We've put together this month-by-month breakdown of every stat holiday in 2026, national and provincial, so you and your team always know what's coming.
Table of Contents
January 2026
- Jan 1 — New Year's Day (all provinces and territories)
February 2026
- Feb 16 — Family Day / Louis Riel Day / Islander Day / Heritage Day (AB, BC, MB, NB, ON, PEI, SK)
March 2026
- Mar 16 — St. Patrick's Day (NL)
April 2026
- Apr 3 — Good Friday (all provinces except QC)
- Apr 6 — Easter Monday (QC; optional in AB, NB, federal employees)
- Apr 20 — St. George's Day (NL)
May 2026
- May 18 — Victoria Day (all provinces except NB, NS, NL); National Patriots' Day (QC)
June 2026
- Jun 21 — National Indigenous Peoples Day (NT, YT)
- Jun 24 — St. Jean Baptiste Day (QC); Discovery Day (NL)
July 2026
- Jul 1 — Canada Day (all provinces and territories)
- Jul 9 — Nunavut Day (NU)
August 2026
- Aug 3 — Civic Holiday / BC Day / New Brunswick Day / Terry Fox Day (AB optional, BC, MB optional, NB, ON, NU, SK)
- Aug 17 — Discovery Day (YT)
September 2026
- Sep 7 — Labour Day (all provinces and territories)
- Sep 30 — National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (federal employees, BC, MB, NB, NS, NT, NU, PEI, YT; optional in AB)
October 2026
- Oct 12 — Thanksgiving (all provinces except NB, NS, NL, PEI)
November 2026
- Nov 11 — Remembrance Day (all provinces and territories except MB, ON, QC, NS)
December 2026
- Dec 25 — Christmas Day (all provinces and territories)
- Dec 26 — Boxing Day (ON, NB, federally regulated workplaces; falls on Saturday — most jurisdictions observe the following Monday, Dec 28, in lieu)
A note on Boxing Day 2026: Christmas falls on a Friday and Boxing Day on a Saturday. In provinces and federally regulated workplaces where Boxing Day is statutory, employees are typically entitled to the next working day (Monday, December 28) in lieu. Check your provincial employment standards to confirm the rules that apply to your workforce.
Payroll tips and tricks for 2026
Having the right dates is a great start. But staying on top of payroll in 2026 also means keeping your processes tight, your records clean, and your team ahead of compliance changes. Here are a few things worth focusing on this year.
Get ahead of stat holiday pay calculations. With several holidays landing mid-week in 2026 (Canada Day, Remembrance Day, and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation all fall on Wednesdays), it's worth double-checking your stat holiday pay rules by province now, before you're scrambling on short notice. Provincial rules vary more than most people realize. Our guide to frequently asked payroll questions is a good place to start.
Set up a year-end system at the start of the year. The best time to prepare for December is January. Building a simple reference filing system now, tracking pay runs, taxable benefits, and CPP/EI contributions as you go, means year-end won't sneak up on you. Check out our 7-step guide to avoiding year-end payroll mistakes for a practical framework.
Keep your payroll register accurate all year. A well-maintained payroll register makes audits, tax filings, and compliance checks significantly easier. If your current process involves a lot of manual updating or cross-referencing between systems, it's worth reviewing. Our post on how to maintain an accurate payroll register walks through the essentials.
Know your T4 deadline. T4 slips must be filed with the CRA and distributed to employees by the last day of February. That's February 28, 2027 for the 2026 tax year. Getting a head start on reconciling your T4s throughout the year, rather than all at once in February, makes a big difference. Here's everything you need to know about T4 slips.
Automate what you can. If your team is still manually entering data, chasing down timesheet approvals, or toggling between systems to run payroll, that's time you're not getting back. Our post on payroll best practices for small and growing teams covers some simple ways to tighten things up.
How Rise can help
We built Rise to take the stress out of payroll for Canadian businesses, so you can spend less time on admin and more time on the work that actually matters.
Here's what that looks like in practice:
- Automated, compliant pay runs with unlimited pay runs, direct deposit, and automatic CRA and Revenu Québec remittances filed on your behalf
- Fully Managed Payroll if you'd rather hand it off entirely, our Canadian-based Certified Payroll Compliance Practitioners handle everything from inputs to year-end
- All-in-one platform where time tracking, benefits, and onboarding all feed directly into payroll, so you're never re-entering data
- T4 and year-end support built right in, with reconciliation tools available any time throughout the year
- Payroll reporting that gives you real visibility into your people data, exportable to Excel, CSV, or PDF whenever you need it
Whether you're running payroll yourself or looking to take it off your plate completely, we're here to help.
Book a demo to see Rise in action → or explore our payroll features to learn more.
