Ontario Stat Holidays 2026: Dates, Who Gets Paid and Holiday Pay

Ontario has 9 public holidays a year, listed with this year’s dates below; the province’s Employment Standards Act, 2000 calls its stat holidays public holidays. Most employees who qualify get these days off with public holiday pay, whether they work full time, part time, permanently or on a term contract. Most Ontario employees qualify for public holiday pay, however recently they were hired, unless they miss, without reasonable cause, all of their last scheduled day before the holiday or all of their first scheduled day after it (the last and first rule), or the shift they agreed or were required to work on the holiday.

What are Ontario's stat holidays in 2026?

Rows marked “Not a statutory holiday” are other holidays that aren’t on Ontario’s list (see below). The province explains the rules in the public holidays chapter of its guide to the Act. If your job is federally regulated, see who isn’t covered.

What are Ontario's stat holidays in 2027?

Ontario's guide names the holidays and gives a date only for Boxing Day, so the other dates come from each holiday's fixed date or rule, such as Family Day on the third Monday in February.

Which days are not stat holidays in Ontario?

Ontario’s guide says some employers give a holiday on Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, the first Monday in August or Remembrance Day, but the Employment Standards Act doesn’t require them to. So the first Monday in August, shown as the Civic Holiday in the table above, isn’t a public holiday in Ontario; whether you get it off depends on your employer or your contract.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation isn’t on Ontario’s list of public holidays either, though it is a general holiday for federally regulated workers.

The Act sets minimums: an employment contract or collective agreement can give you more days off with pay than it does.

Who qualifies for stat holiday pay in Ontario?

• You qualify unless you fail, without reasonable cause, to work all of your last regularly scheduled day of work before the public holiday or all of your first regularly scheduled day of work after it (the last and first rule).
• You also do not qualify if you agreed to or were required to work on the holiday and, without reasonable cause, did not work your entire shift.
• It does not matter how recently you were hired or how many days you worked before the holiday.
• Some jobs are not covered by the public holiday provisions of the Employment Standards Act.
• If you do not qualify, you are still owed premium pay for every hour you work on the holiday.

Part-time workers qualify on the same terms as full-time workers, and so do permanent and term-contract employees.

The shifts that count are your last regularly scheduled shift before the holiday and your first one after it, which don’t have to be the days right before and after the holiday. Reasonable cause generally means something outside your control kept you from working, and it is up to you to show it.

If you do both covered and exempt work for one employer, you qualify for a holiday when at least half of your work in that week was covered work.

How much is stat holiday pay in Ontario?

• Public holiday pay is all of your regular wages earned in the 4 work weeks before the work week with the holiday plus all of the vacation pay payable for those 4 work weeks, divided by 20.
• Regular wages leave out overtime pay, vacation pay, public holiday pay, premium pay, domestic or sexual violence leave pay, termination pay, severance pay and termination of assignment pay.
• If vacation pay is paid on every cheque, the vacation pay counted is at least 4 per cent of your wages in the 4 work weeks.

Vacation pay paid before or with your vacation is included when you were on vacation during those weeks, and a lump sum paid on set dates is included when one of those dates falls in them. The weeks follow your employer’s work week, which isn’t necessarily a calendar week.

Our page on vacation pay explains how it is paid, and the national stat holiday page has the holiday pay rules for the rest of Canada.

What if you work on the stat holiday in Ontario?

Most employees who qualify have the day off; working it takes your agreement, electronically or in writing, and you are then paid under one of these options:

• Premium pay is 1.5 times your regular rate of pay for each hour worked on the holiday.
• If you agree to work, you can be paid regular wages for the hours worked plus a substitute day off with public holiday pay.
• Or, if you agree, you are paid public holiday pay plus premium pay for all hours worked, with no substitute day.
• A substitute holiday must fall within 3 months of the holiday, or within 12 months if you agree electronically or in writing.

If you get a substitute day, your employer has to give you a written statement before the holiday that names the holiday, the substitute date and the date of the statement. If you agreed electronically or in writing to work the holiday and didn’t, without reasonable cause, you lose both the holiday pay and the substitute day. Hours paid at the premium rate don’t count toward overtime for that week; overtime pay rules has the rest.

Hotels, restaurants, hospitals and round-the-clock operations. If you work in a hotel, motel or tourist resort, a restaurant or tavern, a hospital or nursing home, or a continuous operation, you can be required to work a public holiday without agreeing, but only when it falls on a day you would normally work and you aren’t on vacation. You then get either your regular rate plus a substitute day with holiday pay, or holiday pay plus premium pay, and your employer picks which. This is subject to your right to a day off for religious observance under the Ontario Human Rights Code and to your employment contract.

Retail workers. Most retail employees can refuse to work a public holiday, even one they don’t qualify for, and can back out of an agreement to work it by giving their employer at least 48 hours’ notice. The guide’s retail workers chapter has the details.

What if the holiday falls on your day off, during vacation, or while you’re on leave or laid off?

• If the holiday falls on a day you do not normally work, or during your vacation, you get a substitute holiday with public holiday pay or, if you agree, public holiday pay for the day.

On a leave or a layoff, the same test applies around your absence: Ontario’s examples look at your last scheduled day before a pregnancy leave or a layoff and your first scheduled day after it.

Who isn’t covered in Ontario?

Some jobs fall outside the public holiday rules, and Ontario sets them out in its guide to special rules and exemptions. Some of the jobs the guide says have no right to public holidays or public holiday pay:

• taxi cab drivers
• landscape gardening workers
• superintendents, janitors and caretakers who live in the residential building they work in
• physicians, surgeons and psychologists, and students in those fields
• students at a children’s camp, teaching or supervising children, or in a charity’s recreational program
• some construction workers, depending on how long they have worked for the employer and the vacation or holiday pay they receive

Jobs regulated by federal employment law, such as banks, airlines, post offices and interprovincial trucking, aren’t covered by Ontario’s Act at all. Their holidays are on the national page.

What if you weren’t paid for a stat holiday?

Our guide to reading a pay stub shows where your pay is itemized. Not paying public holiday pay is one of the violations Ontario lists, and you can file a claim with the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. The time limit is generally 2 years from the violation. Generally, you can’t file a claim if you are represented by a union and covered by a collective agreement, or if you have taken your employer to court over the same issue.

The steps are in our guides to filing an employment standards complaint and what to do when your employer hasn’t paid you.

Related pages

• Stat holidays across Canada
• Vacation pay
• Overtime pay rules
• Minimum wage by province
• Bank holiday hours
• TSX stock market holidays
• All workplace rights guides: pay, leave, the end of a job and complaints