How Far Back Can You Claim Unpaid Wages? The 24-Month, 2-Year and 1-Year Windows

Think of your claim as two separate questions. The first is a deadline to act: by when must you file? The second is a recovery depth: once you file, how far back into your pay history can the order reach? These are different parameters, and confusing them is one of the most common — and most costly — mistakes workers make. A generous filing deadline does you no good if the recoverable depth is short, and vice versa.

The recoverable depth is what turns "I've been underpaid for three years" into an actual dollar figure. If your regime only reaches back one year, the two oldest years of underpayment are simply gone, no matter how solid your evidence.

	Federal (Canada Labour Code)	Ontario (ESA, 2000)	Québec (LNT)
Recovery depth	24 months before the complaint (or before termination)	2 years before the complaint	1 year from each due date
Trigger event	Day the complaint is made; if employment ended first, the date of termination; or the day an inspection began	Day the complaint is filed; or the day an inspection commenced	Each individual pay-period due date
How it is computed	A single 24-month block counted back from the trigger	A single 2-year block counted back from the trigger	Rolling — pay period by pay period, each with its own 1-year clock
Suspension / extension	Plus any extension of the complaint deadline granted by the Head (s. 251.01(3))	—	A CNESST investigation notice suspends prescription for 6 months (art. 116)
Filing deadline	Complaint within 6 months of the day wages were due (s. 251.01)	Governed separately, subject to the 2-year recovery cap (s. 111)	The 1-year prescription is the operative limit (art. 115)
Legal source	s. 251.1(1.1)(a) and (b)	s. 111(1), (3)	art. 115, art. 116
Regulator / route	Labour Program	Ministry of Labour	CNESST

For a federally regulated worker, a payment order can reach back 24 months immediately before the day the complaint was made — plus any extension of the complaint deadline that the Head grants under s. 251.01(3). If your employment ended before you complained, the 24 months are counted back from the date of termination instead (s. 251.1(1.1)(a)). There is a second route: where the recovery flows from an inspection rather than a complaint, the order reaches back 24 months before the inspection began (s. 251.1(1.1)(b)).

Remember the separate 6-month filing deadline (s. 251.01): the complaint must be filed within six months of the last day the wages were due. Miss that, and the 24-month depth becomes academic.

Ontario is the most straightforward of the three. An employment standards officer may not order wages that became due more than two years before the complaint was filed (s. 111(1)). On the inspection route, the same two-year limit runs from the day the officer commenced the inspection (s. 111(3)). One clean two-year block — no rolling calculation, no daily threshold complications.

Québec has the shortest — and the most misunderstood — window. Under art. 115, a civil action is prescribed by one year from each due date. The critical words are each due date. This is not a single one-year block; it is a rolling clock that resets for every pay period. Every month that passes drops the oldest pay period out of reach forever.

That is why early action matters most in Québec. One partial brake exists: a CNESST investigation notice, sent to the employer by registered mail, suspends prescription for six months for all of that employer's employees (art. 116). But you cannot rely on that — file first.

Here is why this is not academic. Imagine three workers with an identical problem: each is underpaid $200 per week in unpaid overtime, going back three full years, and each files today. (Figures are illustrative — your recoverable amount depends on your actual hours, rate, and the exact dates.)

• Ontario / Federal (roughly 2 years / 24 months recoverable): about 104 weeks × $200 ≈ $20,800 back on the table.
• Québec (1 year recoverable): about 52 weeks × $200 ≈ $10,400 — half as much, from the exact same underpayment.

The third year of underpayment is unrecoverable for all three, and in Québec so is the second. The lesson is blunt: the deeper your history of underpayment, the more the choice of regime decides your total — and the more waiting costs you.

The single rule that ties this together: never apply one regime's clock to another regime's file. Do not put Québec's one-year prescription on an Ontario claim — you would throw away a full year of recoverable wages. Do not put Ontario's two years on a Québec file — you would chase amounts the law considers long prescribed. And the enforcement route follows the regime: federal claims go to the Labour Program, Ontario claims to the Ministry of Labour, and Québec claims to the CNESST. None of these is a "prud'hommes" — that is the French system and it does not exist in Canada.

Before you calculate anything, confirm your regime, then anchor the correct window to the correct trigger. To see the timing in the full claim sequence, read the main guide on how to claim unpaid wages in Canada.