QPIP Basic Plan vs Special Plan: Which Pays More?

In Quebec, parental leave does not come in a single version. The Québec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP) offers two, and you have to pick one: the basic plan, which lasts longer but pays less each week, or the special plan, which is shorter but pays more. The choice belongs to whichever parent files an application first, it binds the other parent, and there is no going back on it. Here is what each plan actually pays, and how to compare the two without getting the numbers wrong.

Two plans, one choice, and it is final

QPIP pays benefits to parents who take time off work when a child arrives. Two plans are offered, and choosing between them is the very first decision to make:

• the basic plan, the long-term option: more weeks, but a lower income replacement percentage;
• the special plan, the short-term option: fewer weeks, but a higher percentage.

Three rules frame that choice, and they are strict. Both parents must settle on the same plan. The plan is determined by the first of the two parents to file an application, and it binds the other parent — even in shared custody. And once the application is received, the plan can no longer be changed.

In other words, the conversation happens before the application is filed, not after.

What each plan pays, week by week

The percentages below apply to your average weekly earnings: the average of what you were earning before the leave, calculated on gross income, before tax and contributions.

The additional weeks are not automatic. They are added only once each parent has been paid a minimum number of shareable weeks: 8 weeks under the basic plan, 6 weeks under the special plan. A parent who takes the whole shareable leave alone is therefore not entitled to them.

How many weeks of pay, in total?

Comparing "18 weeks at 70%" with "15 weeks at 75%" in your head is painful. There is a simple way to reduce each plan to a single number, though: multiply each block of weeks by its percentage, then add everything up. What you get is a total in weeks of pay — the number of weeks of gross salary QPIP ends up handing over.

Here are two scenarios, worked out from the maximums in the table above.

So the basic plan does pay a little more in total, but the gap is thin: 1.25 weeks of pay in the first scenario, 2.45 in the second. On a $60,000 salary, where a gross week is worth $1,153.85, that comes to roughly $1,442 more in the first case and $2,827 in the second — spread over a leave that lasts 10 to 13 weeks longer.

Above $103,000, the percentage stops following

QPIP does not calculate your benefits on your whole salary. It stops at a ceiling, the Maximum Insurable Earnings, which are $98,000 in 2025 and $103,000 in 2026. That ceiling is adjusted on January 1 of each year, at the rate set by the CNESST.

The consequence is direct for a salary above $103,000: the 70% or the 75% does not apply to your real salary, but to $103,000. The further you are above that ceiling, the lower your real replacement rate — and the narrower the gap between the two plans, since both start from the same capped amount.

Nor is the reference income your salary today. For a wage earner, the benefit is calculated on the average of the insurable earnings from the last 26 weeks of the qualifying period; for a self-employed worker, on 1/52 of the insurable earnings in that period. Unpaid leave, a drop in hours or a job change in the preceding year therefore weigh on the benefit amount.

Benefits are taxable, and the percentage applies to gross pay

This is the point most comparisons leave out. QPIP percentages apply to your gross income, whereas the pay you were used to was net — that is, after tax and contributions.

Here is where the money goes on a $60,000 salary in Quebec in 2026:

On that salary, a gross week is worth $1,153.85 and a net week roughly $872.75. A maternity benefit under the basic plan represents 70% of gross, or $807.69 a week; under the special plan, 75%, or $865.38. Both of those amounts are gross amounts too.

QPIP benefits are indeed taxable income. The official page is explicit: your benefits are taxable, and income tax is withheld directly from your payments. That withholding, however, is calculated taking only the basic personal amount into account, which is applied automatically. If you also receive a salary in the same year — the typical case in the year of a birth, where a few months of pay precede the leave — the withholding can fall short of the tax actually owed, and your tax return will come asking for the difference. Form TP-1017-V exists precisely to request additional withholding and avoid that surprise.

One last effect works in the basic plan's favour, a quieter one. A longer leave often spreads the income over two tax years. Because income tax is progressive — each additional slice of income is taxed at a higher rate than the one before it — two years at a middling income generally cost less tax than a single year with everything concentrated in it. The effect is real but modest, and it depends entirely on the date of birth and on the rest of your income.

In practice: how to decide

• Ask the budget question before the total question. Under the basic plan, shareable benefits drop to 55% of gross for 25 weeks. Check that your monthly budget holds at that level before committing to a longer leave.
• Decide together, and before filing. The first parent to file sets the plan for both, permanently.
• Look at your reference income, not your current salary. For a wage earner, the benefit is calculated on the last 26 weeks; an irregular year changes the result.
• Above $103,000, expect less than the headline percentage. Both plans cap at exactly the same place.
• Run your own numbers. Our Quebec take-home pay calculator gives you your current weekly net — the figure to compare a benefit against. And our article on how QPIP benefits are calculated goes into the mechanics of the reference income.