A paycheque is not the hourly rate times the hours
People multiply a wage by the hours, then by 52, and call the result their pay. Forty hours at $20 is $800 a week. Times 52 is $41,600. That product is a gross sketch. It is not the deposit, and it is not the number on a T4 box that a calculator on this site can finish for you.
This note uses one made-up year so the pieces stay still: $60,000 of employment income in a province other than Quebec, paid evenly, with no bonus. The 2026 rates below were read on Canada.ca on 15 October 2026. They are not a payroll program.
The hourly product stops at gross
$60,000 divided by 2,080 hours (40 times 52) is about $28.85 an hour. The hourly to salary page will do that conversion. It will not subtract tax. A job that pays $28 an hour for 40 hours and 52 weeks is often described as “about $60,000.” Forty times 28 times 52 is $58,240. The round $60,000 was the label, not the product. That gap is arithmetic. Income tax has not entered yet.
CPP is not 5.95 percent of the cheque
For 2026 the employee Canada Pension Plan rate is 5.95 percent. The year’s basic exemption is $3,500. The year’s maximum pensionable earnings are $74,600. On $60,000, pensionable earnings for this sketch are $60,000 minus $3,500, which is $56,500. Times 5.95 percent is $3,361.75.
Five point nine five percent of the whole $60,000 would be $3,570. That is $208.25 too high, because it taxed the exemption. A single week’s cheque is a further trap. The exemption is yearly. A pay office spreads it across the pay periods. Multiplying one gross week by 5.95 percent overstates that week and still ignores the ceiling. Once earnings pass $74,600, this 5.95 percent slice stops. Earnings from $74,600 to the 2026 additional ceiling of $85,000 draw a second contribution, CPP2, at 4 percent, up to $416 for the employee. $60,000 never reaches that band. The CPP page is this annual sketch. Quebec uses the Quebec Pension Plan. Do not type a Quebec slip into the CPP form and expect a match.
EI stops at a ceiling too
Outside Quebec, the 2026 employee Employment Insurance rate is 1.63 percent, on insurable earnings up to $68,900. On $60,000 that is $978.00. The employee maximum for the year is $1,123.07, which is 1.63 percent of $68,900. Someone who earns more than $68,900 does not keep paying 1.63 percent on the extra dollars at that employer. In Quebec the employee rate is 1.30 percent and the maximum is $895.70, because Quebec runs its own parental insurance plan. The employer share is 1.4 times the employee premium. This site does not calculate the weekly EI benefit. The maximum weekly regular benefit for claims beginning on or after 28 December 2025 is $729, and that figure is not a field on the EI page.
Vacation pay is a percent of wages, not a trip
Four percent of $60,000 is $2,400. Six percent is $3,600. Those are the statutory-style percents the vacation pay page uses. They are not a promise that your province owes you four percent, and they are not the cost of a flight. The hard part is the base. Overtime pay is wages. Four percent of an $800 regular week is $32. The same week with $80 of overtime is $880, and four percent of that is $35.20. Skipping the overtime shorts the week by $3.20. A payout when you leave repeats whatever base payroll has been using.
The overtime hour is a different multiplier
Forty-four hours at $20 with no extra rate is $880. The same 44 hours, if time-and-a-half starts after 40, is $800 plus two hours at $30, which is $920. Ontario’s general rule is often after 44 hours in a week, not after 40, and many jobs are outside that rule. The overtime page will not look up your statute. It multiplies the hours you place in each box. Putting all 44 hours in the overtime box treats the whole week as time-and-a-half and invents money the contract did not pay.
What is still missing from the deposit
Federal tax, provincial tax, the basic personal amount, union dues, a pension adjustment, benefits, and garnishments are not in any of those lines. CPP and EI reduce the cheque and also change the taxable income. Adding $3,361.75 and $978 and calling the rest take-home is still wrong, because the tax is absent. A notice of assessment and the pay office beat this page.
The 2027 EI table is already posted: maximum insurable earnings $70,800 and an employee rate of 1.64 percent. It is not in these forms. A 2026 paycheque still uses $68,900 and 1.63 percent. The sources and the date of this reading are on the figures check.
Use the form
These notes are estimates for everyday use. They are not tax, payroll, mortgage, or legal advice. Type your own contract into the calculator.