Canadian EI regular benefits pay 55% of your average insurable weekly earnings, capped at $729 per week in 2026, for somewhere between 14 and 45 weeks inside a 52-week benefit period.1Government of Canada. EI Regular Benefits – How Much You Could Receive Where you land inside those ranges depends on your earnings history, the unemployment rate in your region, and a few rules about severance, part-time work, and taxes that quietly reshape what actually reaches your bank account.
How Your Weekly Amount Is Calculated
The rate is 55% of your average insurable weekly earnings, but Service Canada does not average every recent paycheque. It uses a Variable Best Weeks method that picks only the weeks you earned the most during your qualifying period. The number of weeks pulled into that average ranges from 14 in regions with unemployment above 13%, up to 22 in regions at 6% or below.2Government of Canada. Employment Insurance (EI) – Variable Best Weeks Seasonal workers and people with irregular hours benefit most from this, because low-earning weeks are left out of the calculation.
To get your weekly benefit, Service Canada totals your insurable earnings from those best weeks, divides by the number of best weeks required for your region, and multiplies by 55%. The maximum insurable earnings for 2026 are $68,900 per year, which sets the weekly benefit ceiling at $729.3Government of Canada. Summary of the 2026 Actuarial Report on the Employment Insurance Premium Rate If the math produces a higher figure, you still receive $729. Most claimants receive less.
How Many Weeks of Payments You Get
Within your 52-week benefit period, you can receive between 14 and 45 weeks of payments.1Government of Canada. EI Regular Benefits – How Much You Could Receive Two things drive the number: the insurable hours you accumulated during your qualifying period, and the unemployment rate in your economic region when you filed. More hours and a higher regional rate both push the number of payable weeks up. The tables sit in the annexes of the Employment Insurance Act so the formula stays consistent nationwide.
The regional element matters. A worker in a region with 13% unemployment and 700 insurable hours will draw more weeks of benefits than a worker with identical hours in a region at 5%. The program deliberately gives a longer runway in places where re-employment takes longer.
The 52-Week Benefit Period and the Waiting Week
Your benefit period is a 52-week window inside which those payable weeks have to be used. It starts on the Sunday of the week you file your claim, or the Sunday of the week your earnings stopped, whichever comes later.4Justice Laws Website. Employment Insurance Act – Section 10 When the 52 weeks run out, the claim closes even if you have not used every payable week. The container does not carry over.
Ordinarily, the first week of a claim is an unpaid waiting week. A temporary measure waives that waiting week for all new EI claims starting between March 30, 2025, and October 10, 2026, so payments begin immediately for claims filed inside that window.5Government of Canada. Temporary Employment Insurance Measures to Respond to Major Changes in Economic Conditions
Section 10 of the Employment Insurance Act also allows the 52-week window to be extended in narrow circumstances, including weeks you were receiving workers’ compensation for an illness or injury, or weeks you were detained and later found not guilty.4Justice Laws Website. Employment Insurance Act – Section 10 The extension matches the weeks you could not claim, and the total benefit period can never exceed 104 weeks no matter how many grounds apply.
How Severance Shrinks What You Actually Collect
Money paid at the end of your job (severance, vacation pay, pay in lieu of notice) is allocated across specific weeks at the start of your claim.6Department of Justice Canada. Employment Insurance Regulations (SOR/96-332) – Allocation of Earnings for Benefit Purposes Service Canada treats those amounts as a continuation of employment income, so EI payments do not start until the allocation runs out.
The math is simple. Service Canada divides the total separation payment by your normal weekly earnings. A $12,000 severance against a $1,000 normal weekly wage covers the first 12 weeks of the benefit period, and EI payments begin in week 13. Whether you spent the severance or saved it makes no difference; the allocation is a legal calculation. The rule applies whether the employer paid voluntarily or was ordered to pay by a court.7Justice Laws Website. Employment Insurance Regulations – Section 35
Here is where duration quietly shrinks. The 52-week benefit period keeps ticking while severance is allocated. If your claim has 30 payable weeks and severance covers 15 of them, you have 15 weeks of EI payments left, not 30. File right away regardless of separation pay, because the benefit period runs whether or not money is flowing to you.
Working While You Collect
Part-time work is allowed, but each week’s payment is reduced by what you earn. You keep 50 cents of benefits for every dollar earned from employment, up to 90% of the weekly insurable earnings used to set your benefit rate.8Government of Canada. EI Regular Benefits – While on EI Beyond that 90% ceiling, additional earnings reduce benefits dollar for dollar. If you work a full week and receive nothing from EI, that week is not counted against your total payable weeks on the claim.9Government of Canada. Employment Insurance – Working While on Claim
Earnings are allocated to the week the work was performed, not when the paycheque lands. Earn $400 in a week, and that week’s EI payment drops by $200. Commissions and performance bonuses follow the same rule, tied to the week the work happened.
Every two weeks, you file a report confirming continued eligibility, including gross earnings for each week.10Government of Canada. Employment Insurance Reporting Underreporting, even by accident, can create overpayments you will have to repay, with penalties and interest possible on top.
Situations That Pay Nothing
Not every job loss produces a payable amount. If you were dismissed for misconduct (a deliberate act or omission that violated your employment obligations, where you knew or should have known it could lead to dismissal) you are disqualified from regular benefits.11Government of Canada. Employment Insurance (EI) and Fired for Misconduct Poor performance on its own is generally not misconduct.
Quitting voluntarily disqualifies you unless you had just cause, defined in the Employment Insurance Act as having no reasonable alternative to leaving in all the circumstances.12Justice Laws Website. Employment Insurance Act – Section 29 Recognized grounds include harassment, unsafe conditions, discrimination, a significant pay cut, excessive uncompensated overtime, needing to relocate with a spouse or dependent child, and employer practices that break the law.
Tax and the Higher-Income Clawback
EI benefits are taxable. Service Canada withholds federal income tax from each payment and issues a T4E showing benefits paid and tax deducted.13Government of Canada. Employment Insurance Tax Information The standard withholding will not always cover your full liability, particularly if you had other income during the year. You can ask Service Canada to increase the tax taken from each payment.
If your net income for the year is above 1.25 times the maximum insurable earnings (which works out to $86,125 in 2026) you have to repay 30% of your regular benefits or 30% of the income above the threshold, whichever is less.14Justice Laws Website. Employment Insurance Act – Section 145 The clawback applies only to regular benefits, not to special benefits like sickness or parental leave. If you received regular benefits for less than one week in the previous ten years, the clawback does not apply to you at all.