Quebec Premier and MNA Salary: What's Left After Tax

How much does a member of Quebec's National Assembly earn? What about the premier, or your city's mayor? The amounts are public, but they are scattered: a provincial Act on one side, a municipal by-law on the other. Here is what the official texts actually say — and, above all, what is left once tax has taken its share.

The same base indemnity for every MNA

Pay for members of the National Assembly is not negotiated: it is written into an Act. Bill 24, assented to on 7 June 2023, replaced section 1 of the Act respecting the conditions of employment and the pension plan of the Members of the National Assembly. It sets the annual indemnity of every Member at $131,766.

That amount is not frozen. The same provision ties it to the salary scale of holders of a level 4 senior position in government bodies: when those senior officials get a raise, Members get the equivalent. The figure written into the Act in 2023 is therefore a starting point, not the amount paid today, which has followed those increases since.

The second thing to know often comes as a surprise: this base indemnity is identical for everyone. A minister, the premier and a backbench Member all start from the same amount. Particular offices carry additional sums, but those do not appear in the 2023 Act. With no official source available to put a figure on them, this article sticks to the base indemnity — the one everybody receives.

From gross to net: what tax takes out of $131,766

For tax purposes, an MNA's indemnity is employment income like any other. It goes through exactly the same deductions as any Quebec employee's pay: federal tax, Quebec tax, then three contributions — to the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP), to Employment Insurance and to the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP).

At this income level, the two income taxes do almost all the work. The three contributions have already hit their ceilings. All told, roughly $88,000 a year is left after deductions, or close to $7,300 a month. The average rate — the share of the gross that leaves, all deductions combined — sits around 33%.

Above $103,000, contributions stop

Each of the three contributions has a ceiling, and once that ceiling is reached it stops growing, however high the salary:

• the QPP applies to earnings up to $74,600, then to a second band that ends at $85,000;
• Employment Insurance stops at the maximum insurable earnings, $68,900 in 2026, at the Quebec rate of 1.30%;
• QPIP stops collecting above $103,000 of insurable income.

The consequence for any high salary, public or not: past $103,000, one more dollar triggers no contribution at all. It meets nothing but income tax.

Why the marginal rate is close to 46%

The marginal rate is the rate that hits the next dollar earned. It is not the average applied to the whole salary: it is the price of the next dollar. At this income level, it stacks up in two layers.

The federal layer first. This income falls into the 26% bracket, the one running from $117,045 to $181,440 in 2026. But a Quebec resident does not pay that 26% in full: the Quebec abatement cuts their federal tax by 16.5%. So the federal bracket really costs 21.7%.

Then the provincial layer. The applicable Quebec bracket is the 24% one, which runs from $108,680 to $132,245. It is added as is, with no abatement.

Add the two layers: 45.7%. Put plainly, out of a $1,000 raise, about $534 makes it into the pocket.

The expense allowance is no longer tax-free

On top of their pay, elected officials receive an expense allowance: an amount paid with no invoice and no receipt, meant to cover the costs that come with the office.

For a long time, that allowance largely escaped tax. Not anymore. The Canada Revenue Agency states it plainly: for 2019 and subsequent tax years, non-accountable allowances paid to elected members of legislative assemblies and certain municipal officers are fully included in income. Before that, the rule said the opposite: the allowance was excluded from income, except for the portion that exceeded one-half of the pay.

In other words, what looked like a perk reserved for elected officials is gone. That part of their pay is now taxed like the rest.

Mayors: a by-law per municipality, no provincial scale

There is no such thing as "the mayor's salary" in Quebec. Each municipality sets its own council's pay. The government only frames how it must be set (page in French): it has to be established by a by-law adopted by a two-thirds majority of the votes, including that of the mayor or warden.

The same framework provides for the expense allowance described above: it equals half of the pay, up to a maximum that is indexed every year and published in the Gazette officielle du Québec.

The practical result: the pay of a small village's mayor and that of a big city's mayor have nothing to do with each other, and neither can be read off a provincial Act. To find out, you have to open the by-law of the municipality concerned — every council must adopt it publicly.

Comparing a public salary with your own

A gross amount says very little until it has been turned into a net one, and that is as true for an elected official as it is for you. The Quebec net salary calculator applies the 2026 brackets that produced the table above, to whatever amount you choose. And to place these indemnities against the rest of the labour market, see the average salary in Quebec in 2026.