AbsentEase
Prince Edward Island sick leave law & call-off rules
Prince Edward Island replaced its Employment Standards Act on June 30, 2026, and the new Act is the most generous in Atlantic Canada on sick time: four unpaid days after thirty days, then one, two and three paid days as service passes one, two and three years, a 27-week medical leave, and a doctor's note only after five consecutive days. Employees also owe you notice when they quit. Here is what applies in 2026.
Prince Edward Island at a glance
| Statute | Employment Standards Act (RSPEI 1988, c. E-6.3, in force June 30, 2026) · enforced by the Employment Standards Branch, Prince Edward Island (1-800-333-4362) |
|---|---|
| Statutory sick leave | 4 unpaid days after 30 days; 1, 2 then 3 paid days a year once service passes 1, 2 and 3 years |
| Doctor's note | Only for 5 or more consecutive days |
| Medical leave | 27 consecutive weeks unpaid, after 90 days |
| Notice of termination | 1 to 8 weeks by length of service after 90 days |
| Final pay | By the last day of the next pay period |
| Vacation pay | 4%, or 6% after 5 years, by the last day of the next pay period |
| Employee notice to quit | 1 week (under 5 years) or 2 weeks (5+ years) after 6 months |
Is paid sick leave required in Prince Edward Island?
Yes, by length of service. After 30 continuous days every employee gets four unpaid sick days a year (s. 43(1)). After one year of continuous employment, paid sick days are added at the regular wage: one day in the second year, two in the third, and three in the fourth year and every year after (ss. 43(2) and (3)). Paid days may be used before unpaid ones, nothing carries over (ss. 43(4) and (5)), and written confirmation from a qualified practitioner may be required only for an absence of five or more consecutive days (s. 43(6)). A separate three days of unpaid family leave a year covers a family member's care (s. 49). Leave must be granted on request (s. 41), and reprisal for exercising a right under the Act is prohibited (s. 92).
How sick leave works in Prince Edward Island
| Unpaid sick days | 4 a year after 30 continuous days (s. 43(1)) |
|---|---|
| Paid sick days | After 1 year: 1 day in year two, 2 in year three, 3 in year four and after, at the regular wage (ss. 43(2) and (3)) |
| Carry-over | None; paid days may be taken before unpaid ones (ss. 43(4) and (5)) |
| Family leave | 3 unpaid days a year after 30 days, no carry-over (s. 49) |
| Medical leave | Up to 27 consecutive weeks unpaid a year after 90 days, for illness, injury, organ or tissue donation or gender-affirming care; written confirmation from a medical practitioner or nurse practitioner required (s. 44) |
| Doctor's notes | Only for 5 or more consecutive days of sick leave, from any qualified practitioner within their scope (s. 43(6)) |
| Partial days | The Act is silent; set the rule in your policy |
The rules that apply across Canada
The duty to accommodate
Every province's human rights code, and the Canadian Human Rights Act for federally regulated employers, requires accommodating a disability to the point of undue hardship, and "disability" includes mental illness and addiction. Absences tied to a disability cannot simply collect points: tribunals expect the employer to ask what is going on, consider modified duties or a leave, and document the effort. Long or repeated absences an employee cannot control are "innocent" (non-culpable) absenteeism, which is not misconduct and cannot be disciplined; employment can end for it only when the record shows the employee is unlikely to attend regularly in the foreseeable future and accommodation has been exhausted.
Employment Insurance
Service Canada, not the employer, decides whether a former employee gets regular EI benefits. Someone who quit without just cause or was dismissed for misconduct is disqualified, so the reason code on the Record of Employment and the call-off record behind it matter: a no-call no-show treated as abandonment is usually coded as a quit, and a dismissal for breaking a known attendance rule is argued as misconduct. Either way the employer's evidence is the written policy and the time-stamped record of what the employee did and did not report.
Unionized workplaces
Where a collective agreement applies, attendance discipline follows its just-cause and progressive-discipline clauses and any grievance goes to arbitration. Arbitrators expect the same things the statutes do: a written rule the employee knew about, consistent enforcement, and a contemporaneous record of each absence.
Banks, airlines, rail, interprovincial trucking, telecoms and a few other industries are federally regulated and follow the Canada Labour Code instead of Prince Edward Island's statute.
Call-offs, no-call no-shows, and dismissal in Prince Edward Island
PEI's new Act gives employees more protected time than most provinces, so the first job of an attendance policy here is sorting call-offs: a sick day (paid or unpaid), a family day, a bereavement or violence-leave day cannot be pointed, warned or counted toward dismissal, and reprisal for using a right under the Act is an offence (s. 92). You also cannot ask for a note until a sick absence reaches five consecutive days. What remains, the no-call no-show with no protected reason behind it, is ordinary misconduct that progressive discipline can address; the Act does not define cause, so the common-law standard (a known rule, a fair process, proportionate discipline, a documented record) decides whether the final dismissal owes notice. Keep the record contemporaneous: a call-off hotline or text-based call-off line time-stamps every report and every silence, which is what the Employment Standards Board or a court will ask for.
