Holiday pay calculator
Who gets what for the next stat holiday, with the math shown, plus the notices to hand out first.
Help and background Back to the tool
How it works
- 1 Pick the holiday and the day your work week starts. The page works out which four weeks count.
- 2 Add your team, or bring them in from your staff schedule, with what each person earned in those four weeks and their plan for the day: off, working, or a day they wouldn't work anyway.
- 3 Out comes each person's holiday pay with the math shown, what the day costs open or closed, a pay summary for payroll, the substitute day notices to hand out before the holiday, and the agreements to sign.
Free, with no account. Names, wages and hours stay on this page: nothing is sent to us. Remember keeps your setup and your team's names and roles on this device, never what anyone earns.
Good to know
- Why divide by 20?
- Ontario's holiday pay is the regular wages someone earned in the four work weeks before the week the holiday falls in, plus the vacation pay payable on them, divided by 20. Four weeks of five days is 20 days, so for someone who works full weeks it comes to about a day's pay; someone who works less gets less. Overtime, premium pay and holiday pay from an earlier holiday stay out.
- Who gets it?
- Most employees, part-time and new ones included. Someone loses it if they miss, without a good reason, all or part of their last scheduled shift before the holiday or their first one after it, or a holiday shift they agreed to work.
- Working the holiday
- There are two ways to pay it. Option A: their regular rate for the hours worked, and another day off later with holiday pay. Option B: holiday pay, plus time and a half for every hour worked. Outside hospitality, working the holiday takes the employee's agreement, and option B takes their agreement in writing or electronically. Restaurants, taverns, hotels, motels and tourist resorts can schedule staff on a holiday that's a usual work day for them, and choose which option applies.
- Substitute days
- When someone gets another day off in place of the holiday, they get a written statement before the holiday with the holiday, the day off instead and the date it was given. The day off is no more than three months after the holiday, or up to twelve if they agree in writing. The same goes when a holiday falls on a day they wouldn't usually work or during their vacation, unless they agree in writing to take holiday pay instead.
- Retail is different
- Most retail employees can refuse to work a public holiday, and someone who agreed can still back out with 48 hours' notice before the shift. The agreement sheet says so.
- Where this applies
- This follows Ontario's Employment Standards Act for most workplaces. Other provinces, federally regulated businesses and some jobs and industries have their own rules. Read the official pages: public holidays, retail workers and the policy manual on retail. Guidance, not legal advice.
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