Making your first Canadian hire step by step, from job advert to first payday

The province of work and the identity of the legal employer come first, because every later step depends on them. Most private employers in Canada are regulated by the province in which the work takes place, meaning an Ontario hire and a Quebec hire follow different statutes on minimum wage, holidays, leave and notice. The Canada Labour Code covers only federally regulated sectors, so confirm early whether your activity falls into one of those.

A company with no Canadian presence has two ways to become, or to use, an employer. It can form a corporation, either a federal one under the Canada Business Corporations Act or one under provincial law, and then open its own payroll and levy accounts. Or it can use Employer of Record Canada, where the legal employer role for the person you recruit sits with us as employer of record, paying them through registrations we already hold, while your managers direct the work. The order of events with a provider is laid out in how the EOR process runs in Canada.

Check the candidate’s right to work at the same time. Someone already free to work in Canada, for example on an International Experience Canada Working Holiday permit, which is an open permit, can be taken on without employer immigration filings. Routes that depend on the employer are narrower: the Temporary Foreign Worker Program does not count an agency hiring on another company’s behalf as the employer for an LMIA, and an intra-company transfer needs a parent, subsidiary, branch or affiliate in Canada.

Six posting requirements took effect in Ontario on 1 January 2026 for any employer with at least 25 staff, and they apply to every publicly advertised job. The pay rule is the one most foreign employers notice: the advert has to show the expected pay or a range, and the range can be no wider than CAD 50,000. Roles paying above CAD 200,000 are outside that rule.

• Put a figure on the pay, or a band spanning CAD 50,000 at most.
• Disclose whether artificial intelligence is used to screen applicants.
• State whether the posting is for a vacancy that exists.
• Drop any requirement for Canadian experience.
• Tell applicants you interviewed the outcome within 45 days.
• Keep the posting records for 3 years.

Writing the range takes some planning for a first hire, because there is usually no salary band yet. Base it on the offer you would really make: an advert that shows CAD 90,000 to 110,000 followed by an offer of CAD 85,000 starts the relationship badly. The ban on Canadian-experience requirements reaches screening too, so remove any application filter that rejects candidates for lacking Canadian work history.

The 25-employee test is counted at the employer. When an employer of record is the legal employer, agree with your provider who publishes the advert and whose name it carries, so the posting and the later offer describe the same employer and the same pay. The ministry’s guide to requirements for publicly advertised jobs explains each duty, and our note on Ontario’s 2026 job-posting rules covers the practical wording.

Quebec adds a language layer that the other three provinces do not have. Bill 96 amended the Charter of the French Language (Charte de la langue française) so that Quebec job offers appear in French and day-to-day communication with staff, working-conditions documents included, happens in French. A demand for English or any other language survives only if the duties genuinely call for it, the employer has first tried every reasonable alternative, and the posting explains why (sections 41, 46 and 46.1). The OQLF guidance on the language of work sets this out.

Quebec size thresholds are lower than many foreign employers expect. The duty to register for francization with the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) has reached businesses of 25 to 49 employees since 1 June 2025. Personnel placement agencies in Quebec also need a CNESST licence, which is a question to put to any provider that places staff there.

British Columbia and Alberta have no equivalent of Ontario’s 2026 posting statute, so the Ontario checklist does not follow a role whose place of work is Vancouver or Calgary. The pay floor changes too. BC’s general hourly minimum has been CAD 18.25 since 1 June 2026 and Alberta’s is CAD 15.00, while Ontario’s is CAD 17.60 until 30 September 2026. Once they have 90 days’ service, BC employees qualify for 8 sick days a year, 5 of them paid, which is worth reflecting in the offer. Alberta’s notice rules also differ from Ontario’s: no termination pay is owed for 90 days or less of service, then 1 week up to 2 years.

The offer and contract need to fix pay, hours, leave and the exit terms in writing before the start date. Since 1 July 2025, an Ontario employer with at least 25 staff has had to hand each new hire a written note before day one. It names the employer (legal and operating names) with its contact details, says where the work will generally be done, and gives the starting wage, the pay period, the pay day and the hours expected.

