Overtime Pay — Quebec

Under Quebec's Act respecting labour standards, overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. begins after 40 hours worked in a single week. OvertimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. must be paid at 1.5 times the employee's regular hourly wage.

• The standard workweek in Quebec is 40 hours. Any hours beyond that trigger overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. pay, unless a different arrangement has been approved by the CNESST.
• An employer and employee may agree in writing to replace overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. pay with paid time off. The time off must be equivalent to the overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. hours plus 50% (for example, 2 hours of overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. earns 3 hours of time off). This time off must be taken within 12 months.
• Certain workers are exempt from overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. rules, including senior managers, workers in fishing or fish processing, and students employed in a social or community program.
• An employer cannot require an employee to work more than 2 hours beyond their regular daily hours, or more than 14 hours in a 24-hour period (whichever is shorter), except with employee consent or in certain emergencies. This 2-hour limit was set by SQ 2018, c. 21 (Act Respecting Labour Standards, s. 59.0.1, as amended January 1, 2019).

Quebec's 40-hour threshold is different from most provinces

A common mistake is to assume that overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. in Quebec begins after 44 hours (as under the federal Canada Labour Code and most English-speaking provinces). Quebec's threshold is 40 hours, not 44. The federal 44-hour standard applies only to workers in federally regulated sectors (banks, telecom, interprovincial transport, airlines). Everyone else in Quebec is entitled to 1.5x pay from hour 41 onward. The overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. rate is always calculated weekly — not on a daily basis — and based on the regular hourly wage, which since 1 May 2026 cannot be lower than the general minimum wage of $16.60 per hour.

Time-off instead of overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. pay: at the employee's request

Under LNT s. 55, a conversion from overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. pay to time off is only lawful if the employee requests it — not if the employer unilaterally imposes it. Paid leave must be taken within 12 months or the employer must pay out the original overtimeUnder the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least 1.5× their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. State laws can require more generous overtime rules. premium. Exemptions under LNT s. 54 are narrow: senior management, certain summer-camp and NGO students, employees whose hours cannot be controlled and who work outside the establishment, canning and packaging during harvest, farm workers (no 1.5x premium), commission-only real-estate agents, and authorized averaging arrangements. Job title alone — "manager" or "supervisor" — does not create an exemption; the actual decision-making authority of the position controls.

Bill 96 and the language of work

Since June 2022, Quebec's Charter of the French language (CQLR c C-11, as amended by Bill 96) requires that the contract of employment, schedules, pay stubs, performance evaluations, and disciplinary documents be available to the employee in French by default. An English-only version is allowed only if the employee has expressly requested it after first receiving the French version. If your employer disciplines or fires you and the dossier is English-only, that is a separate Charter complaint to the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) — separate from any wage complaint to the CNESST — and can support a wider unjust-dismissal claim.