Record of Employment deadline: 5 days after the pay period ends

What is the ROE deadline for each pay frequency?

The deadline depends on how you file and how often you pay. Service Canada sets one rule for paper, one for weekly, biweekly and semimonthly payrolls, and a stricter one for monthly payrolls and payrolls with 13 pay periods a year canada.ca.

The law behind the table is section 19 of the Employment Insurance Regulations. Subsection 19(3.1) gives the electronic deadline and applies the 15 day cap to employers with 13 or fewer pay periods a year, and subsection 19(3) gives the paper deadline laws-lois.justice.gc.ca.

Worked example: October 2026 deadlines

Service Canada treats the first day of the interruption as the last day for which the employee was paid, which is the date in Block 11 canada.ca. Count calendar days from there, not business days.

The two monthly rows show why the cap matters. An employee who leaves early in a monthly period would otherwise wait over a month for the ROE, so the 15 day limit pulls the deadline to October 17. An employee who leaves near the end of the period hits the normal 5 day rule first.

When does an interruption of earnings start?

The usual trigger is the 7 day rule: the employee has, or is expected to have, 7 consecutive calendar days with no work and no insurable earnings from you. The second trigger is pay falling below 60% of regular weekly earnings because of illness, maternity or parental leave, or compassionate or family caregiver leave, and that interruption starts on the Sunday of the week the drop happens canada.ca.

Pay after the last shift moves the date. If the employee keeps receiving insurable earnings through vacation, sick days or salary continuance, Block 11 is the last day of that paid period, and under salary continuance you don't issue the ROE until the continuance ends canada.ca.

Some breaks are not interruptions at all. An annual vacation shutdown where employees stay employed and are paid vacation pay held for that period needs no ROE, and neither do scheduled lay days on a rotating schedule canada.ca.

Part time, on call and casual staff

You don't have to issue an ROE every time a part time, on call or casual worker has a gap. You must issue one when the employee asks for it after an interruption, when they leave your active employment list, when Service Canada asks, or when 30 days pass with no work and no insurable earnings canada.ca. Once one of those happens, the normal deadline in the table applies.

If a client's owner manager or related employee may not be in insurable employment at all, sort that out first, because the ROE only covers insurable employment. See EI for shareholders and related employees.

What happens if the ROE is late or wrong?

Missing the deadline is a breach of the regulations, and section 136(1) of the Employment Insurance Act makes contravening the Act or the regulations an offence laws-lois.justice.gc.ca. Section 136 sets no fine of its own.

False information is penalized far more heavily. Service Canada says an employer who falsifies or sells an ROE may have to pay up to $12,000 per Record of Employment, and directors, officers or agents can be penalized separately canada.ca. The administrative penalty power is section 39 of the Act laws-lois.justice.gc.ca.

You can't cancel an ROE you've issued. To fix one, issue an amended ROE, and if it was sent in error, say so in Block 18 canada.ca.

Filing, copies and record keeping

Electronic ROEs go through ROE Web, which you sign in to with a GCKey or a Sign In Partner bank canada.ca. Payroll software can also send them through Secure Automated Transfer, and paper forms come from the Employer Contact Centre canada.ca.

With an electronic ROE you don't have to give the employee a paper copy, since they can see it in My Service Canada Account. Keep payroll records, the electronic ROE data and Part 3 of any paper ROE for 6 years canada.ca.

If you can't hand a paper copy to the employee in time for reasons outside your control, mail it to their mailing address if you know it. Without an address, hold it until the employee or the Commission asks for it, or for 52 weeks laws-lois.justice.gc.ca.