My Employer Hasn't Paid Me: What To Do in Canada

A missed paycheque is a different problem from a disputed one. If your employer simply hasn’t paid you, the money is already owed, and the question is which route gets it to you fastest: a written demand, an employment standards claim, small claims court, or, if the business has gone under, the federal Wage Earner Protection Program (WEPP). Other workplace disputes are covered on the workplace rights and employee benefits hub.

The short answer

Write down exactly what’s missing, demand it in writing with a deadline, and if that doesn’t work, file an employment standards claim (free) or sue in small claims court. If the employer is bankrupt or in receivership, file a proof of claim with the trustee or receiver and apply to WEPP. Deadlines apply to every route, so act within weeks, not months.

Step 1: Document what you are owed

Gather, for each missing pay period:

• your pay stubs, timesheets or your own record of hours worked
• your offer letter or contract showing your pay rate
• bank statements showing which deposits arrived and which didn’t
• any emails or texts from the employer about the pay

Add up the gross amount owed per period. If the missing money also includes vacation pay or overtime, see collecting unpaid vacation pay and claiming unpaid overtime for how to work those out.

Step 2: Demand payment in writing

Email or text the owner, manager or payroll contact: which pay periods are missing, the gross amount, and a date by which you expect payment. Keep the message and any reply. An employer facing cash-flow trouble sometimes pays at this stage; one that doesn’t has now been put on notice, which helps with every step that follows.

When the job has ended, the final pay has its own deadline. In Ontario, for example, the employer must pay outstanding wages, including vacation pay, no later than “seven days after the employment ends; or on what would ordinarily have been the employee’s next regular pay day; whichever is later.”

Step 3: File a claim with employment standards

If the employer still doesn’t pay, the usual next step is a claim with your province’s employment standards office (or the federal Labour Program, if you work for a bank, airline, telecom, railway or other federally regulated employer). Filing is free and an officer can order the employer to pay. The office for each province, the filing deadlines, the limits on what can be recovered and what happens after you file are on the guide to filing an employment standards complaint.

Step 4: Small claims court

Suing the employer in small claims court is the main alternative. You run the case yourself and pay the court’s filing fees, and the court sets the timetable. The upper limits in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta:

In some provinces, filing an employment standards claim affects whether you can also sue for the same wages, so check that on the complaint guide before choosing. A lawsuit over a dismissal (rather than unpaid wages) is a different kind of claim, covered on wrongful dismissal in Canada.

What your employer can’t take out of your pay

Deductions from wages are limited by provincial law, and Ontario’s rules are a good illustration. In Ontario, “Only three kinds of deductions can be made from an employee’s wages”: deductions a statute requires (income tax, EI premiums and CPP contributions), deductions under a court order, and deductions you authorised in writing for a stated amount or a stated way of calculating it. Even with your signature, an Ontario employer can’t deduct to cover “faulty work” (a broken tool, a spoiled order, a card-transaction mistake), or a cash shortage or loss when you weren’t the only person with access to the cash or property.

So an employer generally can’t hold back pay as a penalty for quitting without notice, to make up a till shortage, or because it says you owe it money. Those amounts go into your claim along with the missing wages.

If your employer has gone bankrupt or into receivership

When the employer is in bankruptcy, receivership or another qualifying insolvency proceeding, unpaid wages can be recovered through the federal Wage Earner Protection Program. You may be eligible if you have lost your job and the employer owes you wages, vacation pay, termination pay or severance pay. (How much termination pay and severance pay you were owed has its own rules.)

• How much: a one-time payment of up to 7 times the maximum weekly insurable earnings under the Employment Insurance Act. Computed from the 2026 maximum insurable earnings of $68,900 a year, that is up to $9,275.
• First step: a trustee or receiver is named to handle the employer’s affairs, and you file a proof of claim with them as soon as possible.
• If the business just closed: with no bankruptcy, receivership or other qualifying proceeding, WEPP doesn’t apply, and the route is an employment standards claim. A general explanation of how insolvency proceedings work is in the Canadian insolvency guide.

Questions about unpaid wages

How long do I have? It depends on the route and the province: employment standards offices set their own filing deadlines, and lawsuits fall under each province’s limitations law. The complaint guide lists the employment standards deadlines. Waiting also makes it harder to collect from an employer whose finances are getting worse.

Can I be fired for asking to be paid? Employment standards laws protect you from reprisal for asserting your rights. In Ontario, for example, employers are prohibited from penalizing employees for “asking the employer to comply with the ESA” or filing a complaint, and an officer can order reinstatement or compensation. The complaint guide covers the protection in each jurisdiction.

My employer hasn’t issued my Record of Employment either. What now? You can apply for EI without it. See what to do when your employer won’t give you a ROE, and for the EI application itself, how to apply for EI.

Related reading

• How to file an employment standards complaint
• My employer owes me vacation pay
• My employer is not paying overtime
• My employer won’t give me a ROE
• Workplace rights and employee benefits in Canada

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