The Employment Standards Act sets a floor. Most people are entitled to considerably more than the floor, and most severance offers are written as though the floor were the ceiling.
Employment Standards Act, 2000. Notice and severance figures checked against ontario.ca on 28 August 2026.
Notice is one week per year of employment, capped at eight weeks. Nearly every non-union employee with three months of service gets it.
Severance is separate and additional: a further week per completed year plus a fraction for part-years, to a maximum of 26 weeks. It is payable only where the employee has at least five years of service and the employer's global payroll is $2.5 million or more. Plenty of employers pay notice and quietly omit severance.
The ESA is a statutory minimum, not a measure of what a court would award. Common law reasonable notice is the real entitlement for most employees, and it is routinely several times the ESA figure — the rough rule of thumb is around a month per year of service, adjusted for age, seniority and how hard the role is to replace.
An employer can limit you to the ESA minimum, but only with a termination clause that is validly drafted. A great many are not, and a clause that fails anywhere fails everywhere. Whether yours holds up is the question actually worth asking before you sign anything.
One week per year of employment, to a maximum of eight weeks. There is no ESA notice entitlement in the first three months of employment.
An employee with five or more years of service, where the employer's global payroll is at least $2.5 million. Severance is one week per completed year plus a proportion for a part-year, to a maximum of 26 weeks, and it is on top of notice — not instead of it.
Usually not. Common law reasonable notice is generally much higher than the ESA minimum. You are limited to the minimum only if your employment contract contains a termination clause that is valid and enforceable, which is a question worth having reviewed before you accept an offer.
Not before it is reviewed. A release is final. Signing it ends any claim for additional notice, and the offer on the table is frequently the statutory minimum presented as though it were generous.
Open your file tonight — a licensed Ontario lawyer will confirm your exact Land Transfer Tax and closing costs in writing.