What the Ontario job posting rules 2026 ask of every advert

Six requirements have applied since 1 January 2026 whenever an Ontario employer of 25 or more people advertises a job publicly. The Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development sets them out in its guide to requirements related to publicly advertised jobs under the Employment Standards Act (ESA):

• Include the expected compensation, or a range no wider than CAD 50,000. Roles paying more than CAD 200,000 are outside this requirement.
• Say if artificial intelligence plays a part in screening the people who apply.
• State whether the posting is for an existing vacancy.
• Leave out any requirement for Canadian experience.
• Tell each interviewed applicant the outcome within 45 days.
• Keep the related records for 3 years.

These rules sit alongside the older ESA duties that apply once someone is hired, and they come from the same statute. The ministry’s guide is also the place to check the scope, such as what counts as a publicly advertised job and whether any postings are excluded. Those points decide whether a given advert is caught, so read them on ontario.ca before relying on any summary, including this one.

The rules cover an employer that has 25 or more employees and places a public advert for a job in Ontario. A small company with three people in Toronto and no other Ontario staff falls under the threshold. A company that already employs 25 or more people in the province is covered for every public advert.

Under an employer of record arrangement, the person you hire is employed by the employer of record, which makes the EOR’s headcount the relevant one when the ESA counts employees. That makes it sensible to treat an advert for an EOR-employed role as covered unless the employer of record confirms otherwise. Adverts are often drafted and posted by the client company rather than the employer of record, so the client’s recruitment team needs to know the rules even if it will never be the employer on paper.

How exactly the threshold is measured, for example on which date headcount is taken, is set out in the ministry guide and is a detail to check there. A cautious approach costs little: an advert that shows a pay range, answers the AI question and avoids a Canadian-experience demand does no harm in a case where the rules turn out not to apply.

An Ontario job advert must state the expected pay as a single figure or a range, and the range cannot be more than CAD 50,000 from bottom to top. A range of CAD 80,000 to CAD 110,000 is within the limit, with a spread of CAD 30,000. A range of CAD 70,000 to CAD 130,000 is not, because the spread is CAD 60,000. Roles whose expected compensation is above CAD 200,000 do not need to include pay under this rule.

Foreign companies should settle the range before the advert is written, using Canadian dollars and the full cost of employment. A CAD 85,000 salary for an Ontario employee in 2026 comes to roughly CAD 93,029.25 of employer cost for 2026 after CPP, CPP2, EI, Employer Health Tax and WSIB, on the assumptions set out in the guide to the true cost of a Canadian employee. A budget that only covers the advertised figure will fall short.

Pick the top of the range with the same care as the bottom, because candidates will reasonably read it as a figure the company is prepared to pay. For an Ontario salary of CAD 85,000 or more, several employer lines stop growing: CPP and CPP2 are capped at CAD 4,230.45 and CAD 416 for the year, and employer EI stops at CAD 1,572.30. Employer Health Tax and WSIB, on the other hand, keep rising with pay, the latter up to maximum insurable earnings of CAD 121,700. Costing both ends of the range before publishing avoids a surprise at offer stage.

For hourly roles, the advertised rate also has to respect the floor. Ontario’s general hourly minimum moves from CAD 17.60 to CAD 17.95 on 1 October 2026, as shown on the ministry’s minimum wage page. The guide to minimum wage by province covers the other provinces. What the rule treats as compensation, for example whether bonuses or commission count, is defined in the ministry guide.

An Ontario advert has to tell readers if AI tools screen the applications, and whether it is for a vacancy that currently exists. Both statements are short, but both need someone to check the facts behind them before the advert goes out.

The AI statement is the one most likely to be wrong by accident. Many applicant tracking systems rank or filter CVs automatically, and a recruiter may not think of that as AI. Before posting, ask the team that runs the hiring tools what they do with applications and whether any step scores or sorts candidates without a person reviewing each one. How the ministry guide describes artificial intelligence for this rule is the test to apply, so read that part before deciding the answer is no.

The vacancy statement matters for companies that advertise to build a pipeline for future hires. Such adverts are still possible, but the posting has to say whether an actual vacancy exists. A foreign company testing the Ontario market for a first hire should decide in advance which kind of advert it is running, so the wording matches the plan.

The ESA now bars employers covered by the posting rules from including a requirement for Canadian experience in a publicly advertised job. In practice, an advert can no longer screen out a qualified candidate simply because their work history was built outside Canada.

For a company outside Canada, this rule is easy to follow and easy to break by accident. Adverts copied from an internal template may say “experience in the Canadian market” or “previous work in Canada preferred”. Those lines should be replaced with the skill or knowledge the role actually needs, for example familiarity with CPP and EI payroll deductions, or working knowledge of the Ontario ESA. Stated that way, the requirement describes the work and is open to anyone who has the knowledge, wherever they gained it.

A separate point applies to candidates who need a work permit. The posting rules do not change immigration requirements. The TFW Program does not count a staffing or employment agency that recruits for other businesses as the employer when an LMIA is sought, and that limits what an EOR arrangement can do for a person who needs sponsorship. Check the route with the employer of record before interviewing someone who would need a permit. Someone who already holds an open work permit, for instance through the Working Holiday stream of International Experience Canada, can be employed with no employer filings for immigration.

An employer covered by the Ontario rules must tell every applicant it interviewed about the outcome within 45 days. The duty as the ministry describes it is framed around interviewed applicants, and a company is free to reply to everyone else as a courtesy.

For a hiring process spread across time zones, with a panel in another country, it is easy for a final decision to stall. Put a deadline in the recruitment tracker for each interviewed person and give one person the job of sending the outcome. The ministry guide is the reference for when the 45 days start and for the form and content of the notice, so check it before settling the template.

Records connected with each publicly advertised job must be kept for 3 years, and the ministry guide lists which ones. If the advert is placed by your team and the employment is held by an employer of record, agree in writing who keeps which records, so that either side can produce them if the ministry asks. Recruitment agencies and recruiters working in Ontario also need a licence under the rules for temporary help agencies and recruiters, and clients may not knowingly use an unlicensed one.

The posting rules cover the advert and the interview stage, and further ESA duties take over once an offer is accepted. At a business of 25 or more people, a new starter must receive in writing, before day one, the employer’s legal and operating names, how to contact it, roughly where the work will be done, what the starting wage is, when pay periods run and pay lands, and the hours expected. That duty has applied since 1 July 2025 and is described in the ministry’s page on mandatory information for employees. The ESA poster also has to reach every employee no later than 30 days after hire.

Where headcount is 25 or more on 1 January, Ontario also expects written policies covering electronic monitoring and disconnecting from work to exist by 1 March of that year. Those policies matter most for remote staff, and the guide to remote workers in Canada explains them in more detail.

Before an Ontario advert is published, a short review against the 2026 rules catches most problems:

• Pay shown in Canadian dollars, as one figure or a range with a spread of CAD 50,000 or less.
• A plain sentence on whether AI screens applications, confirmed with whoever runs the hiring software.
• A statement that the role is, or is not, an existing vacancy.
• No reference to Canadian experience anywhere in the advert.
• A named owner for 45-day replies, and an agreed home for the 3-year records.

With Employer of Record Canada, we are the legal employer: we issue the contract, the written information and the ESA poster, and run Ontario payroll. Your team stays in charge of the advert, the interviews and the hiring decision. The step-by-step EOR process in Canada shows where each of these tasks falls, from the quote to the first payslip.