both must choose the same option. Each parent submits their own application, and if they choose differently, the first application received sets the option for both.
4. A parent cannot take more than 35 standard or 61 extended weeks. The extra 5 or 8 weeks in a shared claim can only be taken by the other parent, and the government describes them as use-it-or-lose-it.

Quebec residents are not part of this system. The federal page notes that Quebec provides its own maternity, paternity, parental and adoption benefits under the Québec Parental Insurance Plan, and a Quebec resident should use that plan's rates and rules.

How the weekly rate is built

The weekly rate is not a percentage of your salary. It is a percentage of an average taken over your best-paid weeks, and the number of weeks depends on where you live.

The formula is weekly benefit = (insurable earnings in your best weeks ÷ number of best weeks) × 55%, with the result capped at $729. Service Canada picks the divisor from the unemployment rate in your economic region, using the same table as regular EI.

The effect shows up when earnings are uneven. Take someone whose last 52 weeks include 12 weeks at $1,600 (an overtime-heavy stretch) and 40 weeks at $800.

The same pay history produces a $49 higher weekly benefit in the high-unemployment region, because fewer best weeks means the high weeks are diluted less. For someone with steady pay, the divisor makes no difference. For a worker whose pay spiked in one season, it can matter more than a few percentage points of the rate. The government's own estimator uses your region, so it is the right tool for a real figure.

Total dollars at four earnings levels

To compare the options, take a birth parent who claims maternity and then parental benefits alone. Standard is 15 weeks of maternity plus 35 weeks of standard parental, 50 weeks in all. Extended is 15 weeks of maternity plus 61 weeks of extended parental, 76 weeks in all. The maternity portion is the same in both. The table shows the weekly amounts and the totals. "E" is average insurable weekly earnings over the best weeks, so E = $1,000 is roughly a $52,000 salary.

Below the cap, the extended option pays exactly 3.2% more, which follows from the arithmetic: 15 × 0.55E + 61 × 0.33E = 28.38E, against 50 × 0.55E = 27.5E. At the cap the gain is a little smaller in percentage terms (3.1%), because the extended rate of $437 is 59.9% of $729 rather than 60%. In both cases the extra money is small beside what has changed: the family receives it over 26 additional weeks, and each of those weeks is paid at roughly 60% of the standard rate.

The averages are a better picture of the cost of choosing extended. At the cap, the standard option averages $729 over 50 weeks, while the extended option averages $494.63 over 76 weeks. A parent who is off work for 76 weeks is receiving about two-thirds of the weekly cash.

When the money actually arrives

Totals hide the timing. The table shows the cumulative EI cash received by the end of selected weeks, for two earnings levels, and highlights how long the extended parent trails the standard one.

At the end of week 50 the extended parent has received $7,700 less than the standard parent at E = $1,000 and $10,220 less at the cap. The extended option does not catch up until week 76. Put another way, the standard option front-loads the money, and the extended one exchanges $7,700 to $10,220 of near-term cash for 26 more weeks of protected leave and a small bonus at the end. Neither option pays out until after the one-week waiting period has been served, which the government confirms applies to maternity and parental benefits for claims that started on or after January 1, 2017.

Sharing the weeks between two parents

If both parents have insurable earnings, who takes the weeks changes the total, because each parent's weekly amount is based on their own earnings. Take a birth parent with E = $1,000 and a partner with E = $1,500. The partner is above the cap, so their rate is $729 on standard weeks and $437 on extended weeks. The birth parent's rate is $550 standard and $330 extended. In every row the birth parent claims 15 weeks of maternity at $550, which is $8,250.

Standard parental, 40 weeks shared, no more than 35 each

Extended parental, 69 weeks shared, no more than 61 each

The household gets the most EI cash when the higher-paid parent takes the most weeks, because those weeks are paid at the cap. The difference between the first and last standard rows is $5,370 for the same 55 weeks of combined leave. That is the arithmetic only. Employer top-ups, each parent's pay after the leave, job protection and health decide a real family's split, but the EI dollars are worth knowing before that conversation starts.

A calendar for a March 2027 due date

Dates make the 12-week and 17-week windows concrete. Take a birth parent with a due date of March 2, 2027, who stops work at the birth and serves the one-week waiting period first.

The dates are plain calendar arithmetic on the week counts, and they assume benefits are paid for every week with no gap. The practical point is the year boundary. A claim that starts in December 2026 is under the 2026 rules, with a weekly maximum of $729. A claim that starts in January 2027 would be under the 2027 rules. The government's rate pages state that once the weekly rate has been set, it stays the same over the life of the claim, so the start date, not the date of any given payment, picks the maximum. For a parent at the cap, a few weeks' difference in when the claim starts can change every payment in it.

Why other sites show a different maximum

Third-party calculators quote a range of weekly maximums, and the reason is that the cap moves every year with the maximum insurable earnings. The table shows the insurable earnings maximum from the CRA's premium page, and the weekly cap that follows from it at 55% and at 33%.

Each weekly figure is the annual maximum divided by 52 and multiplied by the rate. The 2026 numbers match the government's published $729 and $437. The 2023 to 2025 figures are what the same formula gives for those years, which is why an older page can quote $668 or $695 and still have been correct on the day it was written. The 2027 row is arithmetic on the maximum insurable earnings the CRA lists for 2027, not a published benefit cap, so treat $749 as an expectation until the government posts it. A page quoting a figure that matches none of these is worth distrusting.

How much of your pay the benefit replaces

The cap turns a flat 55% into a falling share of pay as salary rises. The table divides the weekly benefit by gross weekly pay (annual salary ÷ 52) for five salaries, treating all pay as insurable up to the maximum.

