New Brunswick Overtime Pay Calculator

How overtime is calculated in New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of only two provinces in Canada — Newfoundland and Labrador is the other — where overtime is not a multiple of what you earn. It is a floor on the hourly rate for the overtime hour itself, set by reference to the minimum wage.

The consequence surprises almost everyone, and it runs in two directions:

1. If you earn less than $23.85 an hour, your overtime hours are lifted to $23.85. A minimum-wage worker is genuinely better off for the overtime.
2. If you earn more than $23.85 an hour, the floor is already satisfied by your normal rate. Your employer can lawfully pay you your ordinary wage for every overtime hour, and you have no statutory overtime entitlement at all.

A calculator that shows a $40-an-hour New Brunswick worker a $60-an-hour overtime rate is wrong, and so is one that shows a $16-an-hour worker only $16. The tool above implements the actual rule.

The 44-hour figure comes from the Minimum Wage Regulation, s. 5: "The maximum number of hours of work for which the minimum wage shall be paid is 44 hours per week." There is no daily overtime threshold — s. 14 of the Act states plainly that "there is no limit on the number of hours an employee may work during any daily, weekly or monthly period," subject only to the youth-employment provisions.

What this means in dollars

The break-even point is $23.85 an hour. Below it, New Brunswick's rule helps you. Above it, the province's overtime law does nothing for you at all, and any premium you receive is because your employer or your contract is more generous than the law requires — not because the law requires it.

Banking overtime is not allowed in New Brunswick

Unlike every other province covered here, New Brunswick does not permit overtime to be banked as time off in lieu. The Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour states it directly: employers "must pay employees all overtime hours at the minimum overtime rate. The banking of hours is not permitted."

If your employer is crediting your overtime to a time bank rather than paying it, that arrangement has no basis in the New Brunswick Employment Standards Act.

Who is exempt from overtime in New Brunswick

The overtime exemption list here is strikingly short — one occupation:

• Athletes, when participating in activities related to their sport, and the people employing them in that context (General Regulation 85-179, s. 2.1, which exempts them from ss. 9 to 17 of the Act).

Separately, the Act as a whole does not apply to certain agricultural work: s. 5 excludes employment under a contract for agricultural services where the employer has "three or fewer employees over a substantial period of the year," excluding close family. Job trials of 35 hours or less, experiential learning for academic credit, and pre-employment training of up to eight weeks fall outside the definition of "employee" entirely (Reg. 85-179, s. 2.01).

There are no industry-specific overtime thresholds in New Brunswick. Section 15(1) permits the Lieutenant-Governor in Council to prescribe different maximum hours by industry, trade or occupation, but that power has not been used: Reg. 2022-15 s. 5 prescribes a single, uniform 44 hours, and s. 3 states the regulation "applies to every employee and employer in New Brunswick."

Minimum wage — and why it matters more here

New Brunswick's general minimum wage is $15.90 an hour, effective April 1, 2026, which puts the overtime floor at $23.85.

In most provinces the minimum wage is a background number that only affects low-paid workers. In New Brunswick it is the basis of the overtime rate for everybody — so when the minimum wage moves, the overtime floor moves with it, and the break-even point above which you get no premium moves too.

The rate is indexed automatically. Under Reg. 2022-15 s. 6(2)–(5), it is adjusted every April 1 by the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index, rounded to the nearest five cents, and it cannot decrease. The Minister must publish the new rate in The Royal Gazette within 30 days of the December CPI release.

If you are owed unpaid overtime in New Brunswick

• Filing deadline. Section 61(1) gives you 12 months after the alleged violation to make a complaint to the Director, in any form.
• Recovery window. Where the Director investigates on their own initiative rather than on a complaint, s. 63(2) limits any order to violations "occurring within twelve months prior to the date of the order."

A notice of non-compliance may only cover contraventions within the 12 months preceding the complaint (s. 64.1(5)), or within 11 months preceding the notice where the Director initiated it (s. 64.1(6)). The distinction matters: on a complaint the clock runs backward from the day you complain, so waiting shortens what you can recover.

Section 12 separately preserves a right to sue for "the difference between the wages the employee has actually received" and what was owed.