Stat Holiday Pay for Restaurant Staff — A Province-by-Province Cheat Sheet

Stat holidays hit restaurants from two directions at once. The dining room gets slammed, so you need everyone on deck. But the payroll math shifts — sometimes dramatically — for the same hours worked. If you don't budget for it in advance, the end-of-month P&L delivers an unpleasant surprise.

This is a working cheat sheet. I've organized it by the questions that actually come up when you're running a restaurant schedule. Always verify final rules with your province's employment standards — this gets you to the right questions, not the final answers.

The federal versus provincial split — yes, it matters.

There's no single Canadian list of statutory holidays. Each province sets its own. Federally regulated industries (banks, telecom, Crown corporations) follow a federal list. Restaurants are provincially regulated. The province where the restaurant sits decides which days count.

Most provinces share a common core: New Year's, Good Friday, Canada Day, Labour Day, Christmas. Beyond that, the lists diverge significantly. Ontario recognizes 9 stats. BC and Alberta have 10. Quebec has 8. The Atlantic provinces have their own quirks.

The seven-province cheat sheet.

Here's the table I keep on my phone. It covers the provinces where most Canadian restaurant owners operate:

Read the cells this way: "Stat" means the day normally triggers statutory-holiday pay rules for eligible restaurant employees in that province. A named cell means the province uses a different holiday name but still treats that row as statutory. "Not a stat" means it may still be a busy operating day or a customary closure, but it does not automatically create statutory-holiday pay under the main provincial employment-standard rule.

A few footnotes that matter for restaurants:

The "last and first" eligibility test.

Almost every province uses variations of the same test: the employee must work their last regularly scheduled shift before the holiday, and their first scheduled shift after. If they miss either without a reasonable excuse (illness, approved time off), they lose their stat pay entitlement.

Here's where operators get tripped up: employees on approved vacation, parental leave, or medical leave still qualify because their absence is authorized. A no-show the day before a stat holiday? That usually disqualifies them. A termination that happens during the holiday week? Check your province — it gets complicated.

The four pay scenarios.

When a stat holiday rolls around, an eligible employee lands in one of four situations:

1. Day off, paid. The employee doesn't work and gets stat holiday pay, calculated on recent average earnings. In Ontario, that's the wages from the 4 weeks before the holiday, divided by 20, plus 4% vacation accrual.

2. Works the holiday, premium pay. The expensive one. The employee gets 1.5× their regular rate for hours worked, plus the stat holiday pay on top. This is the most common restaurant scenario because holidays are busy.

3. Works the holiday, substitute day. The employee gets regular pay for hours worked, plus a paid day off to take later. Some provinces require the employee's agreement; some don't. The trap: the substitute day usually must be taken within 3 months (BC) or before the next annual vacation (Alberta). If the employee doesn't use it, you may owe the premium retroactively.

4. Restaurant is closed. Eligible employees still get stat holiday pay. Closed Christmas Day doesn't mean "no stat pay." That day off costs you regardless.

Restaurant-specific gotchas that show up frequently.

"Closed" doesn't mean "no pay." I've had this conversation more times than I'd like. Even if the dining room is dark, eligible staff get stat holiday pay. Budget for it.

Tips and stat premium pay. The 1.5× premium applies to wages only. Tips don't get multiplied. If a server works Canada Day and walks with $400 in tips, that's separate from the wage math entirely.

Salaried managers and exemption tests. If a manager spends more than half their hours actually working the floor — expediting, running food, hosting — the management exemption probably doesn't apply. They're entitled to stat pay like everyone else.

The August Civic Holiday confusion. Ontario doesn't make it statutory, but most operators give it as paid time off "as a custom." The risk: without a written policy stating it's a one-time custom, you may have created an unwritten benefit you can't easily reverse.

Substitute Mondays. When a stat falls on Saturday or Sunday, most provinces shift the observance to Monday. If you open on both the actual day and the substitute Monday, premium pay stacks across both days.

A worked example to show how it adds up.

Casual full-service restaurant in Toronto. Canada Day falls on a Tuesday. Three eligible staff:

Server A works the holiday — 8 hours at $17/hour. Premium pay: 8 × $17 × 1.5 = $204. Stat holiday pay: average of 4 prior weeks ($720/week × 4 = $2,880 ÷ 20 = $144). Total for Server A: $348.

Cook B was scheduled off — it's their regular day off. Stat holiday pay only: ~$144 on the same wage base.

Cook C was on approved vacation. Stat holiday pay only: ~$144. Vacation doesn't break the "last and first" eligibility because it's approved leave.

Total Canada Day labour cost for three people: roughly $636. That's about $350 more than a regular Tuesday, before the extra tip payout from a busier-than-usual room. If this isn't in the weekly labour budget, it shows up as a surprise.

The operational fix.

Keep the holiday calendar in your scheduling tool. Run the eligibility check before the week starts. Budget premium pay into the holiday week explicitly. None of this is complicated — it's just easy to forget when you're focused on getting the doors open.