Ask ten Canadian HR leaders how many paid sick days their employees get and you will get answers ranging from zero to ten, and most of them will be right for their own province and wrong for the one next door. Sick leave is one of the least standardized areas of Canadian employment law: whether a day is paid at all, how many days exist, and how long someone can be off before they need EI or a longer leave all change depending on where the employee works. This guide walks through what each jurisdiction actually requires today, plus what any HR tool you buy has to get right.
Sick leave in Canada is 14 different rulebooks, not one
There is no Canada-wide sick-leave standard. The Canada Labour Code sets the rule for federally regulated workplaces (banks, airlines, telecom, interprovincial transport and a handful of others), and each of the 10 provinces and 3 territories sets its own rule for everyone else. Most Canadian employers are provincially regulated, so the provincial rule, not the federal one, is almost always the one that governs your team.
Where sick days are actually paid by law
This list is short. Most of Canada does not require an employer to pay for a short-term sick day at all, and the jurisdictions that do vary widely in how many days and who qualifies:
- Federally regulated workplaces: up to 10 paid medical leave days per year (Canada Labour Code, section 239, in force since December 1, 2022). It accrues, not a day-one grant: an employee gets their first 3 paid days after 30 days of continuous employment, then 1 more day at the start of each completed month, up to the 10-day cap. Unused days carry forward and reduce the following year's accrual cap.
- British Columbia: 5 paid sick days per calendar year, available once an employee has worked 90 days for the employer (Employment Standards Act, Part 6, section 49.1, in force since January 1, 2022), plus a further 3 unpaid sick days for the same illness or injury.
- Quebec: only the first 2 days per year are paid, and only once an employee has 3 months of uninterrupted service (Loi sur les normes du travail, articles 79.1 and 79.7). Those 2 paid days are not a separate sick-day allowance: they are shared with the employee's family-obligation absences, drawn from the same annual pool.
- Prince Edward Island: under the province's new Employment Standards Act, in force since June 30, 2026, paid sick days are graduated by tenure rather than a flat number: none in year one (4 unpaid days apply from 30 days of employment), 1 paid day after 1 year of continuous employment, 2 after 2 years, and 3 after 3 or more years, each on top of the 4 unpaid days.
These are legislated minimums, not typical practice, and every one of them comes with an eligibility waiting period, so a brand-new hire is often not yet eligible even in a province that does pay. Confirm the current-year figure with the relevant employment-standards authority before you rely on any number in this article.
The rest of the country: unpaid, but the job is protected
Most provinces do not require an employer to pay for short-term sick days, but every Canadian jurisdiction now protects the employee's job while they take at least some time off, and usually protects a much longer stretch if the illness is serious:
- Ontario: 3 unpaid, job-protected sick days per calendar year, available once an employee has worked 2 consecutive weeks, no doctor's note required for the basic entitlement. A separate unpaid Long-Term Illness Leave, in force since June 19, 2025, protects up to 27 weeks in a 52-week period for a serious medical condition.
- Alberta: 5 unpaid days per year under "personal and family responsibility leave," a single combined bucket that covers the employee's own illness as well as caring for a family member, available after 90 days of employment.
- Saskatchewan: up to 12 unpaid days per year for a non-serious illness or injury, available after 13 consecutive weeks of employment, and up to 27 weeks unpaid for a serious illness or injury in a 52-week period (raised from 12 weeks effective January 1, 2026).
- Manitoba: 3 unpaid sick days per year after 30 days of employment, plus up to 27 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for a serious illness after 90 days.
- Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador: no general short-term paid sick-day entitlement in the employment standards legislation, but each now protects a long-term medical leave roughly aligned with the federal EI sickness-benefit window, with New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador recently extending job-protected leave to up to 27 weeks. Short-term day counts and thresholds differ by province and change more often than the long-term figures, so confirm the current number before you publish a policy.
The pattern holds across almost every province: a short list of unpaid, low-threshold days for a routine illness, and a much longer, still-unpaid, job-protected leave (typically 26 to 27 weeks) for something serious. Very few jurisdictions pay for any of it.
Do not confuse employer-paid sick days with EI sickness benefits
Employment Insurance sickness benefits are a separate federal income-replacement program administered by Service Canada, not something an employer pays out of payroll or manages directly. An eligible employee who is off work for a medical reason can receive EI sickness benefits (currently up to 26 weeks) once they meet the program's own hours and application requirements, regardless of what their province requires the employer to pay. The two systems interact (an employer-paid entitlement usually runs first, and EI can pick up afterward) but they are administered separately, and an HR tool that blurs the two will leave employees confused about what they are actually owed by the employer versus what they need to apply for on their own with Service Canada.
What to demand from your HR tool
- A sick-leave or illness-leave policy that can be configured per province, not one national default, since the paid-day count ranges from zero to ten depending on where the employee works.
- The correct eligibility waiting period built into the policy (30 days federally, 90 days in BC and Alberta, 3 months in Quebec, 13 weeks in Saskatchewan, tenure bands in PEI), not an assumption that every employee qualifies from day one.
- A visible, running balance for whichever days are genuinely paid, so managers and employees see the truth instead of guessing.
- Multi-province scoping, so an employee in Ontario and an employee in British Columbia are each measured against their own province's rule, not a shared default.
- A clear, honest line between what the HR tool tracks and what payroll pays out or what EI administers separately (see below).
Where Workleaf fits (and where it does not)
Workleaf's time-off policy engine, the same one that ships ready-made Canadian provincial vacation policies, lets an admin build a sick-leave or illness-leave policy per province: set the paid and unpaid day counts, the eligibility waiting period, and whether it accrues over time or is granted up front, then assign it by division, location or department so an Alberta team and a Quebec team each see their own correct entitlement. Employees request time off and see their balance through the same self-service flow already used for vacation.
To be precise about the line: Workleaf does not run payroll, does not remit source deductions to the CRA or Revenu Quebec, and does not administer Employment Insurance sickness benefits, so it does not decide what EI pays or cut the paycheque for a sick day. It hands off a clean, current leave record and policy picture to the payroll you already run and to any EI application your employee files separately. Native payroll and an applicant tracking system are on the roadmap, not in the product today.
Pricing is simple and public. Basic is $15 CAD per month for up to 10 employees, then $1.50 CAD per additional employee. Advanced is $30 CAD per month for up to 10 employees, then $3 CAD per additional employee, and adds the full talent suite (reviews, 1:1s, surveys and analytics). No quotes, no surprises.