Stress leave pay calculator for BC: what you would be paid, week by week

A worked example: $1,000 a week, in a BC job

Someone who has worked for a BC employer for a year, earns about $1,000 a week before tax, has no disability plan and has not used a sick day this year. Their doctor certifies a leave, and they apply for EI the same week.

The first week is the five paid sick days under the Employment Standards Act, at an average day’s pay. The three unpaid sick days that follow protect the job rather than paying anything. No waiting week is served, because a claim starting now falls inside the temporary measure that waives it until 9 October 2027, so EI pays $550 a week before tax for weeks 2 to 27, which is 55% of $1,000. Over the whole stretch that is about $15,300 against $27,000 at usual pay, before tax on both.

Earning more does not move the EI figure past the year’s maximum. At $1,600 a week, 55% would be $880, but EI pays $729, the 2026 maximum, set by the maximum insurable earnings of $68,900. Above roughly $1,325 a week everyone on EI sickness gets the same amount, which is where the gap between a paycheque and a leave is widest.

How the weeks are worked out

Three systems pay in turn, and none of them is called stress leave. The sick days come from your employer under the Employment Standards Act, the EI benefit from Service Canada, and anything after that from an employer plan or, when work caused it, WorkSafeBC. How stress leave works in BC, and whether it is paid sets them side by side in one table, with who can sign the leave and what your employer may ask.

EI averages your best 14 to 22 weeks of insurable earnings from the last year, depending on the unemployment rate where you live, then pays 55% of that average. You need 600 insured hours in the 52 weeks before the claim, earnings down by more than 40%, and a medical certificate. What medical EI pays on a mental-health leave walks through the application, the Record of Employment and the four-week deadline that costs people weeks.

If your employer has a short-term disability plan, it usually pays before EI rather than on top of it, and the policy sets the amount, the waiting period and the length. That is why the calculator gives no figure for it. Short and long-term disability for a mental-health claim covers how those claims run. For a single bad day rather than a leave, using sick days as mental-health days in BC is the shorter answer.

If your employer is federally regulated

Banks, airlines, telecoms, interprovincial trucking and other federal employers are under the Canada Labour Code, not the BC Act. You earn three paid medical days after 30 days of continuous employment, then one more a month, to ten a year, at your regular rate. The Code also protects your job through up to 27 weeks of medical leave, which is protection, not pay. EI sickness benefits are the same either way. The 27 weeks quoted on many pages is not only federal: a BC-regulated job has up to 27 weeks of unpaid, job-protected serious personal illness or injury leave in any 52-week period under the Employment Standards Act, with a certificate from a doctor, nurse practitioner or other designated health professional.

Where counselling fits

None of these systems needs you to be in counselling to pay you. People use the leave for it anyway, because the leave is often the first time there is room for it, and a treatment record matters later at the return to work. Going on stress leave in BC, step by step covers the order of things. An individual session here is $140 for 50 minutes by video, and whether your plan keeps reimbursing during a leave is a question for HR; the fees and coverage page has the rest.

The figures it uses

Every number the calculator and this page use, with the government page it comes from and the date that page was read. When a figure changes, it changes here and in the calculator together.

Embed this calculator on your site

HR teams, union locals and benefits advisers hear the same question from people about to go on leave: what will I actually be paid, and when. The calculator can sit on your own page and answer it there. It is free to use, there is nothing to sign up for, and the framed version carries only the calculator and one credit line: no booking buttons, no counsellor listings, no advertising and no third-party analytics. The weekly earnings a reader enters stay in their browser. The only things counted are that the calculator loaded, with your site’s domain (never the page address), that a reader began filling it in, and that a result was shown, with whether it was the BC, federal, disability-plan or WorkSafeBC route.

Paste this where you want the calculator to appear. It runs on the same figures as this page, so when the EI maximum or the waiting-week rule is updated here, the copy on your site changes with it:

<iframe src="https://www.westpeakwellness.com/embed/stress-leave-pay-calculator" id="westpeak-leave-pay" title="BC stress leave pay calculator" width="100%" height="1400" style="border:0;max-width:760px" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://www.westpeakwellness.com/tools/stress-leave-pay-calculator">BC stress leave pay calculator</a> from Westpeak Wellness</p>

The line under the frame is the fallback. A reader whose browser or privacy settings block embedded frames still gets a working link to the full calculator, with the worked example and the government sources it is built on. Please keep it with the frame.

The frame is set tall enough for a long result. To have it fit its content instead, add this once on the same page. It listens only for messages from this site, and changes nothing but the frame’s height:

<script>addEventListener("message",function(e){if(e.origin==="https://www.westpeakwellness.com"&&e.data&&e.data.type==="westpeak-embed-height"){var f=document.getElementById("westpeak-leave-pay");if(f)f.style.height=e.data.height+"px";}});</script>

The calculator covers BC-regulated and federally regulated employees, and it is an estimate rather than advice: Service Canada, the insurer and WorkSafeBC each decide their own claims. Questions about putting it on your site, or a correction to report, go to info@westpeakwellness.com. For what employers can offer beyond the calculator, see counselling for employers and HR teams.

Sources

• Government of Canada, EI sickness benefits: how much you could receive (read 15 October 2026)
• Canada Revenue Agency, EI premium rates and maximums: maximum annual insurable earnings (read 15 October 2026)
• Government of Canada, EI sickness benefits: do you qualify (read 13 October 2026)
• Government of Canada, EI sickness benefits: apply (read 13 October 2026)
• Government of Canada, EI sickness benefits: after you apply, the waiting period and the first payment (read 13 October 2026)
• Government of Canada, temporary EI measures: waiving the waiting period (read 15 October 2026)
• Province of BC, paid sick leave (read 15 October 2026)
• Government of Canada, medical leave with pay for federally regulated employees, IPG-118 (read 15 October 2026)
• Province of BC, leaves of absence: serious personal illness or injury leave (read 15 October 2026)
• Canada Labour Code, s. 239, medical leave of up to 27 weeks (read 15 October 2026)
• WorkSafeBC, mental health claims (read 13 October 2026)

This is an estimate, not advice. Service Canada decides what EI pays you, your insurer decides a disability claim and WorkSafeBC decides its own. If you are in crisis, call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7).

Common questions