How to Apply for EI: Steps, Deadlines and Your Record of Employment

This page covers how to apply for Employment Insurance (EI), how late you can apply, and how your Record of Employment (ROE) fits in. To check whether you qualify and how much you’d get, see how EI works and the EI calculator.

Step 1: Apply as soon as you stop working

Apply online on the Service Canada website. You’ll need:

• your social insurance number (SIN),
• your mother’s or father’s birth name,
• your mailing and home addresses,
• your banking details for direct deposit, and
• the name, address and dates of every employer you had in the last 52 weeks, and why you stopped working for each.

Source: Service Canada, apply for EI regular benefits.

Don’t wait for your Record of Employment. Service Canada needs your ROEs to decide the claim, but most arrive electronically and you can send missing documents after you apply.

Step 2: Choose the right benefit

Apply for the benefit that matches why you stopped working: regular benefits for a layoff or shortage of work, or sickness, maternity and parental or caregiving benefits. Special benefits need 600 insurable hours; regular benefits need 420 to 700 depending on your region.

Step 3: After you apply

• Service Canada mails a benefit statement with a four-digit access code that you use to file reports.
• If you’re eligible, your first payment arrives about 28 days after you apply. The first week of a claim is normally unpaid (the waiting period); it was waived for claims that start between March 30, 2025 and October 9, 2027.
• You report every 2 weeks for as long as you get benefits. If you miss a report, you have 3 weeks from its date to submit it.

Source: Service Canada, after you apply. The first payment page has the timeline, and how much can I earn while on EI covers reporting work.

Applying late

If you apply more than 4 weeks after your last day of work, you may lose benefits. The weeks before your claim starts aren’t paid, and a later start can also change the hours and earnings that count.

You can ask Service Canada to antedate (backdate) a late claim. It is allowed only if you qualified for benefits on the earlier date and had good cause for the whole period of the delay. If your reason covers only the most recent part of the delay, the claim can be backdated to the start of that part. Being ill, or being given wrong information by Service Canada, can be good cause; not knowing about EI or forgetting usually isn’t. Source: Digest of Benefit Entitlement Principles, chapter 3.

If you’re past the deadline, apply anyway and explain the delay, then call Service Canada at 1-800-206-7218.

Your Record of Employment (ROE)

Your employer issues an ROE when you have an interruption of earnings: generally 7 days in a row with no work and no insurable earnings. It shows your insurable hours and earnings and the reason it was issued, which Service Canada uses to decide your eligibility, rate and weeks.

When it must be issued:

• Paper ROE: within 5 calendar days of the first day of the interruption (or of the day the employer learns of it).
• Electronic ROE: generally 5 days after the end of the pay period in which the interruption happened. For monthly pay periods, it’s the earlier of that date or 15 days after the interruption starts.

Electronic ROEs go straight to Service Canada, and you can see them in My Service Canada Account.

Key blocks:

Reason codes (block 16):

The code doesn’t decide your claim by itself: a quit (E) or dismissal (M) is examined to see whether you had just cause or were let go for misconduct. See can you get EI if you quit and can you be denied EI.

Source: Service Canada, How to complete the Record of Employment form.

If something is wrong or missing: ask your employer’s payroll to issue an amended ROE. If the employer won’t or can’t (for example, it closed), tell Service Canada; you can still apply.

Money paid when you leave

Vacation pay, severance and other separation money shown on the ROE is normally allocated to the weeks after your job ends, which pushes back the start of your benefits. That rule was suspended for claims or allocations that start between March 30, 2025 and October 9, 2027. Source: Service Canada, temporary EI measures.

If you’re refused

You can ask for a reconsideration and then appeal; the steps and deadlines are on can you be denied EI.

Related pages

• EI payment problems
• How EI works
• First time claiming EI
• What to do when you’re laid off
• How long to get your first EI payment
• EI calculator