EI When You Lose Your Job

You've been laid off, or you're about to be. Employment Insurance replaces 55% of your average insurable weekly earnings, up to $729 a week in 2026, and your first payment arrives about 28 days after you apply. Whether you qualify depends on your insurable hours in the last year and why the job ended. A temporary set of rules also applies to claims starting on or before October 10, 2026. Under those, your severance doesn't push the money back, the one-week unpaid wait is waived, and some people get 20 extra weeks.

Key takeaways

• Your weekly benefit is 55% of your average insurable weekly earnings, capped at $729 a week in 2026. Once it's set, that rate stays the same for the whole claim.
• You need 420 to 700 insurable hours in the last 52 weeks. Which one you need depends on the unemployment rate where you live, so it isn't the same everywhere.
• Your first payment comes about 28 days after you apply, not 28 days after your last day at work.
• If your claim starts on or before October 10, 2026, severance and vacation pay aren't deducted, the one-week unpaid wait is waived, and long-serving workers can be paid for up to 65 weeks instead of 45. From October 11, all three go back.

What does EI pay a week?

Your benefit is 55% of your average insurable weekly earnings, and in 2026 it stops at $729 a week.¹ That average is built from your best-paid weeks over the last year, not from your final paycheque, so a quiet month right before you left doesn't drag your rate down very far.

Insurable earnings stop counting at $68,900 a year, which works out to $1,325 a week.¹ Earn more than that and the extra doesn't add anything to your benefit, because you weren't paying premiums on it either. If your best weeks averaged $1,000, your rate is $550. At $1,500 a week you get $729, the same as someone earning $1,325.

How many of your best weeks go into that average depends on where you live. In regions with the lowest unemployment it comes off your best 22 weeks, and in regions with the highest, your best 14.¹ Fewer weeks usually helps you, because your strongest stretch isn't diluted by weaker ones. Once it's worked out, your rate stays fixed until the claim ends.

There's a supplement for lower-income families with children. If your net family income doesn't exceed $25,921 a year, you have children, and you or your spouse receives the Canada Child Benefit, your rate can rise as high as 80% of your average insurable earnings.¹ Only one of you can receive it, and it'll generally do more good going to the partner with the lower benefit rate. As your income climbs the supplement decreases, so that when $25,921 is reached none is payable.¹

Have you worked enough hours?

You need between 420 and 700 insurable hours in the 52 weeks before your claim, and the number that applies to you depends on the unemployment rate in your region.² Where unemployment is higher you need fewer hours, on the reasoning that work's harder to find there.

You need all six of these to be true:²

• you were in insurable employment
• you lost the job through no fault of your own
• you've been without work and without pay for at least seven days in a row in the last 52 weeks
• you worked the required hours
• you're ready, willing and able to work each day
• you're looking for work and keeping a written record of the employers you contact

Quitting without just cause puts you outside that list, and so does being dismissed for misconduct or being off because of a strike or lockout.² Those aren't rules you can read off a page, though. They're decisions made on your own file, and the published guidance is to apply anyway and let it be ruled on.²

That 52-week stretch is your qualifying period. If you claimed EI more recently than a year ago, it shrinks to the time since that claim started. It can grow too. Stretches when you weren't in insurable work, or weren't being paid benefits, can push it out to 104 weeks.²

So once you know your region's rate, both of your numbers follow from it.¹² If you've had a notice of violation on an earlier claim, your hours requirement goes up.²

The temporary rules end on October 10, 2026

Three temporary measures all close on October 10, 2026. Two of them opened on March 30, 2025 and the third on June 15, 2025, so a claim starting between those dates and October 10, 2026 is inside all three.³⁴ What you're entitled to turns on the date your claim starts, not the date you were let go.

The one-week unpaid wait is waived. Your first week's normally unpaid, and it works like the deductible on any other insurance policy.³ For a claim starting on or before October 10, 2026 you serve no waiting week, though you can choose to serve one where a top-up from your employer's supplemental unemployment benefit plan makes that the better deal for you.³

Money paid to you on separation isn't deducted. Vacation pay, pay in lieu of notice, severance, closure bonuses and sick-leave credits are normally allocated from the week you left, which delays the start of your claim by however many weeks that money covers. If your claim or the allocation starts inside that window, none of it comes off your benefits.³

Long-serving workers are paid for 20 more weeks. The most anyone's normally paid is 45 weeks. This measure opened later than the other two, on June 15, 2025, and it asks more of you. Your claim has to start inside the window. You have to have been paid at least one week of regular benefits. And you have to count as long-serving. Counting as long-serving has its own two tests. You need fewer than 36 weeks of regular or fishing benefits in the last three years, and you need to have paid at least 30% of the annual maximum EI premiums in at least seven of the past ten years. With all of that true, a claim starting on or before October 10, 2026 can run to 65 weeks.³ Those weeks go on automatically, and the period you can draw them over stretches by 20 weeks to hold them.

