How this is worked out
Only about 6% of Canadian workers are federally regulated — banks, airlines, telecoms, interprovincial transport. For everyone else, overtime is set by the province, and the provinces do not agree.
Ontario starts at 44 hours in a work week, at 1.5×, with no daily rule at all. Quebec starts at 40. On an identical 50-hour week that is six overtime hours in Ontario and ten in Quebec — a difference of four hours' pay at time and a half for exactly the same work.
Alberta's 8/44 rule is a comparison, not a sum. Daily overtime over 8 hours and weekly over 44 are both worked out, and you are paid whichever is greater. Five ten-hour days gives 10 hours daily and 6 hours weekly, so Alberta pays 10 — not 16. Adding them is the most common error in Alberta payroll, and it produces a figure roughly 60% too high.
British Columbia has both a daily and a weekly rule and a specific mechanism to stop them colliding: only the first 8 hours of each day count toward the 40-hour weekly total. Five ten-hour days is 10 hours of daily overtime and no weekly overtime, because the weekly base is exactly 40. Miss that detail and BC overpays.
BC also pays double time over 12 hours in a day, which no other province in this list does.
A worked example
- Rule
- Ontario
- Week entered
- Monday to Friday, 08:00–18:00, one hour for lunch
- Hours a day
- 9:00
- Total for the week
- 45:00
- Ordinary hours
- 44:00
- Overtime hours
- 1:00 at 1.5×
- Hourly rate
- $25.00
- Gross for the week
- $1,137.50
- The same week in Quebec
- 5 hours of overtime — the threshold is 40
- Five 10-hour days in Alberta
- 10 hours, from the daily rule — not 16
Alberta: greater of, never the sum
Alberta's wording is "all hours worked over 8 hours a day or 44 hours a week, whichever is greater". The word doing the work is "greater". The two calculations are performed and compared; only one of them is paid.
Five ten-hour days makes this concrete. Daily: two hours over eight, five times, is ten hours. Weekly: fifty hours less forty-four is six. Alberta pays ten. A calculator that adds them reports sixteen — sixty per cent too much, and an employee who relies on it walks into a conversation with payroll holding a number that is simply wrong.
The direction can reverse. Six eight-hour days is forty-eight hours: no daily overtime at all, but four hours weekly. Alberta pays four. This page states which of the two rules produced the figure, every time.
British Columbia: two rules that cannot double-count
BC pays 1.5× over eight hours in a day, double time over twelve, and 1.5× over forty in a week. On the face of it a long week would qualify twice for the same hours.
The regulation prevents that: only the first eight hours of each day count toward the forty-hour weekly total. Five ten-hour days is a weekly base of exactly forty — no weekly overtime — plus ten hours of daily overtime. Total ten, not twenty.
Six eight-hour days works the other way: no daily overtime, weekly base forty-eight, eight hours of weekly overtime. The mechanism is unusual enough that a lot of payroll software gets it wrong, generally in the employee's favour, which nobody reports.
Averaging agreements and the exclusions
Most provinces allow averaging agreements — hours averaged over two or four weeks so a heavy week offsets a light one — but they need the employee's written agreement, and in some provinces the director's approval as well. A verbal arrangement does not count.
Managers and supervisors are commonly excluded from overtime entitlement, and the test is what you actually do rather than what your title says. Someone called a supervisor who spends most of the week doing the same work as the people they supervise is usually still entitled.
Several industries have their own rules — trucking, agriculture, oil and gas field work, IT professionals in some provinces. If you are in one of these, check your province's regulations rather than the general standard.
Statutory holidays are a separate question
Working a statutory holiday is not the same as working overtime, and the rules are separate. Most provinces provide holiday pay plus a premium — commonly 1.5× — for hours worked on the day, and some require a substitute day off instead.
Which days count also varies. Ontario has nine public holidays; Alberta has nine general holidays with a slightly different list; Quebec has eight. National Indigenous Peoples Day is a statutory holiday in the Northwest Territories and Yukon and not elsewhere.
This tool prices ordinary and overtime hours. Statutory holiday premiums are not included, so add them separately if the week you are entering includes one.
Assumptions and sources
- Canada federal
- Employment and Social Development Canada, federal labour standards. https://www.canada.ca/en/services/jobs/workplace/federal-labour-standards/work-hours.html
- Ontario
- Your guide to the Employment Standards Act. https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/overtime-pay
- British Columbia
- BC Employment Standards, overtime pay. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employment-standards-advice/employment-standards/hours/overtime-pay
- Alberta
- Alberta.ca, overtime hours and overtime pay. https://www.alberta.ca/overtime-hours-overtime-pay
- Quebec
- CNESST, overtime. https://www.cnesst.gouv.qc.ca/en/working-conditions/wage-and-pay/wages/overtime
- Jurisdiction split
- Employment and Social Development Canada reports about 900,000 employees — roughly 6% of Canadian workers — under federal labour standards. Everyone else is provincial. checked 2026-08
- Not covered
- Averaging agreements, managerial and professional exclusions, industry-specific rules, statutory holiday premiums, and the territories.