How to Apply for EI Sickness Benefits

Employment Insurance (EI) sickness benefits are short-term financial assistance for people who cannot work for medical reasons — illness, injury, quarantine, or any medical condition that prevents them from working. They are part of the federal Employment Insurance program, administered by Service Canada, and they replace part of your earnings while you recover. This guide covers the sickness stream only: the qualifying conditions, the medical certificate, how to apply, what you could receive, and the waiting period. It does not re-cover the general EI application steps — those are in the companion general EI guide linked under Related guides. It is process information only, not eligibility advice: Service Canada decides every claim individually, and the figures here are the 2026 figures published on the Service Canada pages cited inline.

1. Check the three qualifying conditions

You need to demonstrate all three of these, according to Government of Canada, EI sickness benefits: Do you qualify:

• you are unable to work for medical reasons;
• your regular weekly earnings from work have decreased by more than 40% for at least one week;
• you accumulated 600 insured hours of work in the 52 weeks before the start of your claim or since the start of your last claim, whichever is shorter.

The 600-hour threshold is a flat figure for sickness benefits — unlike regular EI benefits, it does not rise or fall with the unemployment rate in your region. Your qualifying period is the shorter of the 52 weeks before your claim starts and the period since your last claim started, on the same page. While you are receiving sickness benefits, you must remain otherwise available for work, if it were not for your medical condition, on the same page — the benefit replaces earnings lost to illness, not earnings lost to being unavailable for other reasons.

If you received Employment Insurance benefits in the past 52 weeks, you may not be eligible to receive the maximum number of weeks of sickness benefits, on the same page. However, if you have worked enough hours since your last claim, you may be able to start a new claim — contact Service Canada to find out what is best for your situation, on the same page.

2. Get your medical certificate

When you apply for sickness benefits, you need to get a medical certificate signed by the treating medical professional, according to Government of Canada, EI sickness benefits: Do you qualify. Ask them to complete and sign one of the following, on the same page:

• Service Canada's Medical certificate for Employment Insurance sickness benefits, or
• their own medical certificate form.

If the treating medical professional uses their own form, the certificate must be readable, contain their letterhead or official stamp, indicate your name, contain the start date and expected duration (if known) of your incapacity due to illness, injury, or quarantine, and carry their handwritten, electronic, or stamped signature, on the same page.

The medical professionals who can complete and sign your medical certificate are a medical doctor, chiropractor, podiatrist, optometrist, psychologist, dentist, midwife, nurse practitioner, a registered nurse in isolated areas when a doctor is unavailable, or a representative from the Public Health Agency of Canada or a provincial or territorial health authority for quarantine events, on the same page. They should be practising in Canada or the United States, and the illness or injury they are treating must be in their field of expertise, on the same page.

You may be asked to submit your medical certificate with your application. If not, keep it for 6 years in case Service Canada asks you to submit it later, on the same page.

3. Apply online as soon as you stop working

Submit an application as soon as you stop working to find out if you can receive EI benefits, according to Government of Canada, Temporary Employment Insurance measures to respond to major changes in economic conditions. Apply through the online EI application on the Government of Canada website. You will need your Social Insurance Number — Service Canada collects it to identify your file and confirm your identity — and your employment history, including the dates and reasons each job ended.

Do not wait until you have every document. You do not need your Record of Employment from your employer at the time of applying, according to Canadian Breast Cancer Network, Employment Insurance Sickness Benefit — your employer will eventually need to supply it to Service Canada, but the application itself should not wait for it. The same applies to the medical certificate: you may be asked to submit it with your application, and if not, you keep it for 6 years, according to Government of Canada, EI sickness benefits: Do you qualify.

The timing matters more than the paperwork. If you apply more than four weeks after your last day of work, you may lose benefits, according to Canadian Breast Cancer Network, Employment Insurance Sickness Benefit. Start the application first, then send the documents Service Canada asks for. If you do not have internet access at home, you can apply at a Service Canada Centre, where staff can guide you through the online application.

4. Work out what you could receive

Up to 26 weeks of sickness benefits are available, and the number of weeks you get depends on how long you are unable to work for medical reasons, according to Government of Canada, EI Sickness Benefit — How much you could receive. You could receive 55% of your insurable earnings up to a maximum of $729 a week, on the same page. The exact amount is determined once your application is processed, and it depends on your insurable earnings before taxes in the past 52 weeks or since the start of your last claim, whichever is shorter, on the same page.

The calculation runs in three steps, on the same page: Service Canada adds your insurable weekly earnings from your best weeks, divides that amount by the number of best weeks based on where you live, and then multiplies the result by 55%. Your best weeks are a specific number of your highest paid weeks of employment, and the number used is based on the unemployment rate where you live — it could be between 14 and 22 weeks, on the same page. Insurable earnings include most of the different types of compensation from employment, such as wages, tips, bonuses, and commissions, on the same page.

