BC Overtime Pay Calculator

How overtime is calculated in British Columbia

BC runs two overtime tests at the same time, and you are entitled to whatever both of them produce together. This is the part most calculators get wrong, and it is why BC workers are frequently underpaid without anyone intending it.

The daily test looks at each day on its own. Hours 8 through 12 in a single day pay time and a half; hours past 12 that same day pay double time.

It applies even in a short week. Work one 11-hour day and nothing else and you are owed 3 hours of overtime, despite working 11 hours in total.

Section 35(1) triggers the entitlement whenever an employer "requires, or directly or indirectly allows" an employee to work beyond those limits — so overtime you were permitted to work counts, not only overtime you were ordered to work.

The weekly test looks at the week as a whole and pays 1.5× for hours beyond 40. A week in BC runs Sunday to Saturday.

Two cases the calculator above will not obviously show you

That second example is worth sitting with. A naive reading — "60 hours worked, 40 is the weekly threshold, so 20 hours of weekly overtime, plus the 20 hours of daily overtime" — produces 40 overtime hours and $2,240. Section 40(3) is precisely what prevents that double count. The correct answer is $1,960.

Averaging agreements — when the 8 and 40 rules stop applying

Section 37 lets an employer and employee agree to average hours over 1, 2, 3 or 4 weeks. Where a valid averaging agreement is in place, sections 35, 36(1) and 40 do not apply at all — the standard 8/40 thresholds are replaced wholesale. If you are on a compressed schedule such as four 10-hour days, this is almost certainly the mechanism your employer is relying on.

An averaging agreement is only valid if it meets every requirement in s. 37(2). It must:

• be in writing, and signed by both parties before the start date
• specify the number of weeks it covers
• set out the work schedule for each day
• state how many times it may be repeated
• state its start and expiry dates
• be given to you as a copy before it starts

If any one of those fails, the agreement is invalid and the ordinary s. 40 rules apply — which can mean a substantial retroactive entitlement.

Under a valid agreement, scheduled hours cannot exceed 40 in a one-week agreement, or an average of 40 a week over a longer one. You are still owed 2× beyond 12 hours in a day (s. 37(4)) and 1.5× beyond the 40-hour weekly average (s. 37(5)). Section 37(7) carries the same anti-double-counting logic as s. 40(3), capped at 12 hours a day rather than 8.

Section 37(6) is the one most people on a compressed schedule miss. Work beyond the hours scheduled for that day and you are owed 1.5× — over 8 hours where fewer than 8 were scheduled, or over the scheduled number where 8 or more were, and 2× past 12.

For someone on four 10-hour days who gets kept late, that is usually the largest entitlement in the section.

Who does not get overtime in BC

BC excludes workers at three different levels, and they are worth separating because they do not mean the same thing.

Managers — the exclusion people get wrong most often

Section 34(f) of the Employment Standards Regulation excludes managers from Part 4 entirely, which means no hours-of-work protections and no overtime. But the regulation's definition is narrow: a manager is a person "whose principal employment responsibilities consist of supervising or directing, or both supervising and directing, human or other resources," or a person "employed in an executive capacity."

Your job title is not what decides this. What decides it is whether supervising or directing is your principal responsibility. A shift lead who spends most of the week doing the same work as the people they nominally oversee is generally not a manager for these purposes, whatever the title on the schedule says. Misclassification of this kind is one of the most common sources of unpaid overtime in the province.

Excluded from Part 4

• Managers, as defined above (ESR s. 34(f))
• Delivery services workers and ride-hail services workers — Part 4 except s. 39 does not apply (ESR s. 34.3). If you drive for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, SkipTheDishes or a similar platform in BC, you have no statutory overtime entitlement and the calculator above does not describe your pay.
• Farm workers — Part 4 except s. 39 does not apply (ESR s. 34.1)
• High technology professionals, including many software and systems roles (ESR s. 37.8). BC's test is narrower than Alberta's or Ontario's — it expressly carves out basic operational technical support and retail sale.
• Teachers, university faculty, and college instructors
• Fishing, hunting and wilderness guides
• Municipal police officers and paid firefighters
• Live-in home support workers, live-in camp leaders, residential care workers and night attendants
• Commercial travellers, towboat workers and tender vessel workers

Excluded from the Act altogether

Regulation s. 31 removes a list of professions from the Employment Standards Act entirely while they are carrying on the governed occupation: chartered professional accountants, lawyers and articled students, professional engineers, architects, physicians and surgeons, dentists, chiropractors, naturopathic physicians, optometrists, veterinarians, professional foresters, land surveyors, insurance agents and adjusters, real estate licensees, and securities registrants.

Different threshold, not exempt

Several BC occupations keep an overtime entitlement but on their own thresholds. These are not exemptions — you are still owed 1.5×, just on a different schedule, and the calculator above will not match your pay:

Note that the short-haul rule carries its own version of the s. 40(3) anti-double-counting cap, set at 9 hours a day rather than 8.

Banking overtime instead of being paid it

Section 42 lets you bank overtime rather than take it as pay, but the request has to come from you and it has to be in writing — an employer cannot impose a time bank. Once hours are banked you can later ask to be paid them out, to take them as paid time off by agreement, or to close the bank entirely. An employer can close a time bank with written notice and must then pay out the balance.

Section 39 sits above most of this: an employer "must not require or directly or indirectly allow an employee to work excessive hours or hours detrimental to the employee's health or safety," regardless of what has been agreed. Note the limit of that protection — farm workers, gig workers and high technology professionals keep s. 39 because their exclusions are written as "Part 4, other than section 39." Managers do not. ESR s. 34(f) removes managers from Part 4 in full, s. 39 included.

Related BC entitlements people miss

• Minimum daily pay (s. 34). Report to work and you are owed at least 2 hours. If you were scheduled for more than 8 hours, that rises to 4 hours — reduced back to 2 where work is suspended for reasons beyond the employer's control.
• 32 consecutive hours free each week (s. 36(1)). If your employer does not give you those, work performed during that period is paid at 1.5×.
• 8 consecutive hours between shifts (s. 36(2)).
• Split shifts (s. 33). A split shift must be completed within 12 hours of when it started.
• Meal breaks. A 30-minute unpaid meal break after 5 consecutive hours of work.
• Minimum wage. $18.25 an hour as of June 1, 2026, which puts the BC overtime floor at $27.38 an hour and the double-time floor at $36.50.

If you are owed unpaid overtime in BC

Complaints go to the Employment Standards Branch and there is no fee to file one. Two separate clocks run, and they are frequently confused with each other.

• The filing deadline. If your employment has ended, s. 74(3) requires the complaint to be delivered within 6 months after your last day of employment. If you are still employed, s. 74 sets no deadline at all.
• The recovery window. Separately, s. 80(1)(a) caps what you can actually be paid at wages that became payable in the 12 months before the earlier of the complaint date or your termination date.

Two discretionary escape hatches exist, neither of which is safe to rely on. Section 74(5) lets the director extend the filing deadline where there are special circumstances and refusing would be unjust. Section 80(3) lets the director extend the 12-month recovery window to 24 months in prescribed circumstances — so a longer claim is not automatically half-lost as a matter of law, but you should plan on 12 months.