Part-Time Job in Quebec: Net Pay Per Week

Twenty hours a week at $20 an hour is $400 in gross pay. The amount that lands in your bank account is smaller — but far less smaller than on a full-time salary. Here is, deduction by deduction, what comes off a part-time pay stub in Quebec in 2026, and what is left as net pay each week.

The five deductions on a Quebec pay stub

A part-time job carries exactly the same deductions as a full-time one. There are five of them, and none is optional.

Federal income tax. It follows a bracket schedule. A bracket is a slice of income with a rate attached to it: the first slice is taxed at 14% up to $58,523, and only the income above that threshold is taxed at the next rate. A part-time salary therefore stays entirely inside the first bracket.

Quebec income tax. Same logic, with a separate provincial schedule administered by Revenu Québec. Its first bracket is also 14%.

QPP, the Quebec Pension Plan, which builds your future retirement pension. It does not apply to the first dollar you earn: a basic exemption of $3,500 a year is set aside, and the contribution is calculated only on what is above it, up to maximum pensionable earnings of $74,600. The Salarium calculator applies a 6.30% rate on that first tier.

Employment Insurance (EI). In Quebec, the employee rate is 1.30%, on maximum insurable earnings of $68,900 for the year.

QPIP, the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan, which funds maternity, paternity and parental leave. The employee rate is 0.430%, on maximum insurable earnings of $103,000.

Those last three contributions come off your pay no matter how many hours you work. A shift premium goes through the same deductions: that is the subject of our article on evening and night shift premiums.

20 hours a week at $20 an hour

Let us take an example in round numbers. It is there to show the mechanics, not to guess your exact situation. At $20 an hour, here is what different schedules give, simply by multiplying the hours by the hourly rate:

Let us stop on the 20-hour row: $20,800 of gross pay a year.

The deductions add up to $1,844.30 for the year. That leaves $18,955.70 net, or $364.53 a week out of $400 gross. Every week, $35.47 goes to taxes and contributions: 8.9% of the gross.

Why the deduction rate is lower than on a full-time salary

The reason fits in one sentence: two of the mechanisms in the calculation are fixed dollar amounts, not percentages.

The first is the basic personal amount, that is, the slice of income nobody pays tax on. Federally, it is $16,452 for 2026. In Quebec, the Salarium calculator applies an equivalent amount of $18,952. These amounts are worth the same to everyone. On $20,800 of gross pay they wipe out almost all the income tax; on twice that salary, they wipe out only a small part of it.

The second is the $3,500 QPP exemption. It represents 17% of a $20,800 income, but only 8% of a $41,600 income.

The result shows up in the average rate — the share of the gross that goes to deductions, all of them combined. At $20,800 a year it is 8.9%. At $41,600, which is 40 hours a week at the same hourly rate, it climbs to 20.3%. The salary doubles, but the deductions are more than four times higher.

At what income do you start paying income tax?

According to the calculator, for someone whose only income is their salary and who claims no particular credit:

• federal income tax starts to bite at around $17,600 of gross pay a year;
• Quebec income tax starts later, at around $20,400.

Below those thresholds the pay is not untouched, though. QPP, EI and QPIP come off well before the first dollar of income tax. At 15 hours a week, which is $15,600 a year, a Quebec pay stub carries no income tax at all: only those three contributions are left.

Part-time work and EI: the hours are what count

You pay EI premiums from your very first hour worked. Being entitled to benefits is another question, and it is settled in hours, not in dollars. Depending on the unemployment rate in your region, you need between 420 and 700 hours of insurable employment during the qualifying period, which is the 52 weeks before your claim.

At 20 hours a week, 420 hours is 21 weeks of work and 700 hours is 35 weeks: a steady schedule reaches the threshold within the year. At 10 hours a week, it would take 42 weeks to reach the lowest threshold — and the highest one would stay out of reach.

Three things to check on your next pay stub

1. Are all five lines there? Federal tax, Quebec tax, QPP, EI, QPIP. A missing line is not a gift: it is usually a correction that will catch up with you later.
2. Does the gross match the hours you worked? This is the simplest and most profitable check there is: hours × hourly rate.
3. Does the net surprise you? Compare it with the Quebec net salary calculator using your real gross pay. A large gap almost always comes from a line on the stub, not from the tax calculation.