EI Calculator (2026)

The hours you need depend on where you live

There's no single hours figure for EI. Service Canada sets a threshold for each of the 62 economic regions from that region's unemployment rate, and republishes it every month. Where work is scarce the bar drops; where unemployment is low it climbs. The rate that counts is the one in force when you file your claim — not when you were laid off, and not where you used to live.

Each step up the table cuts 35 hours off the threshold and one week off the averaging period. That second column matters as much as the first, and it's covered below.

The hours have to fall inside your qualifying period: the 52 weeks before your claim starts, or the stretch since your last claim if that's shorter. It can stretch to 104 weeks if you weren't in insurable employment and weren't drawing EI. Hours are counted as hours actually worked, so part-time and irregular work counts in full — three years of 12-hour weeks gets you to the same place as eight months of full-time.

If you've received a notice of violation on a previous claim, your threshold is higher than the table above — from 875 up to 1,400 hours depending on the severity. The calculator doesn't model that.

What you'd get a week, and why "best weeks" matters

EI regular benefits replace 55% of your average weekly insurable earnings, capped at $729 a week in 2026. The cap bites once you're earning about $1,325 a week — above that, extra earnings don't raise the benefit.

The word doing the work in that sentence is average. Service Canada doesn't average your whole year. It takes your best weeks — the weeks in your qualifying period where you earned the most — adds those up, and divides by the number in the third column of the table above. In a high-unemployment region that's 14 weeks; in a low-unemployment one it's 22.

That asymmetry favours anyone whose earnings were uneven. If you worked a heavy stretch and then tapered off, a 14-week divisor captures the heavy stretch and ignores the taper. The estimate above divides your annual figure by 52, which is the right answer for steady year-round earnings and a conservative one if your income was lumpy — your real rate will likely be higher.

Once set, the weekly rate is fixed for the life of the claim. It doesn't rise if the region's rate changes, and it doesn't fall.

How long it lasts: the 41 × 12 table

Duration isn't a formula — it's a lookup. Service Canada publishes a table with 41 rows of insurable hours and 12 columns of regional unemployment rate, and your entitlement is the cell where your row meets your column. The floor is 14 weeks, the ceiling 45.

Two things push the number up, and they stack. More hours moves you down the rows; a worse regional rate moves you right across the columns. Someone with 700 hours in a region at 5% gets 14 weeks. The same 700 hours in a region at 16% gets 36. Note also that the columns run past the point where the hours table stops moving: hours bottom out at 420 above 13%, but weeks keep climbing to the "16% and more" column.

A slice of the table, showing the gradient in both directions:

Selected rows and columns from the full 41 × 12 table. The calculator above reads the complete table, including the rows and rate bands not shown here.

A zero means those hours don't qualify at that rate at all — the table and the hours threshold are two views of the same rule. The number of weeks is locked when your benefit period begins and doesn't change if you move to another region afterward.

Two worked examples

Both use a regional rate as a given. Look up your own before applying either pattern to yourself.

• A laid-off analyst — region at 8.1%, 700 hours, $900 a week. The 8.1–9.0% band needs 595 hours, so 700 qualifies with room to spare. The weekly benefit is 55% of $900 = $495. The table's 700–734 row against the 8.1–9.0% column gives 20 weeks. Total before tax: $9,900. The divisor here is 19 best weeks, so if those $900 weeks were the good ones out of a patchier year, the real rate would come in above $495.
• A seasonal plant worker — region at 10.6%, 600 hours, $750 a week. The 10.1–11.0% band needs 525 hours, so 600 qualifies. The benefit is 55% of $750 = $412.50. The 595–629 row against the 10.1–11.0% column gives 22 weeks — two more than the analyst got on a hundred more hours, because the regional rate is doing the work. Total: $9,075.

The near-miss is worth seeing too. At 500 hours in a region at 8.2%, the threshold is still 595 — you're 95 hours short, about two and a half full-time weeks, and the answer is no benefits at all rather than reduced ones. EI has no partial entitlement below the threshold.

Money that moves your claim

Severance delays it. Severance, termination pay, vacation pay and similar separation money are allocated to the weeks after your last day, as though your employer had kept paying you. Divide the payout by your normal weekly earnings and that's roughly how many weeks it covers; benefits begin when the allocation runs out. This pushes your start date back — it doesn't cut the number of weeks you're entitled to. Apply as soon as you're separated regardless, because the claim date is set by when you file.

Part-time work reduces it, but you keep more than you lose. Once past the waiting period, you keep 50 cents of benefits for every dollar you earn, until earnings reach 90% of the weekly insurable earnings your rate was built from. Past that point, earnings come off dollar for dollar. On a $500 benefit built from $909 of weekly earnings, picking up $300 of work costs you $150 of EI and leaves you $650 for the week instead of $500. The exception: work a full working week and you're counted as employed for that week and paid nothing, however little it paid.

There's also the one-week waiting period at the start of every claim — unpaid, and served once per benefit period, not once per job.

Paying some of it back at tax time

EI is taxable, and tax is withheld at source. Separately from that, high earners repay part of what they received. If your 2026 net income from all sources tops $86,125, you repay 30% of the lesser of your income above that line and the total regular benefits you were paid.

That threshold isn't a round number someone chose — it's 1.25 × the year's maximum insurable earnings, so it moves every January with the MIE. On $95,000 of net income and $12,000 of benefits, the excess is $8,875, which is less than the benefits received, so the repayment is 30% of $8,875 = $2,662.50.

Two exemptions matter. You don't repay anything if you were paid less than a week of regular benefits in the previous 10 tax years — which covers most first-time claimants — or if you received only special benefits such as maternity, parental, sickness or compassionate care. Mix regular and special benefits in one year and the regular portion can still be clawed back.

When you don't qualify

Hours are only half of it. EI regular benefits are for people who lost work through no fault of their own, so the reason for the separation is tested independently of the hours.

• Quitting disqualifies you unless you had just cause — a significant change to your duties or pay, harassment, an unsafe workplace, or relocating with a spouse or common-law partner, among others.
• Dismissal for misconduct disqualifies you. Being let go because the business is downsizing does not: that's a shortage of work, and it qualifies.
• A labour dispute — a strike or lockout you're taking part in — suspends entitlement.
• Self-employment isn't insurable, so it builds no hours toward regular benefits. Self-employed people can opt in voluntarily, at least 12 months before claiming, but only for special benefits — never for regular unemployment benefits.

One rule that's often quoted out of date: the higher hours requirement for people entering or re-entering the workforce was abolished in July 2016. A first job or a return after years away uses the same regional threshold as everyone else.