A parent on $100,000 receives about 38 cents of each former gross dollar on the standard plan and about 23 cents on the extended one. That gap is why employer top-ups matter most at the upper end of the pay scale: for the $150,000 earner, a top-up to 100% would more than triple the weekly cash, while at $30,000 it would add 45 cents on each dollar of the old pay. The comparison is of gross amounts, so it does not account for income tax on the benefit.

Employer top-ups

A top-up is paid through payroll, so the cheque it lands on follows the deduction rules in the paycheque deductions guide, and the rest of the paycheque and employment standards guides cover what else payroll owes. A top-up is separate from anything paid at the end of a job; severance and its EI effects are in the severance pay guide.

Some employers add money to EI during maternity or parental leave. The government says a top-up is not treated as earnings and is not deducted from EI if two conditions hold: the top-up plus the EI benefit cannot exceed 100% of the employee's normal gross weekly pay, and the top-up cannot be used to reduce other accrued benefits such as banked sick leave, vacation credits or severance. A top-up can also be paid during the waiting week without delaying the start of the EI benefits. Employers do not have to register the plan with Service Canada, but they need records showing when the plan took effect and that it meets those conditions. The employee must report the top-up on the application.

At E = $1,000 and a plan that tops up to 100% of pay for the 15 maternity weeks, EI pays $550 and the employer $450, a total of $1,000 a week. The employer's cost is $6,750 and the parent's gain over EI alone is the same $6,750. Plans can be less generous than that, and the 100% cap is the most the rule allows without a deduction from EI.

Who qualifies, and when payments start

• Hours: 600 insured hours in the 52 weeks before the claim starts, or since the start of your last claim, if that is shorter.
• Earnings drop: your regular weekly earnings must have fallen by more than 40% for at least one week.
• Who can claim parental benefits: a parent caring for a newborn or a newly adopted child. Maternity benefits are for the person who gave birth.
• Timing of maternity: benefits can start up to 12 weeks before the due date or the birth, and cannot be paid more than 17 weeks after the due date or birth, whichever is later.
• First payment: about 28 days after you apply, if you are eligible and have provided everything required.
• Self-employed: the tax side of working for yourself is in the self-employed set-aside guide. Self-employed people who have registered for the program can claim maternity and parental benefits at the same 55% rate and $729 maximum, and combined self-employed and employment earnings can raise the benefit rate. The registration rules and minimum earnings are on the government's self-employed page and are not repeated here.

The family supplement

Families with low net income may receive a supplement. The conditions are annual net family income of $25,921 or less, at least one child under 18, and a spouse or yourself receiving the Canada Child Benefit. The supplement is added automatically, can raise the benefit rate up to 80% of average insurable earnings, and total weekly payments cannot exceed $729. A family above that income line receives no supplement.

Tax and the next benefit year

EI benefits are taxable, whatever type they are, and the government deducts federal and, where applicable, provincial tax from the payments. A birth parent at E = $1,000 who receives the full $27,500 in one calendar year and has no other income would owe about $2,580 of federal and Ontario tax in the model used across this site, which is about 9.4% of the benefits. The actual rate depends on other income during the year, and on how the weeks fall across December and January.

A leave year also lowers the family's net income, which feeds the Canada Child Benefit calculated from that year's return. A year with a parent on EI at about half pay can raise the next July's CCB, because the benefit reads income from the previous calendar year. The mechanics are in the Canada Child Benefit guide.

What the monthly numbers look like

Weekly amounts are easier to judge as monthly cash against a budget. Multiply by 52 and divide by 12.

A parent at the cap receives $3,159 a month in the first 50 weeks of standard leave, or $1,894 a month of extended parental leave after the 15 maternity weeks. If the household's fixed costs cannot be covered at the lower figure, the extra weeks of the extended option may be unaffordable, whatever the totals say. If the household can cover them, the extended option buys more time at home with a modest gain in total. The choice is locked once payments begin, so the monthly shortfall is the number to settle before applying.

A worked gap makes the budget question concrete. The paycheque deductions guide follows a $72,000 Ontario salary to a biweekly take-home of $2,117.27, which is $4,587 a month ($2,117.27 × 26 ÷ 12). A parent on that salary is at the cap, so EI pays $3,159 a month on the standard plan and $1,894 on the extended one, both before the income tax withheld from benefits.

Fixed costs set the answer. A household that can absorb a $1,428 monthly gap but not $2,693 has the choice made for it, while an employer top-up to 100% for the 15 maternity weeks, as described above, closes the gap in those weeks only. A new child also starts the Canada Child Benefit, which Canada Child Benefit: how much you get puts in dollars by income.

Sources

• Government of Canada, EI maternity and parental benefits: benefit amount (55% and $729, 33% and $437, best weeks, family supplement, top-ups, Quebec): https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-maternity-parental/benefit-amount.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• Government of Canada, EI maternity and parental benefits: how to apply (weeks, sharing, 40 and 69 week maximums, the choice of standard or extended, timing of maternity benefits): https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-maternity-parental/apply.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• Government of Canada, EI maternity and parental benefits: eligibility (600 hours, 40% drop): https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-maternity-parental/eligibility.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• Government of Canada, EI regular benefits: benefit amount (best weeks by regional unemployment rate; EI benefits are taxable): https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-regular-benefit/benefit-amount.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• Government of Canada, Supplementing maternity, parental, compassionate care or parents of critically ill children benefits (top-up rules): https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/ei/ei-list/ei-roe/ei-employers-maternity-parental-benefits.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• Government of Canada, Reducing the two-week waiting period to one week: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/waiting-period.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• Government of Canada, EI for self-employed people: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-self-employed-workers.html (checked October 23, 2026)
• Totals and tables are hand calculations on those rates; tax on benefits is from the site's Ontario model. The government's EI estimator gives the figure for a real claim.