Canada statutory holidays in 2027 by province and territory

Canada has no single list of statutory holidays. The federal list gives employees of federally regulated businesses 10 general holidays. Each province and territory publishes its own list, from 6 holidays in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador to 11 in British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon. In 2027 Christmas Day falls on a Saturday and Boxing Day on a Sunday.

11 of the 14 lists have a 2027 date for every holiday on them, though Nunavut’s July 9 comes from a public service holiday list. The other 3 each miss one or two holidays whose 2027 date the sources opened do not confirm. Holiday pay follows different methods too: in the example below, the same part-time worker gets $120 under the federal and Quebec formulas and $200 under Alberta’s average daily wage, if the holiday falls on a day the worker normally works.

Dates in 2027 for the federal list and every province and territory

British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba print 2027 dates. The other pages name the holidays without 2027 dates, so those dates are computed from the holiday’s name or rule: Good Friday is the Friday before Easter Sunday, March 28, Victoria Day is the Monday before May 25, Labour Day the first Monday in September and Thanksgiving the second Monday in October. Family Day in New Brunswick, Islander Day in Prince Edward Island and Discovery Day in Yukon follow third-Monday rules that their sources print. Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, 2000 defines Family Day as the third Monday in February, in section 1(1), paragraph 1.1. The Nova Scotia government’s Heritage Day site says Heritage Day is observed on the third Monday of February, so both days fall on February 15, 2027. The Nova Scotia holiday chart prints Heritage Day on February 17 in 2025 and on February 16 in 2026, which are third Mondays too. Nunavut Day is the one date taken from a public service list: the Government of Nunavut’s 2027 list prints it for Friday, July 9. The computed dates agree with the three printed tables wherever a holiday appears in both.

Municipal holidays and days that employers choose to give are outside the table.

Dates that are statutory in some places only

September 30 is on 7 of the 14 lists. Quebec’s CNESST page says only employees covered by the Canada Labour Code are entitled to a paid holiday on September 30 and November 11. Saskatchewan’s page says September 30 is not a public holiday under The Saskatchewan Employment Act, and Alberta lets employers choose to recognize it.

Remembrance Day is on 10 lists. Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba leave it off. Nova Scotia governs it under a separate Remembrance Day Act instead of its six general holidays, and an employee who works it and meets the 15-of-30-days test may be entitled to another day off with pay. August 2, the first Monday in August, is B.C. Day in British Columbia and a statutory holiday in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, while Ontario’s guide says employers are not required to give it.

Which employers follow the federal list

The federal list covers employees of federally regulated businesses. The Canada Labour Code defines such a business as one within Parliament’s legislative authority, and its examples include interprovincial railways, shipping, air transportation, radio broadcasting stations and banks. A bank, for example, falls under the Code, so its employees in Quebec have a paid holiday on September 30 and November 11 although Quebec’s own list has neither.

Christmas Day on a Saturday and Boxing Day on a Sunday

Only the federal list and Ontario’s include Boxing Day. Each jurisdiction answers differently:

• Federal: where the day is a Saturday or Sunday and not a scheduled workday, the employee is entitled to a holiday with pay on the scheduled workday immediately before or after.
• Ontario: for an employee who does not ordinarily work that day, a substitute holiday with public holiday pay, or public holiday pay alone if the employee agrees in writing or electronically.
• Saskatchewan: a public holiday on a Saturday is not observed on a different day, and the pay page does not say whether pay is owed for it.
• Manitoba: for a Saturday or Sunday the employee does not normally work, the next regular workday off with general holiday pay.
• Alberta: an employee who does not work a day that is not a regular day of work gets neither holiday pay nor a day off in lieu.
• British Columbia: an employee whose regular or scheduled day off falls on a statutory holiday should be paid an average day’s pay as statutory holiday pay.
• Yukon: where the holiday falls on a non-working day for the employee, a holiday with pay on the working day immediately following.

For an employee who does not normally work that day, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador give a later day off or pay, and their pages describe how. The Northwest Territories Act gives the paid holiday “whether it falls on a day of work or not”, and the NWT FAQ states no weekend rule; the Nunavut page states none either.

How holiday pay differs by jurisdiction

The methods split into a share of the previous weeks of wages and a day’s pay, and the split changes the amount for part-time staff. Take an employee paid $200 for each day worked, on a fixed 3-day week with no overtime, who meets the federal, Quebec and Alberta service tests. Four weeks of wages come to $2,400, so 1/20 or 5% is $120, which is the Quebec figure and the federal minimum. An average day’s pay on the British Columbia or Alberta definition is $200. Alberta pays it only when the holiday falls on a day the employee regularly works; otherwise the employee gets neither pay nor a day in lieu. In British Columbia the worker must also have worked or earned wages on 15 of the 30 days before the holiday, and a fixed 3-day week gives 12 to 14 working days in any 30. Paid vacation days or another statutory holiday would have to fill the gap, or British Columbia pays this worker nothing.

