How much money can you get on maternity and parental leave?

There are so many options when it comes to maternity and parental leave! Here is a simple breakdown, so you know how much money you will get based on the choices you make.

Employment Insurance (EI) provides maternity benefits to people who are away from work because they are pregnant or have recently given birth and parental benefits to people who are away from work to care for their newborn or newly adopted child.

Before starting your maternity or parental leave, you must work 600 hours to qualify for the benefits (in a 40 hour/week job that’s 15 weeks!). This is called a waiting period before you are eligible for your benefits. This also applies to the time between ending a parental leave and starting new maternity or parental leave.

There is a special COVID credit of 480 hours, meaning you only need to work a full-time job for 3 weeks to qualify for maternity or parental leave. This credit is currently available until September 25, 2021.

The coverage period for maternity leave coverage is a maximum of 15 weeks. For parental leave, Canadians have the option of a 35 week regular or 61 week extended benefit period for their parental benefits. This gets to a total of 12-month or 18-month leave when including both maternity and parental benefits.

When parents apply for and share parental benefits, they are eligible for

5 extra weeks of parental benefits when choosing the standard option
8 extra weeks of parental benefits when choosing the extended option

This means that parents can now share up to 40 weeks of parental benefits with the standard option and up to 69 weeks of parental benefits with the extended option. However, one parent cannot get more than 35 weeks of standard or 61 weeks of extended parental benefits, requiring the other parent to take some time off to receive the extra weeks.