A quoted salary is only part of what hiring someone in Ontario actually costs. At CA$100,000 base, for a company still under the Employer Health Tax exemption, the true annual cost runs to roughly 1.062× base salary once employer CPP, CPP2, and EI are added. Toggle EHT below if your company's total payroll is over $1M.
CPP (employer)
5.95%
matches employee rate
CPP2 (employer)
4%
YMPE-YAMPE band only
EI (employer)
2.28%
1.4× the employee rate
Ontario EHT
1.95%
only above $1,000,000 payroll
Total annual cost of employment
$106,219
Load on top of salary
1.06× base
Base salary
$100,000
CPP, employer share (5.95%)
Matches the employee rate 1:1
$4,230
CPP2, employer share (4%)
On earnings between the YMPE and YAMPE
$416
EI, employer share (2.28%)
1.4× the employee EI rate, by law
$1,572
Ontario Employer Health Tax
CA$0 (total payroll below the $1M exemption)
$0
Two of Ontario's three federal payroll costs are simple dollar-for-dollar matches: CPP and CPP2 both charge the employer exactly the same rate as the employee, on the same earnings bands. EI breaks that pattern, the employer premium is set by law at 1.4 times the employee rate, so it's never a straightforward match even though it looks similar at first glance.
Employer Health Tax works completely differently again: it's assessed on your company's total Ontario payroll, not per employee, and only kicks in once that total crosses the $1,000,000 exemption. A small team is very likely under that threshold and pays no EHT at all. A larger employer with a substantial Ontario headcount is almost certainly over it, and EHT becomes a genuine cost line on every subsequent hire, not a one-off registration fee, exactly like Australia's state payroll tax.
This calculator models Ontario specifically. Other provinces have their own equivalents to EHT (Quebec's Health Services Fund, Manitoba's Health and Post-Secondary Education Tax Levy, and so on) with different rates and thresholds, not modelled here.
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Beyond the gross salary, Ontario employers pay their share of CPP, CPP2, and EI on every hire, and Employer Health Tax once their total payroll crosses $1M. For a $100,000 hire at a company still under the EHT exemption, that's a total load of roughly 1.062× base salary, about $6,219 above the quoted salary, before any recruitment fee or equipment budget.
Yes, for CPP and CPP2 the employer matches the employee rate exactly, dollar for dollar: 5.95% on earnings between the basic exemption and the $74,600 YMPE, plus 4% on earnings between the YMPE and the $85,000 YAMPE. EI is the exception: the employer premium is set at 1.4x the employee rate by law, not a 1:1 match, so 1.63% employee becomes 2.28% employer.
No, and this is the detail most first-time employers miss. EHT is levied on your business's TOTAL Ontario payroll, not per employee, and only once that total crosses the $1,000,000 exemption (locked in through 2029). A small business well under that threshold pays no EHT at all. Once you're over it, the 1.95% rate applies to every dollar of payroll above the exemption, and employers in an associated group with combined payroll above $5,000,000 lose the exemption entirely.
CPP2 only applies to the slice of pensionable earnings between the YMPE ($74,600 for 2026) and the YAMPE ($85,000). Any salary at or below the YMPE owes no CPP2 at all, which is why it disappears from the breakdown for salaries under roughly $75,000.
Agency placement fees in Canada typically run 15-20% of the first year's gross salary for permanent tech roles, sometimes higher for senior or specialized searches. This is a one-time Year 1 cost, shown separately from the ongoing annual cost of employment.
Ontario's baseline CPP/CPP2/EI load is broadly comparable to the US employer's FICA match (7.65%) before either country's state/provincial-level taxes are added. The structural difference is EHT: unlike the UK's uncapped Employer National Insurance (15% above the Secondary Threshold on every employee) or most US state unemployment taxes, Ontario's EHT only applies once a company's total payroll crosses $1M, so small employers in Ontario can have a genuinely lower total load than similarly-sized employers in the UK.
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