Record of Employment (ROE) in Canada: When and How to Issue One
- Targeted Accounting
- Payroll
Stay Ahead With Expert Bookkeeping Insights!
Table of Contents
The Form That Decides an Employee's EI Claim
A Record of Employment (ROE) is the form an employer issues to Service Canada whenever an employee stops earning insurable income. Service Canada uses it to decide whether the person qualifies for Employment Insurance, how much they receive and for how long. For the employee it is often the single most important document an employer produces. For the employer it is a legal obligation with a short deadline.
Most small businesses issue only a handful a year, which is exactly why they go wrong: nobody remembers the rules between one departure and the next. This guide covers when an ROE is required, the deadlines, what goes on it, the reason codes, and how to correct one. It is part of our guide to how to do payroll in Canada.
Key Takeaways
- Issue an ROE whenever an employee has an interruption of earnings: seven consecutive days without work or insurable earnings, or pay dropping below 60% of normal because of illness, injury or a family-related leave.
- Electronic ROEs are generally due five calendar days after the end of the pay period in which the interruption happened. Paper ROEs are due five days after the interruption itself.
- Use the correct reason code. Misrepresenting why someone left is an offence.
- Report insurable hours and earnings exactly as paid, and list vacation pay, severance and other final payments separately.
- Keep the payroll records behind every ROE for six years.
When You Must Issue a Record of Employment
The trigger is an interruption of earnings, which Service Canada defines in three ways:
- The employee has seven consecutive calendar days with no work and no insurable earnings from you. This covers resignations, terminations, layoffs, the end of a contract or season, and unpaid leaves.
- The employee’s pay falls below 60% of their regular weekly earnings because of illness, injury, quarantine, pregnancy, parental leave, compassionate care or family caregiver leave.
- The employee starts receiving wage-loss insurance payments.
You issue the ROE even if the employee says they will not apply for EI, even if they were with you for a week, and even if they are going straight to another job. Their eligibility is Service Canada’s decision, not yours. A regular scheduled vacation is not an interruption of earnings, and there are special rules for commission salespeople, real estate agents and non-standard schedules, all set out in the Service Canada ROE guide.
The Deadline
How fast you must issue depends on how you file.
| Method | Due |
|---|---|
| Electronic, weekly, biweekly or semi-monthly payroll | Within 5 calendar days after the end of the pay period in which the interruption occurred |
| Electronic, monthly or 13 pay periods a year | The earlier of 5 calendar days after the end of the pay period, or 15 days after the first day of the interruption |
| Paper | Within 5 calendar days of the interruption, or of the day you became aware of it |
Electronic ROEs go straight to Service Canada, and the employee views theirs through their My Service Canada Account, so you do not need to hand them a copy. Paper ROEs must be ordered in advance from Service Canada, and the employee gets a copy. For a business that issues ROEs rarely, electronic is far easier: the forms are always available and the deadline is tied to your pay cycle rather than the calendar.
How to Issue an ROE: Three Options
ROE Web. Service Canada’s free online system. You register your business and authorize the people who will sign ROEs, then complete each form online. It is the right choice if you run payroll in a spreadsheet or a basic tool.
Your payroll software. Most Canadian payroll systems build the ROE from the employee’s pay history and upload it for you. This is the most accurate route, because the insurable hours and earnings come directly from the payroll records rather than being retyped.
Paper. Still allowed, but slower, harder to correct, and easy to run out of. We do not recommend it for anyone who issues more than one or two a year.
If an outside provider such as our payroll services for small business runs your payroll, confirm that issuing ROEs is part of the service. Some providers treat it as an extra.
What Goes on the ROE
The form is short, but every field affects the employee’s claim.
- Employer and employee details: your business number with its payroll account, the employee’s name, address and social insurance number, and your pay period type.
- Key dates: the first day worked, the last day for which the employee was paid, and the end date of the final pay period.
- Insurable hours: the total insurable hours in the reporting period, generally the last 53 weeks or since the last ROE, whichever is shorter. Paid leave counts. Unpaid overtime and unpaid hours do not.
- Insurable earnings by pay period: the earnings for each recent pay period, up to the number Service Canada requires for your pay frequency. Electronic ROEs ask for more periods than paper ones.
- Expected date of recall: if you plan to bring the person back, or “unknown”, or “not returning”.
- Reason for issuing (see below).
- Vacation pay, statutory holiday pay and other monies: amounts paid or payable because of the separation, such as outstanding vacation pay, pay in lieu of notice, severance or a retiring allowance.
- Special payments: paid sick leave, maternity or parental top-ups, and wage-loss insurance.
Separation payments matter because Service Canada can allocate some of them to the weeks after the last day worked, which delays EI payments. Leaving them off does not help the employee. It creates an overpayment they will have to repay later.
ROE Reason Codes
Each ROE carries one reason code. Choose the one that reflects what actually happened, and add a comment if the situation is not obvious.
| Code | Reason |
|---|---|
| A | Shortage of work, end of contract or end of season (layoff) |
| B | Strike or lockout |
| D | Illness or injury |
| E | Quit |
| F | Maternity |
| G | Retirement |
| H | Work-sharing |
| J | Apprentice training |
| K | Other (only when no other code fits, with an explanation) |
| M | Dismissal or suspension |
| N | Leave of absence |
| P | Parental |
| Z | Compassionate care or family caregiver |
The two codes that cause disputes are E (quit) and M (dismissal), because both can lead to EI being refused. Do not soften a dismissal into a layoff to be kind, and do not record a layoff as a quit. Service Canada may contact you to ask what happened, and knowingly giving false information on an ROE is an offence that can lead to fines or prosecution.
Amending an ROE
If something changes after you issue the ROE, such as a retroactive raise, a vacation pay balance you missed or a corrected last day worked, you issue an amended ROE rather than a new one. In ROE Web and most payroll software you open the original and amend it. A paper ROE is replaced by a new paper form that references the original serial number.
Amend promptly. An employee whose claim is calculated on the wrong earnings will either be underpaid or face a repayment demand, and both tend to come back to the employer as a phone call.
Common ROE Mistakes
- Missing the deadline because nobody owns the task when a manager, not the bookkeeper, handles a departure.
- Leaving out vacation pay owing at termination, or paying it later without amending.
- Counting the wrong hours, for example scheduled hours instead of paid hours, or omitting paid leave.
- Using code K when a specific code applies.
- Not issuing at all for a short-term employee or a family member on payroll.
Every one of these is easier to avoid when ROEs are generated from payroll software rather than prepared by hand. Remittances of the final pay’s deductions follow the usual rules in our guide to payroll remittance due dates.
Have an Employee Leaving and Not Sure What to File?
We prepare the final pay, calculate vacation pay and other amounts owing, and issue the Record of Employment on time with the right code. If an ROE you have already filed looks wrong, we can amend it.