After a no call, no show termination in Prince Edward Island
| Does the statute define job abandonment? | No. The statute does not define job abandonment or a consecutive-days threshold. At common law abandonment is a resignation, and the test is objective: would a reasonable person, looking at what the employee said and did, conclude they clearly and unequivocally intended to give up the job? An employer that assumed a quit after silence, without first telling the employee that silence would be treated as a resignation, has lost on that point (Hettrick v. Triple F Paving, 2021 ONSC 208). (common law; Betts v. IBM Canada, 2015 ONSC 5298) |
|---|---|
| Final pay if you treat it as a dismissal | All outstanding pay, including any pay in lieu of notice, is due by the last day of the next pay period after the termination. (Employment Standards Act ss. 36(5), 59(5)) |
| Final pay if you treat it as a resignation | Same deadline. After six months the employee owed you one or two weeks' written notice (s. 60), but the Act gives no right to deduct for notice not given. (ss. 36(5), 60) |
| Vacation pay at separation | Always owed: 4% of wages (6% after 5 years), paid by the last day of the next pay period. (ss. 29, 34) |
| Employment Insurance | Service Canada decides. A claimant who voluntarily left without just cause, or who lost the job because of their own misconduct, is disqualified from regular benefits; a no-call no-show treated as abandonment is usually coded as a quit (Record of Employment code E) and a dismissal for breaking a known attendance rule as a dismissal (code M). Either way Service Canada may ask for the written policy and the call-off record. (Employment Insurance Act, ss. 29–30) |
Before treating silence as a resignation, try to reach the employee more than once, in writing, and keep the attempts: an employer who assumes abandonment after one missed shift usually ends up having dismissed someone, with the notice and severance that follow.
Write an attendance policy that fits Prince Edward Island
A written call-off rule, a single channel employees use to report an absence, and a carve-out for the statutory leaves above are what make attendance discipline hold up in Prince Edward Island. Our attendance policy guide walks through each section, and what a call-off hotline is explains the record it produces.
Minimum notice of termination in Prince Edward Island
| Length of service | Minimum notice (or pay in lieu) |
|---|---|
| Under 90 days | None |
| 90 days to under 1 year | 1 week |
| 1 to under 5 years | 2 weeks |
| 5 to under 10 years | 4 weeks |
| 10 to under 15 years | 6 weeks |
| 15 years or more | 8 weeks |
Employment Standards Act s. 59(1), with pay in lieu at regular wages under s. 59(5); vacation cannot be counted as notice (s. 59(6)). No notice is owed to an employee terminated for cause (s. 59(2)(f)); the Act does not define cause, so the common-law just-cause standard applies. Ten or more employees who make up at least a quarter of the workplace, within two months, means six weeks' notice to the employees, any union and the Minister (s. 61). The common law usually requires more notice than the statute; the Act is the floor.
Final pay and vacation pay
| Scenario | Rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Employee is dismissed | All outstanding pay, including pay in lieu of notice, by the last day of the next pay period after termination | Employment Standards Act ss. 36(5), 59(5) |
| Employee quits or abandons the job | Same deadline. After 6 months the employee owed 1 or 2 weeks' written notice (s. 60); the Act gives no right to deduct for missing notice | ss. 36(5), 60 |
| Vacation pay | 4% of wages (6% after 5 years), paid by the last day of the next pay period | ss. 29, 34 |
| Unused paid sick days | Not paid out: they do not carry over and are not a bank | s. 43(4) |
A contract, policy or custom that gives more than the Act prevails (ss. 4(2), 62).
Leave employers must provide in Prince Edward Island
| Leave type | Required? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sick leave | Yes — partly paid | 4 unpaid days, then 1 to 3 paid days by service (s. 43) |
| Family leave | Yes — unpaid | 3 days a year after 30 days (s. 49) |
| Medical leave | Yes — unpaid | 27 consecutive weeks a year after 90 days (s. 44) |
| Bereavement | Yes — partly paid | Immediate family: 1 paid + 2 unpaid days; other family: 3 unpaid; pregnancy loss or stillbirth: 1 paid + 2 unpaid (s. 52) |
| Domestic, intimate-partner or sexual violence | Yes — partly paid | After 90 days: 3 paid + 7 unpaid days (s. 54) |
| Compassionate care | Yes — unpaid | 28 weeks after 30 days (s. 50) |
| Critically ill child | Yes — unpaid | 36 weeks after 90 days (s. 51) |
| Jury or witness duty | Yes — unpaid | Court leave (s. 57) |
| Reservist | Yes — unpaid | After 90 days (s. 56) |
| Vacation | Yes | 2 weeks (3 after 5 years), pay 4% / 6% |
Citizenship-ceremony leave (1 unpaid day after 90 days), emergency leave and the crime-related child leave also exist. Voting time comes from the Election Act rather than the Employment Standards Act.
The Prince Edward Island employer's attendance playbook
- Put it in writing. A written policy — the call-off deadline and channel, the steps of progressive discipline, the no-call no-show rule, and a carve-out for the statutory leaves and accommodated absences above — is what makes discipline defensible. Our attendance policy guide walks through it.
- Give call-offs one channel. "Tell whoever answers" is how records get lost. One number every employee texts or calls makes the record automatic.
- Log everything with timestamps. Employment-standards complaints, human rights applications and arbitrations are won on contemporaneous records, not recollections.
- Discipline progressively and consistently. Canadian adjudicators expect warnings before dismissal for attendance, and uneven enforcement turns a lawful dismissal into a reprisal or discrimination claim.
- Screen call-offs for protected reasons before applying any step — a statutory sick or family day, or an absence tied to a disability, gets a different track than an overslept alarm.
Comparing jurisdictions? See every published guide on the Canadian sick leave laws hub, or the US state guides.