Leave and hours start from the Ontario Employment Standards Act (ESA) minimums. Vacation starts at 2 weeks a year and becomes 3 weeks once the employee has 5 years’ service; vacation pay is 4% of gross wages, or 6% from that point. There are 9 ESA public holidays. The ESA limits work to 8 hours a day (or the established regular day) and 48 a week; going past either limit needs the employee’s written or electronic agreement, given once they have received the Director’s information sheet. Once a week goes past 44 hours, the extra hours earn 1.5 times the regular rate, and managers and supervisors are excluded.

Probation needs care. Ontario’s ESA contains no probation period as such; what it provides is that notice under the statute is not owed until the employee has passed 3 months’ service. Beyond that, there is a risk that a court awards common-law reasonable notice well above the ESA minimums unless the contract restricts it in terms that hold up, so have the termination clause drafted by a Canadian employment lawyer.

Restrictive covenants follow provincial law. Ontario has banned non-competes in employment contracts entered on or after 25 October 2021, except for executives and sellers of a business, while non-solicitation and confidentiality clauses remain available. Section 13(3) of the Copyright Act gives the employer first ownership of copyright in what an employee writes or designs as part of the job, unless an agreement provides differently.

The new hire completes tax credit forms before the first pay, and the employer hands over the statutory information within set deadlines. The TD1 (federal) and TD1ON (Ontario’s equivalent) record the personal tax credits the employee claims, and payroll uses them to calculate income tax withholding from the first pay run onwards.

• TD1 and TD1ON completed by the employee before the first payroll cut-off.
• The Ontario ESA poster given to the employee within 30 days of the start date.
• Written information on the employer, wage, pay day and hours, for employers with 25 or more staff.
• Bank details for pay, and enrolment in any benefits the offer promised.
• For Quebec hires, the working-conditions documents in French.

Some leave rights start running within weeks, so record the start date carefully. Ontario’s 3 unpaid, job-protected sick days become available after 2 consecutive weeks of employment, and from 28 October 2024 a medical note cannot be required for them. Entitlements elsewhere are set out in our province-by-province sick leave comparison. Pregnancy leave of up to 17 weeks depends on the employee having started at least 13 weeks before the due date.

Two Ontario policies apply at company level. An employer that counts 25 or more staff on 1 January needs two written policies by 1 March of that year, one on switching off outside working hours and one explaining how it monitors employees electronically. With an employer of record as the legal employer, those policies sit with the EOR, and your role is to make sure the tools and working patterns you use match what they say.

Payroll must be registered and ready to withhold before the first wage is paid. Before paying anyone directly, a company must hold a CRA business number with a payroll program account (the RP account) attached. Every pay after that has tax, pension contributions and Employment Insurance taken off before the money reaches the employee, as described in the CRA’s employer’s guide to payroll deductions and remittances (T4001).

For withholding, the CRA looks at the employer’s establishment where the person reports for work; a home-based employee is tied to whichever establishment they have a reasonable attachment to, and that establishment’s province is the province of employment. For a first remote hire, that choice decides which provincial tax table and which provincial levies apply. Ontario adds WSIB premiums and the Employer Health Tax; in Quebec the Quebec Pension Plan replaces the Canada Pension Plan and Revenu Québec collects its own source deductions.

Knowing the 2026 contribution ceilings helps when you agree the salary. CPP takes 5.95% from each side on pay lying between the CAD 3,500 exemption and CAD 74,600, and CPP2 then takes 4% from each side up to CAD 85,000. EI premiums run at 1.63% for the worker and 2.282% for the employer, and stop counting above CAD 68,900 of insurable pay. Where the salary sits above those ceilings, each deduction stops once its annual maximum is reached, so later payslips in the year show fewer deductions than early ones.

A regular remitter pays each month’s deductions over to the CRA within 15 days of that month ending, and the year closes with T4 slips at the end of February. Our guide to running payroll for Canadian staff goes through each cycle. Under an employer-of-record arrangement the employer of record already holds these accounts, so your part is to confirm the salary, approve changes and supply anything variable, such as a bonus, before each cut-off. The EOR Canada services page lists what we run.