Ontario Vacation Pay Calculator (2026)
Ontario's Employment Standards Act sets vacation pay at 4% of what you earn before five years of employment and 6% from five years on. Enter what you earned and your years of service to see the vacation pay owed — and the vacation time that goes with it.
Vacation pay owed
$0
The 2% your employer owes you on the day you hit five years
Reach five years with the same employer on July 1 and the rate on your vacation pay doesn't change from that day — it changes for the whole entitlement year, backwards as well as forwards. The Act ties the rate to how long you've been employed when the year ends, so a year that finishes at five years or more is a 6% year from its first day. Ontario's own example is an employee who crosses the line partway through a year in which he earns $16,000: he is owed 6% of all of it, $960, not 4% of one half and 6% of the other.
That matters most if you're paid vacation pay on every cheque, which many hourly employees are. Those cheques carried 4% up to the day you qualified, and the guide is explicit that the employer then owes a top-up of 2% on everything earned since the entitlement year began. Thirty thousand dollars of wages in the first half of the year is $1,200 at 4% and $1,800 at 6%; the $600 gap is yours. Enter the year's wages with five years of service and the calculator gives the 6% figure the year should end on.
Two entitlements, counted two different ways
Vacation time is earned by completing the entitlement year: two weeks for finishing a year with under five years of employment, three weeks at five or more, and it lands all at once when the year closes. Vacation pay is earned by the dollar, as the wages are earned. The two come apart in ways that surprise people. A leave of absence — parental, sick, family caregiver and the rest — counts toward completing the year, so someone away on leave for most of it still finishes with the full two or three weeks of time; but the pay is a percentage of what was actually earned, so a year mostly on leave produces the time and very little of the money.
They come apart in the other direction too. You can give up vacation time — with your employer's agreement in writing and the approval of the Director of Employment Standards — but you can never give up the pay, and no agreement to do so is valid. The employer, meanwhile, has both the right to schedule your time and a duty to see it taken: the weeks earned for an entitlement year have to be used within ten months of that year ending.
What the percentage is taken on
Gross wages, which is broader than salary. Regular earnings and commissions, overtime pay, public holiday pay, bonuses that are non-discretionary or tied to hours worked, allowances for room and board, and — the one that surprises — termination pay. Excluded are vacation pay itself (earned or paid), tips and gratuities, purely discretionary bonuses, and severance pay: vacation pay is owed on the notice half of a package but not the severance half. On the standard $50,000 of wages the calculator gives $2,000 at 4% and $3,000 at 6%; add a $5,000 non-discretionary bonus and a few overtime weeks and the base is higher than the salary that appears in your contract.
When the money actually moves
The default is a lump sum, paid before you take the time it belongs to. The Act allows four departures from that, two of them common. If you take vacation in pieces shorter than a week, the pay for those days is due on the normal pay day for the period they fall in. And if you've agreed in writing or electronically to be paid vacation pay on each cheque as it accrues, the stub has to show it as a separate line from everything else — which is how you can check the 4% or 6% is really there, and how the top-up above becomes visible when it's missed. Paid as a lump sum, it is withheld the way a bonus is withheld; paid on each cheque, it goes through with the regular wages. Either way it is gross, and the deposit is smaller once tax, CPP and EI come off.
When you leave
Whatever has accrued and not been paid is due within seven days of the employment ending, or on the day the next regular cheque would have come if that is later — and that can reach back into a previous entitlement year if that year's pay was never paid out. The rate for the partial final year is whichever band you were in when you left: 4% under five years, 6% if you had reached five before or during it. A resignation, a dismissal and a layoff all trigger the same rule. And because termination pay counts as wages, the vacation pay on that lump sum is owed too, calculated with the notice weeks and added on top.
Common questions
How much is vacation pay in Ontario?
At least 4% of what you earn before five years of employment, and at least 6% from five years on. On $50,000 that's $2,000 or $3,000. A contract can give more, not less.
When does it go from 4% to 6%?
At five years with the same employer. Under five years: 4% and two weeks off. Five years or more: 6% and three weeks off.
What counts as gross wages?
Regular wages, overtime, commissions, public-holiday pay and non-discretionary bonuses. Excluded: vacation pay itself, tips paid directly by customers, and discretionary bonuses.
Is vacation pay the same as vacation time?
No. Vacation time is the weeks off (2 or 3); vacation pay is the 4% or 6% money for that time. You accrue the pay on all wages as you earn them.
If I reach five years partway through the year, is the whole year at 6%?
Yes. The rate is set by your length of employment when the vacation entitlement year ends, so a year that finishes at five years or more is 6% on every dollar earned in it. If you were paid 4% on each cheque before the date you qualified, your employer owes a 2% top-up on those wages.
Is vacation pay owed on termination pay and severance pay?
On termination pay, yes — it counts as wages, so 4% or 6% is added on top of the notice weeks. On statutory severance pay, no. Both are paid out with any other accrued vacation pay within seven days of the job ending or on the next regular pay day, whichever is later.