EI Maximum Weekly Benefit 2026: Your Exact Amount by Insurable Earnings (Calculator)

The 2026 EI Maximum: $728 a Week, and Where It Comes From

The short answer: the maximum Employment Insurance regular benefit in 2026 is $728 per week. There is no path to a higher regular-benefit amount no matter how much you earned — the system caps both the insurable earnings it counts and the benefit it pays. The $728 is not an arbitrary number. It is one calculation, and once you see it you can compute your own benefit in about thirty seconds.

Here is the entire math behind the maximum, and the inputs that drive it:

That is the whole formula: $68,900 × 55% ÷ 52 = $728.75, which Service Canada rounds to $728 per week. The part most people miss is the word maximum. You receive $728 only if your average insurable earnings actually reach the $68,900 ceiling — roughly $1,325 a week. If you averaged less than that, your benefit is 55% of your earnings, and it will be below $728.

Your Exact Weekly Amount by Income — Worked Examples

The benefit is 55% of your average insurable earnings, capped at $728. To find your own number, take your average weekly insurable earnings (over your best weeks) and multiply by 0.55. Here is what that produces across a range of incomes, using a simple annual-income-divided-by-52 estimate of weekly earnings:

Two things jump out. First, the benefit climbs steadily with income right up to the ceiling, then flatlines. The $90,000 earner and the $68,900 earner receive the identical $728 — every dollar of insurable earnings above $68,900 is invisible to EI, which is also why no premiums are charged on income above the MIE. Second, the replacement rate feels thin at higher incomes. A $90,000 earner replaces only about 42% of their pre-job-loss weekly income with EI, not 55%, because the cap bites. This gap is exactly why a severance package and your own savings matter so much during a job-loss window — EI alone rarely covers a higher earner's fixed costs.

A note on "best weeks" — the calculation is kinder than the simple estimate

The table above divides annual income by 52 for simplicity. Service Canada does something more favourable: it uses your best weeks — the highest-paid weeks in your qualifying period, between 14 and 22 of them depending on your region's unemployment rate. If your income was uneven (commission, overtime, seasonal spikes), your best-weeks average can be meaningfully higher than your annual average divided by 52, which pushes your benefit up. Salaried workers with steady pay see little difference; variable-income workers often see a higher benefit than the rough estimate suggests.

What You Need to Qualify, and How Long You Can Collect

The weekly amount is only half the picture. Two regional variables decide whether you qualify and for how long, both driven by the unemployment rate in your economic region:

The hours requirement is the gate. Most full-time workers clear 700 hours in a few months, but part-time, gig, and seasonal workers should check their region's threshold before assuming they qualify. The maximum 45 weeks at the $728 cap totals $32,760 over a full claim — a meaningful bridge, but one that runs out faster than most people plan for. At the higher end of incomes, that 45-week ceiling combined with the weekly cap is precisely why job-loss planning has to look past EI to severance, savings drawdown order, and the tax year the income lands in.

Severance Changes Everything: When EI Actually Starts

Here is where the math stops being intuitive. If you receive severance, termination pay, or pay in lieu of notice, Service Canada treats it as earnings and allocates it to the weeks immediately following your last day of work. EI does not begin paying until that allocation ends.

Say you are laid off and receive a severance package equal to four months of salary. That four months gets allocated week by week, and your EI benefit does not start until the allocation is exhausted. The benefit is delayed, not reduced — you still receive your full weekly entitlement once payments begin, and your weeks of entitlement are preserved. The one-week unpaid waiting period is then served at the start of the benefit period, after the severance allocation, not during it.

This is the single most misunderstood part of EI, and misreporting severance is the most common reason claims get clawed back months later. The strategic question is not "EI or severance" — you get both, in sequence. The real questions are how the severance is structured (lump sum versus salary continuance changes the allocation), which tax year each piece falls into, and whether a retiring allowance can be sheltered into an RRSP to keep more of it. We walk through that sequencing on our severance and job loss planning page.

The Tax Bite: $728 Is Gross, Not Net

EI benefits are taxable income. Service Canada withholds federal and provincial tax at source, so your deposit is below $728 even at the maximum. The catch is that the withholding is calculated as if EI were your only income for the year — which it usually is not. If you earned a salary for part of the year, or collected severance in the same calendar year, that income stacks on top of your EI and can push your total into a higher marginal bracket than the withholding assumed. The result is a balance owing at tax time.

A worked example: you are laid off in September after earning $70,000 year-to-date, receive severance, then collect EI for the rest of the year. Service Canada withholds tax on the EI as if it were modest standalone income, but your actual marginal rate on those EI dollars is set by the $70,000 already on the books plus the severance. The under-withheld gap comes due the following April. The fix is simple but rarely done: set aside roughly 10 to 15% of each EI payment if you have other income in the same year, and use the breathing room to think about whether an RRSP contribution can offset the bracket creep. TFSA withdrawals, by contrast, are not income and never affect your EI or your tax — they are the cleanest source of extra cash during a claim.

2026 vs 2025: Why the Maximum Went Up

The maximum rose because the ceiling rose. For 2026, the maximum insurable earnings climbed to $68,900, up from $65,700 in 2025. Since the weekly benefit is 55% of insurable earnings capped at the MIE, lifting the ceiling automatically lifts the maximum benefit. The Canada Employment Insurance Commission resets the MIE each year in line with growth in the average industrial wage, which is why the maximum drifts upward most years even when the 55% rate itself does not change.

If you are reading an older guide that quotes a $65,700 ceiling or a lower weekly maximum, it is using 2025 figures — use the 2026 numbers above. Anyone earning at or above the new $68,900 ceiling sees their potential maximum benefit increase automatically when the new MIE takes effect, with no action required on their part.

Where EI Fits in the Bigger Income Picture

EI is a bridge, not a destination. At $728 a week for at most 45 weeks, it caps out at $32,760 — enough to keep the lights on for a higher earner, rarely enough to maintain their lifestyle. The benefit interacts with the rest of your financial life in ways worth planning around: severance allocation determines your start date, the tax year determines your net, and your other government benefits have their own income tests. If you are nearing retirement age, the income you report while on EI can ripple into later benefit calculations — our companion guide on GIS eligibility and the 2026 income thresholds covers how low-income retirement support is income-tested, which matters if a late-career job loss reshapes your retirement timeline.

The practical move during a job-loss window is to map three things in order: your exact weekly EI amount (55% of your best-weeks average, capped at $728), the date EI actually starts after severance allocation, and the tax year each dollar lands in. Get those three right and you avoid the two most expensive mistakes — running short because you assumed the $728 maximum applied to you, and a surprise tax bill because EI stacked on top of severance in the same year.