Guide · Tax year 2026
How EI works
Employment insurance is the simplest deduction on a Canadian pay statement: one rate, one ceiling, no exemption at the bottom. The only complication is Quebec, and that complication is worth understanding if you are comparing offers across the border.
The rate and the ceiling
Outside Quebec the 2026 employee premium is 1.63% of insurable earnings, charged from the first dollar with no exemption, up to maximum insurable earnings of $68,900. The most any employee pays is therefore $1,123.07. Once your year-to-date earnings pass the ceiling the deduction stops for the rest of the year, which is why a December pay cheque is often larger than a February one at the same salary.
Employers pay 1.4 times the employee premium on the same earnings, so the total cost of insuring a job is higher than the line on your stub. That employer share is not part of your salary and does not appear in any of the figures here.
Quebec pays two premiums instead of one
Employment insurance is a federal programme everywhere, Quebec included. What differs is that Quebec runs its own parental insurance plan, so the maternity, parental and adoption benefits that employment insurance provides elsewhere are provided in Quebec by that plan instead. The federal premium is reduced to reflect what it no longer has to cover, and the provincial premium is charged on top.
- Employment insurance in Quebec: 1.30% up to $68,900, a maximum of $895.70.
- Quebec parental insurance: 0.43% up to $103,000, a maximum of $442.90. Note the higher ceiling: parental insurance keeps taking premiums on earnings well above the point where employment insurance stops.
Added together, a Quebec employee earning above $103,000 pays $1,338.60 in the two premiums against $1,123.07 for employment insurance alone elsewhere. The difference of $215.53 is real money, and it is one of several reasons a Quebec take-home figure cannot be produced by adjusting an Ontario one.
| Salary | EI outside Quebec | EI in Quebec | QPIP | Quebec total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $35,000 | $570.50 | $455.00 | $150.50 | $605.50 |
| $55,000 | $896.50 | $715.00 | $236.50 | $951.50 |
| $68,900 | $1,123.07 | $895.70 | $296.27 | $1,191.97 |
| $90,000 | $1,123.07 | $895.70 | $387.00 | $1,282.70 |
| $120,000 | $1,123.07 | $895.70 | $442.90 | $1,338.60 |
The premium reduces your income tax slightly
Employment insurance and parental insurance premiums are non-refundable tax credits, valued at the lowest rate, 14% federally. At the federal maximum that is worth about $157.23 off your federal tax. Every province and territory the Canada Revenue Agency administers grants the same credit provincially. Quebec does not: it allows no provincial credit for employment insurance, parental insurance or pension contributions, which is the largest single reason a Quebec calculation cannot be approximated from a federal one.
What the premium buys, and what this site does not model
Employment insurance pays regular benefits to people who lose a job through no fault of their own, plus sickness, caregiving, and, outside Quebec, maternity and parental benefits. Entitlement depends on insurable hours worked, the reason the job ended and the unemployment rate in your region, and the benefit itself is a percentage of your average insurable weekly earnings up to a maximum tied to the same ceiling.
None of that is modelled here. This site calculates the premium you pay, not the benefit you might receive. Service Canada publishes current benefit rates, eligibility and the weekly maximum at canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei, and that is the authority to use for a benefit question rather than anything on this page.
Two further limits are worth stating. Not all employment is insurable: someone who controls more than forty percent of the voting shares of the company that employs them, for instance, generally is not. And self-employed people do not pay the premium by default. This calculator assumes ordinary insurable employment throughout.
Related
- How CPP works
- Reading your pay statement
- Comparing offers across provinces
- Quebec in detail
- Salary after tax calculator
- All guides
Sources
- Canada Employment Insurance Commission sets the 2026 Employment Insurance premium rate · Employment and Social Development Canada · checked
- Maximum Insurable Earnings and the Québec Parental Insurance Plan Premium Rate · Revenu Québec · checked
- Current year tax rates and income brackets (2026) · Canada Revenue Agency · checked
Reviewed 2026-08-18