Free tool · Canada · 2026 figures from Service Canada
Enter your average insurable weekly earnings, your insurable hours, and your region's unemployment rate, and see an estimate of your EI regular benefit: the weekly amount at 55% of earnings, the number of weeks from Service Canada's own table, and the estimated total. This is an estimate only, before tax. Service Canada decides the actual amount when it processes your claim.
Your average weekly insurable earnings — the average of your best weeks of insurable earnings in your qualifying period, as Service Canada works it out from your record of employment. Enter the weekly average, not your annual salary. Earnings above the 2026 maximum of $68,900 a year (about $1,325 a week) do not raise the benefit.
Insurable hours in the last 52 weeks, or since your last claim if that is shorter. You need 420 to 700 hours to qualify for regular benefits, depending on your region's unemployment rate. Fewer than 420 hours means no regular benefit weeks at any rate.
The unemployment rate in your EI economic region at the time you file your claim. It sets both how many hours you need and how many weeks you can receive. Service Canada publishes the rate for each region every month — use the rate in force when you file, not the rate when you were laid off.
The estimate follows Service Canada's published rules exactly: 55% of average insurable weekly earnings, capped at $729 a week in 2026, and the number of weeks from Service Canada's table for your hours and regional rate. The total is the weekly benefit times the number of weeks, before tax. EI benefits are taxable — federal and provincial or territorial tax is deducted from your payment.
Weekly benefit: 55% of average insurable weekly earnings, up to $729 a week in 2026. As of January 1, 2026, the maximum yearly insurable earnings amount is $68,900, which caps the weekly benefit at $729. Service Canada works out the average from your best weeks of insurable earnings — the weeks you earned the most — divided by the required number of best weeks, which runs from 14 weeks in the highest-unemployment regions to 22 weeks in the lowest. This tool takes the weekly average you enter as given and does not re-derive it from your earnings history; if your average is wrong, the estimate is wrong by the same amount.
Number of weeks: 14 to 45, from Service Canada's table. The weeks depend on your insurable hours and your regional unemployment rate at the time of filing. More hours and a higher regional rate both mean more weeks, up to a maximum of 45. A zero in the table means those hours do not qualify for regular benefits at that regional rate — for example, 420 hours qualifies only where the regional rate is 13.1% or higher. The number of weeks does not change if you move to another region after your benefit period begins.
Waiting period. The standard rule is a one-week unpaid waiting period. That period is currently waived for claims starting on or before October 9, 2027, under temporary EI Pilot Project No. 25 — check the Service Canada temporary measures page on the day you apply, because the waiver is temporary and the dates have already moved once. The total on this page is the full entitlement (weekly benefit times weeks) and does not deduct a waiting week.
What this calculator leaves out. The EI family supplement is not included: if your net family income is $25,921 or less, you have children, and you or your spouse receives the Canada Child Benefit, the supplement can lift your benefit rate up to 80% of your average insurable earnings. The temporary measure giving qualifying long-tenured workers up to 20 extra weeks (to a maximum of 65 weeks) is not included either; it applies to claims starting by June 12, 2027. Working while on claim is not included either: if you earn money while receiving EI, you can keep 50 cents of your benefits for every dollar you earn, up to 90% of the weekly insurable earnings used to calculate your benefit — above that, benefits are deducted dollar for dollar — and you get no EI for a week in which you work full-time, so part-time work during a claim makes the real payment smaller than the total shown here. You must report earnings in the week you worked. Sickness, maternity, parental, and caregiving benefits are separate benefit types with their own rules and are not calculated here. EI benefits are taxable, and this estimate is before tax.
Sources: Service Canada, EI Regular Benefits — How much could you receive (the 55% rate, the $68,900 maximum yearly insurable earnings and $729 weekly maximum as of January 1, 2026, the full weeks table by hours and regional rate, and the best-weeks divisor table), and Service Canada, Temporary Employment Insurance measures to respond to major changes in economic conditions (the waiting-period waiver for claims starting on or before October 9, 2027, under EI Pilot Project No. 25), and Service Canada, Employment Insurance – Working While on Claim (keep 50 cents of benefits per dollar earned up to 90% of weekly insurable earnings, dollar-for-dollar above that, no EI for a full week worked) — all checked November 10, 2026. No figure on this page comes from anywhere else. Where a figure could not be verified on an opened official page, this page says to check the official page instead of stating it.
Next step: read the full step-by-step guide: How to Start Applying for Employment Insurance (EI) Benefits in Canada