Nova Scotia Overtime Pay Calculator

Two overtime rules operate in Nova Scotia at the same time

Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada running two different overtime bases simultaneously. Which one applies to you depends entirely on your occupation, and the difference can be hundreds of dollars a week.

The default rule is s. 40(4) of the Labour Standards Code: "Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, where an employee is required to work more than forty-eight hours in a week, that employee shall be paid one and a half times the employee's regular hourly wage for each additional hour worked in that week in excess of forty-eight hours."

The alternative rule applies to occupations that the General Labour Standards Code Regulations exempt from s. 40(4). Those workers are not left without overtime — they fall back to the Minimum Wage Order, s. 10(1), which requires "not less than time and one-half the minimum rate." At the current $16.75 minimum wage that is $25.13 an hour, regardless of what the employee actually earns.

The calculator above models the default rule. If your occupation appears in the list below, use $25.13 an hour for your overtime hours instead.

Note also where s. 40(4) sits: it is in the part of the Code headed "Holidays with Pay", under a section titled "Wages not to be reduced or not paid". Nova Scotia has no section headed "Overtime" at all — subsection (4) was added in 2003. If you are citing the rule, cite s. 40(4).

Which rule applies to you

Paid 1.5× the minimum wage — exempt from s. 40(4)

• Supervisory, management or confidential positions (Reg. s. 2(2B))
• Information technology professionals, excluding basic operational and technical support (s. 2(2C))
• Qualified practitioners and students in training in architecture, dentistry, law, medicine, chiropody, professional engineering, public or chartered accounting, psychology, surveying and veterinary science (s. 2(2))
• Transport industry employees — and note their threshold is different too: 96 hours over 2 consecutive weeks (Minimum Wage Order s. 10(2))
• Primary processing in agriculture, Christmas trees or the fishing industry — but not meat processing (s. 2(4B)(k))
• Apprentices, government-approved trainees, insurance agents, employees of non-profit playgrounds and summer camps (s. 2(4B))
• Watches, janitors and building superintendents in a building that includes their residence (s. 2(4B)(g))
• Health and personal care providers where the client provides the residence (s. 2(4B)(h))
• Flat-rate automobile mechanics and auto body technicians (s. 2(4B)(j))
• Shipbuilding, ship repair, oil and gas — other than retail (s. 2(8A))

No overtime entitlement at all

• Farm workers in primary production of listed commodities — the employer may pay the straight minimum rate beyond 48 hours (Minimum Wage Order s. 10(4))
• Real estate and automobile salespersons; commissioned salespersons selling off-premises
• Workers on fishing vessels; athletes engaged in athletic endeavour
• Logging and forest operations
• Employees covered by a collective agreement (Reg. s. 2(5))
• Domestic service in a private home for an immediate family member, or 24 hours a week or less

Different threshold, employee's own rate

Two carve-outs inside the construction rule are worth knowing: municipal employees doing street construction and maintenance are excluded from the construction order and revert to the ordinary 48-hour weekly rule, and construction managers and supervisors are excluded and drop to the minimum-wage basis.

Nova Scotia has no banked-time provision

Unlike most provinces, the Labour Standards Code contains no statutory right to bank overtime or take it as time off in lieu. Every reference to time off in the Code concerns vacation or holidays.

What Nova Scotia does have is fixed cycle averaging, under which overtime becomes payable once hours exceed an average of 48 per week across a pre-set repeating cycle — 192 hours over four weeks, for example. It requires a signed written agreement in advance, a genuinely repeating cycle, and real extended time off, and the onus is on the employer to show the arrangement is a greater benefit overall.

Minimum wage — and why it is now two numbers that matter

Nova Scotia's minimum wage is $16.75 an hour from April 1, 2026, rising to $17.00 on October 1, 2026. From April 1, 2027 it self-indexes annually to projected CPI plus one percent, rounded to the nearest five cents, and cannot fall.

Because the exempt-group overtime rate is 1.5 × minimum wage, the October increase moves that rate from $25.13 to $25.50. If you are a Nova Scotia manager, supervisor or IT professional, the minimum wage is not a background number — it is your overtime rate.

If you are owed unpaid overtime — six months, and no more

Nova Scotia has the shortest recovery window of any province covered here, and unusually the filing deadline and the recovery limit are the same number.

Employers must keep payroll records for 36 months (s. 15), and an appeal of a Director's order must reach the Board within 10 days (s. 21(5)).