EI in Quebec (2026): your economic region, the hours you need, and the lower premium

Quebec has twelve Employment Insurance economic regions, and for October 11 to November 7, 2026 they sit far apart. South Central Quebec, at 2.4% unemployment, asks 700 hours of insurable work before a claim can start, while Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, at 11.2%, asks 490 hours. Your row is set by the address you ordinarily live at when the claim opens, not by the place you worked or the city your employer runs payroll from. The benefit formula, the weekly ceiling and the weeks table are federal and are laid out on the main EI page. This page covers what is particular to Quebec: the map, the gap between regions and the smaller premium.

Updated October 13, 2026 · Figures verified against the statutes of each jurisdiction · see all figures and their sources · what's new

The estimator above opens on Quebec. Choose your region, type the insurable hours on your record of employment for the last 52 weeks, then add what you earned in your best-paid weeks. It tells you whether you clear your region's bar and gives a rough weekly figure before tax.

Quebec's twelve rows on the national table

Service Canada recalculates every regional unemployment rate on a rolling four-week cycle, and the hours, weeks and divisor in each row move with it. These are the rows in force for October 11 to November 7, 2026; the page is rebuilt each time a new set comes out.

Source: EI Program Characteristics (economic regions, rates, hours and weeks). Table for the period October 11 to November 7, 2026; it is replaced every four weeks.

EI has no provincial figure, only these rows. The names follow Service Canada's map rather than the province's administrative regions, so the next section matches them to towns.

From Gaspé to Rouyn-Noranda: which town is in which region

Your claim goes to the region where you ordinarily live on the day it opens. A welder based in Sept-Îles who flies north on rotation, or a nurse living in Drummondville who drives to a hospital in another city, claims at home. Where the employer sits does not enter into it.

Six of the twelve regions are named after a city and consist of its census metropolitan area. The other six are wide rural regions built from census divisions:

• Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine: the whole peninsula, with Gaspé, Chandler, New Richmond, Carleton-sur-Mer, Amqui and Matane, plus Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine and, less expected, the Lower North Shore from Havre-Saint-Pierre to Blanc-Sablon.
• Lower Saint Lawrence and North Shore: Mont-Joli, Rimouski, Trois-Pistoles, Rivière-du-Loup, La Pocatière and Montmagny on the south shore; Baie-Saint-Paul and La Malbaie in Charlevoix; Baie-Comeau, Sept-Îles and Fermont on the North Shore; Lac-Etchemin; and all of Lac-Saint-Jean, with Alma, Roberval and Dolbeau-Mistassini.
• Central Quebec: the ring of towns between the cities, including Drummondville, Victoriaville, Plessisville, Thetford Mines, Nicolet, Sorel-Tracy, Louiseville, Shawinigan, Joliette, Donnacona, Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Mont-Tremblant, La Tuque, and Papineauville and Thurso in the Outaouais.
• South Central Quebec: the Beauce and the Lac-Mégantic area, with Beauceville, Sainte-Marie and Lac-Mégantic.
• Montérégie: Granby, Saint-Hyacinthe, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Cowansville, Bromont and Huntingdon, out to the American border.
• North Western Quebec: Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the upper Laurentians, the Pontiac and the far north, with Rouyn-Noranda, Val-d'Or, Amos, La Sarre, Ville-Marie, Mont-Laurier, Maniwaki, Shawville, Chibougamau, Matagami, Chisasibi and Kuujjuaq.

The six city regions, and where they stop

Quebec, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke, Montreal, Hull and Chicoutimi-Jonquière each consist of one census metropolitan area, and each core city is inside for certain. The region the Regulations still call Hull is the Quebec side of the Ottawa metropolitan area, built around Gatineau; the schedule kept the old city name.

The edge of a metropolitan area is where people get caught, because Statistics Canada draws it from commuting patterns and a suburb can sit outside it. Schedule I hands the land past each edge to a rural region. Outside Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières you are in Central Quebec. Outside Quebec City, the rest of the Côte-de-Beaupré and La Jacques-Cartier goes to Central Quebec, the rest of Bellechasse on the south shore goes to South Central Quebec, and Lotbinière, west of Lévis, is Central Quebec. Around Montreal, the south and west go to Montérégie and the north to Central Quebec. Outside the Chicoutimi and Jonquière area you are in Lower Saint Lawrence and North Shore. Around Gatineau, the rest of Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais is Central Quebec, while the Pontiac to the west and La Vallée-de-la-Gatineau to the north are North Western Quebec. Near one of those lines, check your postal code with Service Canada before trusting any row.