How long until the money shows up?

About 28 days from the day you apply, if you're eligible and you've given them everything they need.⁵ The published service standard is a decision within 28 days of filing, and Service Canada says it meets that 80% of the time.⁵ A month with no pay coming in is a long time when your rent doesn't pause. If you've got savings, this is the stretch they're for.

Your employer has five calendar days after your final pay period to issue your record of employment, or ROE.⁵ You can see whether it's arrived in your My Service Canada Account, under Records of Employment. Missing paperwork is what the published guidance names as the thing to clear to avoid delay.⁵

Once your claim's running you file a report every two weeks, and you get three weeks from the date you're given to send each one.⁵ Payments only go out after your report has been processed, so a report filed late is paid late. Your access code, a four-digit number, comes by mail on a benefit statement shortly after you apply.⁵

If the decision goes against you, you have 30 days from the day it's communicated to you to ask for a reconsideration.⁵ That's a fresh look at the same decision, and it comes before any appeal.

What this works out to for three people

Maya, renting on one income. Say her best weeks averaged $1,000. That's a rate of $550 a week, comfortably under the cap. If you're on one income like she is, the first thing to count is your hours against your own region's threshold, because a year of part-time shifts can land you either side of it. The savings that carry you through the first month are the kind of small, boring balance that absorbs a bill that would otherwise have gone on credit.

Nadia and Theo, one income of two gone. Say Nadia's best weeks averaged $1,200, which makes her rate $660 a week. Theo keeps working, so their net family income is above $25,921 and they don't get the supplement.¹ If that's your household, you're rebuilding the month on one salary plus your rate, and the step most couples take first is agreeing which of your fixed costs comes out of which, as in "The Same Page," where two people stop running separate budgets in one house.

Joanne, thirty years in. She's paid premiums for decades and has rarely claimed, which means she counts as long-serving: up to 65 weeks instead of 45, provided her claim starts on or before October 10, 2026.³ If that's your record too, your period for drawing them stretches by the same 20 weeks, so the end date on your claim is later than the raw number of weeks suggests. "Counting What's Already There" works through what a year of living costs, and that's what tells you whether 65 weeks covers you or runs out first.

Two people laid off the same day get different cheques

Two people can lose the same job on the same day and be paid different amounts for different lengths of time. Most of the difference is down to four things, and the biggest one is where you live. The other three are whether you're working, who's at home with you, and how long you've been paying in.

The unemployment rate in your EI region sets three numbers at once: the hours you need, how many of your best weeks go into your average, and how many weeks you'll be paid.¹² Two people doing the same job in different regions can face a 420-hour bar and a 700-hour bar.

Working while your claim's open changes what lands in your account. You keep 50 cents of your benefits for every dollar you earn, up to 90% of your previous weekly earnings, and past that the deduction is dollar for dollar.⁶ If you work a full week you get no benefits for it whatever you earned, but that week doesn't come off your total either.

Children and a low household income can lift your rate from 55% to as much as 80%, through the family supplement described earlier.¹ And long service changes your ceiling. If you qualify as long-serving, a claim starting on or before October 10, 2026 runs to 65 weeks instead of 45. From October 11, you're back to 45.³

The rate that governs your claim is whichever one is in force on the day you file, so it isn't settled before then. You can look up today's on the EI Program Characteristics page, and once your claim's open the rate that was actually used shows on the claim itself.

Your benefits are taxable income

EI is taxable income, and federal and provincial or territorial tax comes off your payment before it's in your hands.¹

There's a second piece that can reach you at tax time, though only if you earned well above the line that year. If your income goes above 1.25 times the maximum insurable earnings, you repay 30% of the smaller of two figures: the total regular benefits you got, or your income above that line.⁷ For the 2025 tax year that line was $82,125.⁸ The 2026 line is 1.25 times $68,900, which comes to $86,125 by that formula, and it hasn't been published yet.

Most people who claim for the first time don't reach that at all. If you were paid regular benefits for less than one week in the previous ten years, you repay nothing, whatever your income was that year.⁷ Maternity, parental, sickness and compassionate care benefits are excluded from the repayment rule too.⁷

Your own premium is a separate number and it doesn't change what you're paid. Outside Quebec you pay 1.63% of insurable earnings in 2026, to a maximum of $1,123.07 for the year. In Quebec it's lower, at 1.30% and $895.70. Quebec administers the maternity, parental and adoption benefits for its own residents.⁹

You can apply before your ROE arrives

Most people who've been through this apply in the first few days instead of waiting for paperwork, because your 28-day clock starts when your application goes in, not when your record of employment lands.⁵ Your employer's got five days after your final pay period to issue it, and it shows up in your account when they do.⁵

If you're holding a severance package, the date your claim starts decides whether that money delays you. On a claim beginning on or before October 10, 2026 it doesn't, so there's nothing to gain by holding off.³ On a claim beginning October 11, 2026 or later it does, and the delay runs to however many weeks the package covers.

