Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, 2000 sets the minimum rules every provincially regulated employer in the province must follow on pay, hours, overtime, vacation, leaves, and termination. These standards are a floor. An employment contract can offer more, but any clause that tries to give less than what the Employment Standards Act guarantees is void.1Ontario.ca. Employment Standards Act, 2000
Who the ESA Protects
The ESA covers most employees working in Ontario, whether full-time, part-time, or casual. Immigration status does not affect coverage: Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and workers on a work permit are all protected if they work in Ontario for a provincially regulated employer.2Government of Ontario. Your Guide to the Employment Standards Act
The main gap is federally regulated work. If your job is in banking, telecommunications, air transportation, interprovincial trucking, or rail, the Canada Labour Code applies to you, not the ESA.3Government of Canada. List of Federally Regulated Industries and Workplaces Employees at banks and airlines are often surprised by this.
Some roles within ESA-covered workplaces have partial exemptions. Managers and supervisors whose primary duties are hiring, firing, and directing staff are generally exempt from overtime and hours-of-work limits, but only if any non-managerial work they do is irregular or exceptional. The test looks at actual duties, not the job title. Licensed professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and public accountants face exemptions from specific provisions.4Government of Ontario. Industries and Jobs with Exemptions or Special Rules Independent contractors are outside the ESA entirely because they are not employees, though misclassifying an employee as a contractor to avoid the ESA is itself a violation.
Minimum Wage
The general minimum wage is $17.60 per hour from October 1, 2025, rising to $17.95 per hour on October 1, 2026.5Ontario Newsroom. Ontario Raising Minimum Wage to Protect Workers and Support a Competitive Economy It applies to every hour worked, including training and probation time. There is no lower “training wage” under the ESA.
Hours, Overtime, and Breaks
Overtime pay begins after 44 hours in a work week, at 1.5 times your regular hourly rate. Full-time, part-time, salaried, hourly, and temporary agency workers are all eligible unless a specific exemption applies.6Government of Ontario. Overtime Pay Being paid a salary does not, on its own, remove your right to overtime.
Every employee is entitled to at least 11 consecutive hours off work each day and at least 24 consecutive hours off each work week, or 48 consecutive hours off every two weeks. These are hard limits with only narrow exceptions.7Government of Ontario. Hours of Work
You are also entitled to a 30-minute eating period for every five consecutive hours of work. You and your employer can agree to split it into two shorter breaks that add up to 30 minutes. Eating periods are unpaid unless your contract says otherwise.1Ontario.ca. Employment Standards Act, 2000
The Three-Hour Rule
If you are scheduled to work, show up, and are sent home before completing three hours, you are still owed three hours’ pay at your regular rate. This applies to on-site and remote work, and to shifts cut short as well as shifts cancelled outright. A slow day is not a valid reason to send someone home without the three-hour minimum. The narrow exceptions cover genuinely unforeseeable events like power failures, fires, or severe weather, and employees whose regular shifts are consistently under three hours.
Vacation Time and Vacation Pay
Your vacation entitlement depends on tenure with the same employer:
- Under five years of service: two weeks of vacation and vacation pay of at least 4% of gross wages earned during the entitlement year.
- Five or more years of service: three weeks of vacation and vacation pay of at least 6% of gross wages earned during the entitlement year.8Government of Ontario. Your Guide to the Employment Standards Act – Vacation
When employment ends, any accrued vacation pay must be paid out within seven days.9Government of Ontario. Employment Standards Act Policy and Interpretation Manual – Part XI – Vacation with Pay
Public Holidays
Ontario recognizes nine public holidays under the ESA: New Year’s Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. Most qualifying employees get the day off with public holiday pay. If you work the holiday, you are entitled to premium pay of 1.5 times your regular rate for every hour worked plus a substitute day off with holiday pay, or in some arrangements your regular wages for the day plus a substitute day off with holiday pay.10Government of Ontario. Public Holidays
To qualify for holiday pay, you must work your last scheduled shift before the holiday and your first scheduled shift after it, unless you have a reasonable cause for missing either. Calling in sick around a holiday without a reasonable explanation can cost you the entitlement.
Job-Protected Leaves
During every statutory leave, your employer must keep making benefit plan contributions and preserve your seniority as if you were still working. When the leave ends, you have the right to return to your former position or a comparable one if the original no longer exists.
Short-Term Unpaid Leaves
Each of these leaves opens up once you have been with the employer for at least two consecutive weeks:
- Sick leave: up to three unpaid days per calendar year for personal illness, injury, or medical emergency.11Government of Ontario. Your Guide to the Employment Standards Act – Sick Leave
- Family responsibility leave: up to three unpaid days per year for illness, injury, or urgent matters involving a spouse, child, parent, grandparent, sibling, or other dependent relative.12Government of Ontario. Family Responsibility Leave
- Bereavement leave: up to two unpaid days per year following the death of a close family member.13Government of Ontario. Bereavement Leave
These are minimums. Contracts that provide paid sick days or more bereavement time prevail.