What one region over can cost you

The spread inside Quebec shows up in three places, and two neighbours on either side of a boundary can feel all three.

Hours to qualify. The Employment Insurance Act runs a sliding scale from 700 hours in the regions with the least unemployment to 420 hours in those with the most (EI Act s. 7). For October 11 to November 7, 2026, South Central Quebec asks 700 hours and Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine asks 490 hours. A seasonal job that falls short in the Beauce can be enough in Gaspé.

The divisor. The weekly amount is built from your highest-earning weeks, summed and then divided by a number fixed for your region (EI Act s. 14). South Central Quebec divides by 22 this period; Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine divides by 16. If you worked fewer paid weeks than that number, the gaps count as zeros, so short seasons cost most where the divisor is larger.

The weeks. Schedule I crosses your hours with your region's rate (EI Act, Schedule I). In South Central Quebec the span this period is 14 weeks to 36 weeks; in Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine it is 23 weeks to 45 weeks.

Karine in Rimouski: hours, weekly amount and weeks

Karine kept the books at a building supply distributor in Rimouski and was laid off when the branch closed. Her record of employment shows 1,180 insurable hours over the 52 weeks that count, and her best-paid weeks averaged $1,040 in insurable earnings. The inputs are invented; the method is the real one.

• Does she qualify? Rimouski is in Lower Saint Lawrence and North Shore, which asks 700 hours this period. With 1,180 hours she is over the line.
• What does a week pay? 55% times $1,040 comes to $572.00, below the cap of $729.00 per week, so that is her weekly amount before tax, averaged over her region's 22 best weeks.
• For how long? For her region this period, Schedule I runs from 14 weeks at the minimum hours to 36 weeks at the top. Her 1,180 hours land inside that span, and the estimator reads her exact line.

Had Karine lived in Matane, in Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, the same hours and wage would give the same weekly amount, provided she had pay in enough weeks to fill the divisor. Her weeks would come from a column running 23 weeks to 45 weeks.

Why the EI line on a Quebec pay stub is smaller

Quebec runs its own parental insurance plan, which pays maternity, paternity, parental and adoption benefits in place of EI. Because EI carries less in Quebec, the premium is 1.3% of insurable earnings instead of the 1.63% charged in the other provinces and the territories (CEIC premium rate release (2026)). On a $50,000 salary that is $650.00 for the year, against $815.00 for the same pay in Ontario. The provincial plan takes its own separate deduction.

The Quebec section of the EI page explains the mechanics. For a layoff, the lower premium buys no smaller regular benefit: same percentage, same cap, same hours scale and same Schedule I as in New Brunswick or Manitoba. Sickness and caregiving benefits also stay with EI.

The temporary measures, and the date that ends them

Federal temporary measures change how a Quebec claim starts, as they do everywhere in Canada. The box lists each one with its section.

Compare the end date in the box with the day your claim would open. If it opens in time, the box applies to you; if not, the permanent rules come back. An extension takes a fresh decision in Ottawa, and this site does not count on one before it is made.

Pay in lieu of notice from a Quebec employer

Quebec's Act respecting labour standards requires written notice before a layoff or termination, or an indemnity paid instead. There is no separate statutory severance pay of the Ontario kind, so what people here call severance is usually that indemnity, sometimes topped up by contract. The amount and the deadline are worked out on the Quebec termination pay page. The CNESST enforces those rules; Service Canada decides the EI claim.

Where they meet is timing. Normally, separation money such as an indemnity or unused vacation pay is treated as income for the weeks following the job's end, at your usual weekly pay, and benefits wait until that stretch is used up (EI Regulations s. 36). That rule delays a claim without shortening it, and while the temporary measure lasts it is switched off. Apply either way, as soon as your final shift ends; a late application is backdated only with good cause covering the entire gap (EI Act s. 10).