Ontario’s Minimum Wage is Increasing to $17.60

Employee Rights
Written By Andrew Vey

The Ontario Government has just announced that, effective October 1, 2025, the provincial general minimum wage is increasing from $17.20 to $17.60 per hour. This amounts to a 2.4% increase and has been calculated by reference to recent changes tracked by the Ontario Consumer Price Index.  

Pursuant to section 23.1(4) of the Employment Standards Act, 2000, the minimum wage in Ontario is adjusted annually to account for inflation. Each year’s new rate is announced in April and becomes effective in October.

In addition to the general minimum wage rate (which applies in most cases), the following special minimum wage rates will also be adjusted as of October 1, 2025:

  • Student Minimum Wage: will increase from $16.20 to $16.60 an hour. The student minimum wage is only applicable for students (under the age of 18) who work 28 hours a week (or less) when school is in session or who work during a school break/summer holidays.

  • Hunting, Fishing, and Wilderness Guides Minimum Wage: will increase from $88.05 to $86.00 (when working less than five consecutive hours in a day) or from $172.05 to $176.15 (when working five or more hours in a day, regardless of whether the hours are consecutive).

  • Homeworkers Minimum Wage: will increase from $18.90 to $19.35 per hour. This wage rate is applicable to employees who do paid work in their own home. Where students (of any age) are employed as homeworkers, they must be paid this wage rate. The homeworker minimum wage is more relevant than ever given the rise in popularity of remote-work post-pandemic. You can learn more about who qualifies as a homeworker here.

Federally Regulated Workers

Federally regulated workers in Canada (regardless of their location of employment) are subject to their own minimum wage. Similar to Ontario’s system, the federal minimum wage is adjusted annually to account for inflation. The current federal minimum wage is $17.75 per hour, which took effect as of April 1, 2025. This represented a 2.4% increase from the prior federal minimum wage of $17.30.

Most workers in Canada are provincially regulated, so the federal minimum wage rate only applies to employees in a very select set of industries (such as telecommunications, aviation, etc.). You can find a more detailed list of federally regulated workplaces here. 

A unique aspect of the federal minimum wage rate is that it is always supplanted if the local provincial or territorial minimum rate is set at a higher value.

For instance, given that the Ontario provincial minimum wage rate is currently (and is scheduled to remain) lower than the federal rate, federally regulated workers in Ontario must always be paid at least $17.75 per hour. However, in Nunavut, where the territorial minimum wage has been set at $19.00 per hour since January 2024, federally regulated workers located in that jurisdiction will be entitled to receive the higher local rate per hour worked instead of the lower $17.75 federal rate.

Additional Resources:

Andrew Vey
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