Quebec Health Services Fund: 1.65% to 4.26% of payroll in 2026

What are the 2026 Health Services Fund rates by total payroll?

The contribution is the remuneration subject to the contribution that your client pays its employees in the year, multiplied by a rate that depends on its total payroll and its sector revenuquebec.ca. Revenu Québec publishes the 2026 scale like this, and the $7.8 million threshold for a reduced rate stays in place for 2026 and later years revenuquebec.ca.

The scale didn't change from 2025: the RL-1 summary guide for 2025 shows the same rates and formulas revenuquebec.ca. A primary and manufacturing employer is one whose total payroll is more than 50% attributable to activities under NAICS codes 11, 21 and 31 to 33 revenuquebec.ca. Public sector employers include the federal and provincial governments, Canadian municipalities, their mandataries, and corporations exempt under section 985 of the Taxation Act revenuquebec.ca.

What rate does your client pay at $2, $3 or $5 million of payroll?

Plug the exact total payroll into the formula. These are the 2026 rates at common payroll levels, with the contribution if all of that payroll is subject to the contribution:

The rate is not marginal. Once total payroll passes $1 million, the higher rate applies to every dollar of remuneration subject to the contribution, not just the excess. A general employer that grows from $1 million to $2 million of payroll goes from $16,500 to $40,676, so the second million costs $24,176, or about 2.4% of the added wages.

Both formulas meet 4.26% at $7.8 million, so the scale has no cliff at the top. The rate you calculate on line 54 of the RL-1 summary applies to line 51, the salary and wages subject to the contribution, which usually equals the total of box A on your client's RL-1 slips revenuquebec.ca.

How does an associated company outside Quebec raise the rate?

Total payroll is used only to set the rate. It equals the remuneration paid in the year by your client and by every employer associated with it on December 31, worldwide, even if the associated employer has no Quebec activity and isn't subject to the Taxation Act. The associated corporation rules of the Taxation Act apply, with adaptations revenuquebec.ca. The federal version of those rules is on associated corporations.

Take a Quebec operating company that pays $2,400,000 of wages to its Quebec employees in 2026. Its sister company in Ontario, controlled by the same shareholder on December 31, pays $600,000.

The Ontario payroll attracts no HSF of its own, yet it costs the Quebec company $5,526.72. When your client checks the line 50.2 box for associated employers, the RL-1 summary guide sends you to the Appendix 1 work chart instead of the box A total revenuquebec.ca. Ontario runs its own payroll tax with a shared exemption, covered on Ontario EHT exemption.

For the primary and manufacturing share, count the wages of employees whose duties relate to those activities. Revenu Québec's examples: a manufacturer's administrative assistant counts, but a delivery driver in a separate delivery division doesn't revenuquebec.ca.

Which rate do you use for the remittances during the year?

The actual rate is only known when the RL-1 summary is filed, so periodic remittances use an estimated rate revenuquebec.ca. The HSF is remitted with source deductions at your client's remittance frequency revenuquebec.ca.

• New employers: for the first two consecutive years the contribution is payable, the rate for each remittance is the rate that would apply if total payroll equalled the cumulative payroll from January 1 to the end of that period. It climbs as the year goes on.
• Everyone else: use the rate that would apply if this year's total payroll equalled last year's. If payroll is expected to drop, your client may use a lower rate revenuquebec.ca.

The lower rate carries a risk. If the actual rate comes in above the estimated rate, the difference bears interest from the RL-1 summary deadline. If your client remitted below its estimated rate, the shortfall bears interest from each remittance due date and can draw a penalty of up to 15% revenuquebec.ca. The RL-1 summary and any balance are due on the last day of February of the following year revenuquebec.ca. For 2026 that's Sunday, February 28, 2027. Revenu Québec moved the 2025 deadline from Saturday, February 28, 2026 to Monday, March 2, 2026, so watch for the same extension revenuquebec.ca.

Who pays no Health Services Fund contribution in 2026 and 2027?

Agriculture, forestry and fishing employers get a temporary holiday, announced on November 25, 2025 and broadened on January 28, 2026, retroactive to January 1, 2026. The test now looks only at the employer's own wages, not associated employers' payrolls revenuquebec.ca.

Eligible activities are NAICS 111 crop production, 112 animal production and aquaculture, 113 forestry and logging, 1141 fishing, 321111 sawmills (except shingle and shake mills) and 32211 pulp mills. Remittances can drop by 100% or 50% from the first pay period beginning after January 28, 2026, but amounts overpaid since January 1, 2026 can't be refunded until the RL-1 summary for the year is filed revenuquebec.ca.

Some pay stays out of the contribution base. Wages of a foreign employee temporarily posted to Quebec under a social security agreement with reciprocal health coverage aren't subject to the contribution revenuquebec.ca, but they still count in total payroll for the rate revenuquebec.ca. An international government organization with a Quebec establishment pays only if it agrees to revenuquebec.ca.