EI on a $$100,000 salary (2026): $729 a week, for how many weeks?

Why the money does not start when the job ends

On $100,000 – $1,923 a week, EI replaces 37.9% of your earnings, and it does not start when you stop working. Severance, pay in lieu of notice and accumulated vacation pay are allocated by Service Canada to the weeks following the separation, at your normal weekly rate. A six-month package on this salary therefore postpones the first payment by roughly twenty-six weeks, on top of the one-week waiting period. The claim should still be filed immediately: the allocation is calculated from the record of employment whatever you do, and a late application can cost weeks of entitlement at the far end. At this salary the EI question is one of timing, not of amount. At six figures the cap dominates entirely: insurable earnings of $1,923 are reduced to the annual maximum before the rate is applied, leaving $729 a week and $26,244 to $32,805 over the claim. The benefit replaces less than a third of previous income, and is taxable, so the net figure is lower again once withholding is taken into account.

Weeks and total EI on $100,000 in every economic region

1,820 insurable hours, regional rates in force. Weekly benefit at the $729 ceiling, before any allocation of severance.

The benefit period, the window in which these weeks can be drawn, is normally 52 weeks from the start of the claim. A long severance allocation eats into it, and weeks that fall outside the window are lost rather than deferred. On a package of six months or more, check whether the entitlement in the last column can actually be taken before the window closes.