Canadian Paycheque and Employment Standards
A Canadian paycheque is the result of several separate rules working together. There is the gross pay your employer agreed to, the CPP contributions and EI premiums the CRA sets each year, income tax withheld with the CRA's payroll formulas, and the employment-standards law of your province, which decides what you are owed for public holidays, vacation, overtime and the end of a job. When a stub looks wrong, the cause is almost always one of those rules, and each one can be checked with arithmetic.
The guides below take the rules apart and run them with real numbers. Start with how a cheque is built, line by line, for a $72,000 Ontario salary. Then use the holiday-pay guide to see how the four-week formula treats part-time and variable hours, the bonus guide to see what withholding takes from a lump sum and why it mostly comes back, and the salary and severance guides for the conversions and payouts that follow a job change.
A quick way to use the set: if the question is what came off a cheque, start with the paycheque guide; if it is what you are owed for a holiday, an overtime week or a vacation, use the holiday-pay guide and the salary guide; if it is a lump sum, use the bonus guide for working jobs and the severance guide for the end of one. The calculators below let you test your own numbers once you know which rule applies, and every guide states its assumptions beside the figures so that a difference from your stub can be traced to a cause.
Figures come from the CRA, the Ontario government's guide to the Employment Standards Act and other official pages, and each guide gives the date it was checked. Ontario is the main worked example because its rules are widely searched and well documented. Other provinces differ in both employment standards and tax, and the guides say so where it matters.
Guides in this topic
- How a Canadian paycheque is calculated: CPP, EI and tax
CPP, CPP2, EI and income tax on each of 26 pays, including why late-year cheques grow.
- Ontario public holiday pay: the formula, worked
The four-week formula divided by 20, worked for full-time, part-time and variable schedules.
- Bonus tax in Canada: withholding vs what you owe
What the CRA method withholds on a $10,000 bonus at three salaries and what you really owe.
- Salary to real net hourly pay in Canada
Turning a salary into a real hourly rate after deductions, commuting and unpaid hours.
- Severance pay: minimums, offer math, tax and EI
Statutory minimums, offer math, tax and EI effects after a job loss.
- Canada income tax brackets and marginal rates (2026)
The federal and provincial brackets behind the income tax line on a stub.
- When to start CPP: age 60, 65 or 70
What your CPP contributions buy later, and the age 60, 65 or 70 decision.
Calculators for this topic
- Ontario salary to hourly
Convert an Ontario salary to an hourly rate using the province's hours and overtime rules.
- Overtime pay for salaried staff
See what hours past the overtime threshold should pay a salaried employee.
- CPP contribution decoder
Add up CPP and the second tier (CPP2) for any salary in 2026.
- Canadian income tax estimator
Estimate federal and provincial tax, CPP and EI for a year.
- Hourly to salary
Annualise an hourly wage at different weekly hours.
If you have a pay question that none of these guides covers, the suggestion form on the site is the quickest way to ask for it. Employment-standards rules are set province by province, so the ministry that administers them in your province is the authority when a dispute is real.
All guides are educational estimates, not personal advice. How figures are checked and dated is explained in the methodology, and the full list of guides is on the guides and hubs page.