Service tests differ more than the formulas:

• No minimum period: Manitoba, Prince Edward Island (only an attendance condition) and Saskatchewan for a new employee with under four weeks of service; the Labour Program page states none for the federal list.
• 30-day tests: Alberta (30 workdays in 12 months), the Northwest Territories and Nunavut (30 days in the preceding 12 months), and Newfoundland and Labrador and Yukon (no pay in the first 30 days of employment; in Yukon for a holiday not worked).
• Day counts: British Columbia (employment of 30 calendar days and work or wages on 15 of the 30 days before) and Nova Scotia (pay for 15 of the 30 calendar days before).
• New Brunswick: 90 calendar days in the previous 12 months, among five conditions.
• Attendance around the holiday: Ontario (no holiday pay if the employee misses, without reasonable cause, the last scheduled day before or the first scheduled day after) and Quebec (no unauthorized absence, and for June 24 only employment on that date).

The pages set further conditions, so read the full rule before you withhold pay.

What we could not confirm

• Four province-specific dates, in the last row of the table. Saskatchewan has two: Family Day and Saskatchewan Day. The other two are New Brunswick Day and Memorial Day in Newfoundland and Labrador. The sources opened do not settle a 2027 date for them. A date or rule printed for one province is not applied to another province’s own holiday: Heritage Day is August 2 in Alberta and in February in Nova Scotia. Saskatchewan’s page prints 2026 dates only, so Family Day there stays unconfirmed even though Alberta and British Columbia print their 2027 dates and the New Brunswick and Ontario Acts print their rules. Victoria Day, Labour Day and Thanksgiving are national observances with one rule, so the table computes them for every list that has them.
• New Brunswick Day. The New Brunswick Day Act is reported to set the first Monday in August, which is August 2, 2027. Search-index text of the Act’s page gives that sentence, and one fetch-tool read of the consolidated Act (consolidated to February 9, 2015) shows the same sentence. The current consolidation was not checked and the page could not be opened in the browser, so the day stays unconfirmed.
• Memorial Day in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Treasury Board Secretariat’s 2027 list for public servants gives Memorial Day as Thursday, July 1, 2027. The Labour Standards Regulations say the date is the one proclaimed under section 4 of the Shops Closing Act, which was not read, so the date for private-sector employers stays unconfirmed.
• Nunavut Day. The table shows Friday, July 9, 2027, taken from the Government of Nunavut’s public service holiday list. The Nunavut Labour and Employment Standards page lists Nunavut Day as a general holiday and prints no date, and the Labour Standards Act text was not read, so the date rests on the public service list alone.
• Thanksgiving. The sources for the federal, Saskatchewan, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut lists, the Ontario guide and the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000 print no Thanksgiving rule, and the Act’s section 1(1), paragraph 6 reads only “Thanksgiving Day”. The table uses the second-Monday rule that Alberta and the CNESST print.
• The CRA list. Its public holidays page, dated January 6, 2026, shows 2026 only.
• The British Columbia count. The page summary says 10 statutory holidays while its 2026 and 2027 tables list 11, and the table above follows the tables.
• Sources and gaps. The Labour Program page states no minimum service period for general holiday pay, and the opened copies of the New Brunswick Act and the Yukon Acts show no currency date. The Yukon government holiday page, the Newfoundland and Labrador government labour standards page, the Nunavut Labour Standards Act and the Nova Scotia Remembrance Day Act could not be opened on October 27, and the Nunavut page names no pay formula.

What to do in your 2027 plan

An employer with staff in more than one province should keep a separate holiday list for each jurisdiction. The lists differ, and so do the pay methods and the weekend rules. Check these before you publish the 2027 calendar.

The 2027 Contract Update Checklist covers the holiday clause in your contracts, and Federal Holidays 2027 and Holiday Pay covers the United States. For Canadian law changes, see Canada Employment Law Changes 2027, and Public Holidays 2027 by Country: Global Team Calendar puts these dates next to other countries.

Start with the Christmas rota: for each jurisdiction where you have staff, write down which rule above applies to December 25 and December 26, then add the holiday dates to your Canada Payroll Dates 2027: CRA Remittance and T4 Deadlines calendar.

Written and reviewed by the HR Riant Editorial Team. General information, not legal advice.