Pay periods in Canada: what one cheque looks like on $90,000
- Federal income tax$10,30011.4%
- Ontario income tax$4,6075.1%
- CPP + CPP2$4,6465.2%
- Employment insurance$1,1231.2%
- Annual take-home$69,32477.0%
Canadian payroll has caps, and caps are what makes this question worth asking separately. CPP, CPP2 and EI all stop at an annual maximum, so the last paydays of the year carry no contributions and pay out more. On $90,000 in Ontario, a bi-weekly cheque is $2,666 net on average — but the December cheques are $2,888 because CPP and EI stop coming off at cheque 22 of 26, once the annual ceilings of $4,230 and $1,123 are met.
Four frequencies, one salary
The annual totals are identical — $69,324 net whichever way you are paid. What changes is the size and timing of each deposit, and the point in the year where CPP and EI stop.
| Frequency | Cheques a year | Gross per cheque | Average net | First cheque | Last cheque |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly | 52 | $1,731 | $1,333 | $1,317 | $1,444 |
| Bi-weekly (every two weeks) | 26 | $3,462 | $2,666 | $2,634 | $2,888 |
| Semi-monthly (twice a month) | 24 | $3,750 | $2,888 | $2,853 | $3,129 |
| Monthly | 12 | $7,500 | $5,777 | $5,707 | $6,158 |
Monthly and semi-monthly pay rarely reach the caps in a way you notice, because the contribution is spread evenly across fewer, larger cheques. Weekly and bi-weekly pay show the jump clearly: at $90,000 the CPP maximum is reached at cheque 22, and every cheque after that is free of CPP.
Why the last cheque is bigger
CPP is 5.95% of pensionable earnings up to the year's maximum pensionable earnings of $74,600, with a $3,500 basic exemption. Once you have contributed $4,230, contributions stop for the rest of the calendar year. CPP2 works the same way on earnings between $74,600 and $85,000, capped at $416. EI is 1.63% up to $68,900, capped at $1,123.
None of these caps reset until January. That is why a December cheque can be several hundred dollars larger than an identical January cheque, and why comparing two payslips from different months is not a fair comparison.
Bi-weekly means two three-pay months
Twenty-six bi-weekly cheques do not divide into twelve months. Two months each year — typically January and July — contain three paydays instead of two. If your budget is built on two cheques a month, those two months are where the surplus lands. Semi-monthly pay (24 cheques) never has this, which is why employers who want predictable payroll often prefer it.
Every salary in this section
Common questions
Does changing pay frequency change my annual tax?
No. Annual income tax, CPP and EI are the same. What changes is withholding timing: the same annual amount is split across a different number of cheques, and the cap mechanics make the individual cheques uneven in a way annual totals never show.
Why is my first cheque different from the calculator?
Payroll uses per-period federal and provincial tax tables plus your TD1 claim amounts, and the first cheque of a new job often assumes no prior earnings. This page prorates annual tax evenly across the year, which is accurate to within a few tens of dollars per cheque but is not a payroll engine.
Which frequency pays the most per cheque?
Monthly pays the largest single cheque simply because it covers a month of work; weekly pays the smallest. Total annual pay is identical apart from the cap effect — and the cap effect is actually largest for weekly pay, where 9 of the year's cheques at this salary carry no CPP at all.