If your family income is $25,921 or less, you may be eligible for the family supplement: your annual net family income must be $25,921 or less, you must have at least one child under 18, and you or your spouse must receive the Canada Child Benefit, on the same page. The supplement is added automatically to your weekly benefit payments — you do not need to take any action — but your total weekly amount cannot exceed $729, on the same page.

The 2027 figure is calculated, not published as a weekly amount. The 2027 maximum insurable earnings are $70,800, as published in the companion figures guide on this site. Applying the same formula — 55% of $70,800 divided by 52 weeks — gives $748.85 a week, which rounds to $749 a week. That $749 is arithmetic from the published 2027 earnings ceiling, not a figure Service Canada has published as a weekly benefit maximum: the Service Canada benefit-amount page still states the 2026 maximum of $729 a week. Recheck the Service Canada benefit-amount page before relying on the $749 figure for a 2027 claim.

5. The waiting period — and the temporary waiver

Before you start receiving benefits, there is usually 1 week you will not be paid, called the waiting period — it is like the deductible that you pay for other types of insurance, according to Government of Canada, Temporary Employment Insurance measures to respond to major changes in economic conditions. Under the temporary measure, the waiting period is waived for all new claims for EI benefits that start between March 30, 2025, and October 9, 2027, on the same page.

In practice, that means a sickness claim starting inside that window is paid from the first eligible week, with no unpaid week. A claim starting after October 9, 2027 returns to the standard one-week unpaid rule unless the government extends the measure — check the temporary measures page on canada.ca before you apply if your claim starts near or after that date. You may choose to serve the waiting period if it is to your advantage because of a top-up from a Supplemental Unemployment Benefit plan, on the same page.

Do not confuse the waiting period with the application timing in section 3: the waiting period is an unpaid week inside the claim, while the four-week application window is the deadline for starting the claim at all.

6. While you receive benefits, and when they end

Benefits are paid for as long as you remain unable to work for medical reasons, up to the 26-week maximum, according to Government of Canada, EI Sickness Benefit — How much you could receive. They end when you can work again, when you return to work, or when you reach 26 weeks — whichever comes first. If you recover sooner than expected, or need more time off than first expected, tell Service Canada: your entitlement depends on how long you are unable to work, on the same page.

If you received Employment Insurance benefits in the past 52 weeks, you may not be eligible to receive the maximum number of weeks of sickness benefits, according to Government of Canada, EI sickness benefits: Do you qualify. If you have worked enough hours since your last claim, you may be able to start a new claim, on the same page — the weeks available on a new claim depend on your hours and earnings since the last one, so ask Service Canada what applies to your situation rather than assuming the full 26 weeks.

Service Canada will give you reporting instructions after you apply. Follow them exactly: reports confirm that you are still unable to work and still otherwise available for work, and missing a report can interrupt your payments. If your medical situation changes — you recover, you start working, or your practitioner extends your expected absence — report the change promptly rather than waiting for the next scheduled report.

Figures this guide does not state

• The 2027 weekly maximum as a published Service Canada figure. The $749 a week figure in section 4 is calculated from the published 2027 maximum insurable earnings of $70,800 (55% of $70,800 divided by 52 weeks is $748.85). Service Canada has not published a 2027 weekly maximum on its benefit-amount page, which still states $729 for 2026. Recheck that page before relying on $749 for a 2027 claim.
• First-payment timing. No number of days from application to first payment is printed in this guide — it was not verified on an opened Service Canada page.
• Online application completion time. The estimate of about one hour for the online application was not verified on an opened official page for this guide, so no time estimate is printed here.
• Reporting schedule details. The frequency and method of reports while receiving benefits were not verified on an opened Service Canada page for this guide. Follow the reporting instructions Service Canada gives you after you apply.
• Self-employed EI sickness benefits. Self-employed people who registered for EI special benefits may also be able to claim sickness benefits, but the registration rules and waiting period for the self-employed program were not verified on an opened Service Canada page for this guide, so they are not stated here.

Related guides:

How to Start Applying for Employment Insurance (EI) Benefits in Canada, CPP and EI Figures for 2027 in Canada, How to Apply for CPP Disability Benefits, and How to Start Using My Service Canada Account (MSCA) in Canada.

Sources

• Government of Canada, EI sickness benefits: Do you qualify — qualifying conditions, medical certificate, who can sign, keeping the certificate 6 years —
• Government of Canada, EI Sickness Benefit — How much you could receive — 26 weeks, 55%, $729 maximum in 2026, best weeks, family supplement —
• Government of Canada, Temporary Employment Insurance measures to respond to major changes in economic conditions — waiting-period waiver, apply as soon as you stop working —
• Canadian Breast Cancer Network, Employment Insurance Sickness Benefit — four-week application window, applying without the Record of Employment —