Most people who aren't sure whether they qualify still apply, because that decision is made on your own file. Nobody else can settle it for you. What you can find out today is the date your claim would start, and all three of the temporary measures follow from that.

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Common questions

Can you get EI if you quit your job?+

Usually you can't. Leaving voluntarily without just cause is one of the situations that shuts you out of regular benefits, and being fired for misconduct is another. Just cause has a narrow legal meaning, and whether yours fits is judged on your own file, so if you believe it does, it'll cost you nothing to apply and be told.

Does severance stop your EI in Canada?+

It depends on when your claim starts. If it's on or before October 10, 2026, a temporary measure means none of your separation money is counted against your benefits. If it begins on October 11, 2026 or later, that money is spread across the weeks it covers and your payments don't start until those weeks have passed.

How many weeks of EI can you get?+

Somewhere from 14 to 45, set by your regional unemployment rate at the time you file and by the hours you built up. It's more for long-serving workers while the temporary measures last. If your claim opens on or before October 10, 2026 and you've contributed steadily for years without drawing much, your ceiling is 65.

Can you work part-time while on EI?+

Yes, and it's usually worth doing. Part of your benefit is clawed back as you earn, at fifty cents in the dollar, until your earnings reach nine tenths of what you used to make. After that, each extra dollar costs you a full dollar of benefit. Declare every dollar on your report, because an undeclared amount becomes an overpayment you'll have to give back.

Do you have to pay EI back?+

Almost certainly not, if this is your first claim in a decade. There's a repayment rule for higher earners, but it exempts you if you've drawn barely any regular benefits over the previous ten years, and it never touches your maternity, parental, sickness or compassionate care payments.

Is EI different in Quebec?+

You pay a lower EI premium there and you receive the same regular benefit. The province looks after maternity, parental and adoption coverage for people living in Quebec. Less EI comes off your pay there. Your 55% rate and your weekly maximum don't change.

Sources

1. Service CanadaEI regular benefits: How much you could receive. The 55% rate, the $68,900 maximum insurable earnings, the $729 weekly maximum, 14 to 45 weeks, the 14 to 22 best weeks, the family supplement with its $25,921 threshold and taper, and that benefits are taxable with tax deducted at source. Accessed 2026-09-06.
2. Service CanadaEI regular benefits: Do you qualify. The six eligibility criteria, the 420 to 700 insurable hours, the qualifying period and its 104-week extension, the increased hours after a notice of violation, the situations that disqualify, and the guidance to apply and let eligibility be determined. Accessed 2026-09-06.
3. Service CanadaTemporary Employment Insurance measures to respond to major changes in economic conditions. The waived waiting period and the supplemental unemployment benefit plan exception, the suspended allocation of separation earnings and its five categories, and the 20 additional weeks to a maximum of 65 with the long-tenured tests, all for claims beginning on or before October 10, 2026. Accessed 2026-09-06.
4. Canada Gazette Part IISOR/2026-64, registered 2026-03-30, amending the Employment Insurance Regulations. The instrument that sets the October 10, 2026 end date, replacing an earlier one. Accessed 2026-09-06.
5. Service CanadaEI regular benefits: After you apply. The 28-day decision standard met 80% of the time, the first payment about 28 days after applying, the five-day record of employment deadline and where to see it, missing documents as the delay to clear, reports every two weeks with three weeks to file, the four-digit access code mailed on the benefit statement, the normal one-week waiting period, and the 30-day reconsideration deadline. Accessed 2026-09-06.
6. Service CanadaEmployment Insurance: Working While on Claim. Keeping 50 cents per dollar earned up to 90% of previous weekly earnings, the dollar-for-dollar deduction above that, and the treatment of a full week worked. Accessed 2026-09-06.
7. Justice CanadaEmployment Insurance Act, section 145. The benefit repayment formula, the 1.25 multiplier, the 30% rate, the exemption for claimants paid less than one week of regular benefits in the previous ten years, and the exclusion of special benefits. Accessed 2026-09-06.
8. CRALine 23500 Social benefits repayment. The $82,125 threshold for the 2025 tax year and the 30% repayment rate. Accessed 2026-09-06.
9. CRAEI premium rates and maximums. The 2026 rate of 1.63% and $1,123.07 annual maximum outside Quebec, and 1.30% and $895.70 in Quebec, where the province administers maternity, parental and adoption benefits for its residents. Accessed 2026-09-06.

Educational, not financial advice. Figures verified against primary sources on the date shown.

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