Pregnancy and Parental Leave
Birth mothers can take up to 17 weeks of pregnancy leave, starting as early as 17 weeks before the due date. Parental leave adds up to 61 weeks for birth mothers who took pregnancy leave, for a combined total of up to 78 weeks. Birth mothers who did not take pregnancy leave and all other new parents, including adoptive parents, are entitled to up to 63 weeks of parental leave.14Government of Ontario. Pregnancy and Parental Leave The leave itself is unpaid under the ESA. Income during the leave typically comes from federal Employment Insurance benefits, which are applied for separately.
Domestic or Sexual Violence Leave
After 13 consecutive weeks of employment, you can take up to 10 days and 15 weeks of leave per calendar year if you or your child has experienced or been threatened with domestic or sexual violence. The first five days of leave in a calendar year are paid; the rest are unpaid.15Government of Ontario. Domestic or Sexual Violence Leave The leave can be used to seek medical attention, access victim services, attend counselling, relocate, or pursue legal proceedings. Failure to give advance notice does not forfeit the right to the leave.
Termination Notice, Termination Pay, and Severance
When an employer ends your job without cause after at least three months of continuous employment, it must give written notice, termination pay in lieu of notice, or a combination of the two. The minimum notice period depends on tenure:16Government of Ontario. Termination of Employment
- Less than one year: one week
- One to under three years: two weeks
- Three to under four years: three weeks
- Four to under five years: four weeks
- Five to under six years: five weeks
- Six to under seven years: six weeks
- Seven to under eight years: seven weeks
- Eight years or more: eight weeks
Termination pay in lieu of notice equals the wages you would have earned during the notice period. If an employer gives partial working notice, it must pay termination pay to cover the balance.
Severance Pay
Severance pay is a separate entitlement on top of termination pay. Two conditions must both be met: you must have at least five years of service, and your employer must have a global payroll of $2.5 million or more, or the severance must result from a permanent closure affecting 50 or more employees within a six-month window.17Government of Ontario. Employment Standards Act Policy and Interpretation Manual – Part XV – Termination and Severance of Employment Severance is calculated at one week of regular wages per year of service, up to a maximum of 26 weeks. Partial years count proportionally.
The ESA amounts are minimums. Common-law reasonable notice, which courts assess based on age, tenure, position, and availability of comparable work, often produces significantly larger amounts. An employee dismissed without cause can accept the ESA minimums or pursue a civil claim for common-law damages, but filing an ESA claim and a lawsuit about the same issues at the same time is generally not permitted.
Disconnecting From Work and Electronic Monitoring
Employers with 25 or more employees in Ontario must maintain two written policies added to the ESA in 2022.
The disconnecting-from-work policy must cover all employees, including managers and executives. Disconnecting means not engaging in work-related emails, calls, video meetings, or messages, so the employee is genuinely free from performing work. The ESA does not ban after-hours contact, but it requires the employer to put its expectations in writing and distribute the policy to every employee within 30 days of creating or updating it.18Government of Ontario. Written Policy on Disconnecting from Work
The electronic monitoring policy must state whether the employer monitors employees electronically. If it does, the policy must describe how monitoring is done, in what circumstances, and what is done with the information collected. Both policies must be in place before March 1 each year, and the employer must keep copies on file for three years after a policy stops being used.19Government of Ontario. Written Policy on Electronic Monitoring of Employees
Protection Against Reprisals
Your employer cannot fire, discipline, penalize, or threaten you for asking about ESA rights, filing a complaint with the Ministry of Labour, cooperating with an investigation, taking a statutory leave, or telling a coworker your pay rate to check equal-pay compliance. The protection extends to former employees. A negative reference given because a past worker filed an ESA complaint is itself a reprisal.20Government of Ontario. Part XVIII – Reprisal Prohibited
When reprisal is alleged, the burden shifts to the employer to show its action was not motivated by the employee’s exercise of ESA rights. Remedies can include reinstatement, compensation for lost wages from the date of termination through reinstatement, and a penalty under the Provincial Offences Act.
Filing a Claim With the Ministry of Labour
You can file an ESA claim through the Ministry of Labour’s online portal at no cost.21Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. Claims – Terms of Use You will need your employer’s legal name and business address, your employment dates, the specific dates the violations happened, and supporting records like pay stubs, employment contracts, and hours worked. Detailed personal logs tend to produce stronger outcomes than claims that rely on memory.
The deadline is strict: you must file within two years of the alleged violation, and only wages owed within the two years before filing are recoverable.22Government of Ontario. Filing a Claim Once a claim is in, an employment standards officer investigates, contacts both sides, and can issue a compliance order if voluntary resolution fails. Timelines depend on the volume of incoming claims and often run several months.23Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. Before Filing a Claim – Claims Employers who disagree with an order can request a review by the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Filing sooner protects more of what you are owed.