CCQ pay stub: how to read every line of a Québec construction pay stub (2026)

Gross pay, the 13%, the taxable benefit, QPP, income taxes, pension, insurance, the CCQ levy: what every line of a Québec construction pay stub means.

A journeyperson electrician works 40 hours at $50.79 in the institutional and commercial sector. The pay stub shows gross pay of $2,295.71. The deposit is $1,069.50. In between sit a dozen lines — and two of them puzzle almost everyone: a 13% indemnity that is on the stub but not in the cheque, and a “taxable benefit” that is paid to no one.

This guide walks through that stub line by line: what each amount means, how it is calculated in 2026, and how to check your own in a few minutes. It is written for the worker who wants to understand a pay, and for the employer who prepares it.

What a pay stub must contain

In Québec construction, the content of the pay stub is not left to the employer: the collective agreement lists it. The institutional and commercial agreement requires fifteen items, handed over with every payment, the same day, in French:

• Who pays and who is paid: the employer's name and address; the employee's surname and given name, with a social insurance number or CCQ client number.
• The period: the payment date and the work period it covers.
• Hours and rate: hours at the regular rate, hours at a premium rate, the hourly rate.
• The amounts: gross wages, annual vacation indemnities, the safety equipment allowance, the nature and amount of each deduction — union dues included — and net pay.
• The employer's numbers: its CCQ registration number and its Régie du bâtiment licence number.
• Year-to-date figures: the detailed cumulative total of every amount, and the hours worked so far this year.

The employee chooses to receive it on paper or by email. If one of these items is missing from your stub, that is a question for your employer.

The top of the stub: what you earned

Here is the example — fictitious, but calculated with the 2026 rates:

Gross pay is therefore not “hours times rate”: it already contains the 13%. The last two lines are not part of gross pay, and each does the opposite of the other.

The 13%: on the stub, not in the cheque

Every week the employer credits the employee with 13% of wages: 6% for annual vacation, 5.5% for statutory holidays and 1.5% for sick leave. That money does not go into the week's pay. The employer remits it to the CCQ every month, and the CCQ pays it to the employee twice a year: at the end of June for amounts credited from July to December of the previous year, and at the end of November for amounts credited from January to June.

The surprise is that this 13% is taxed right away. Revenu Québec and the Canada Revenue Agency both ask the employer to make source deductions on these amounts as if they had been paid directly to the employee. So the 13% goes into gross pay, counts for QPP (the RRQ), employment insurance, QPIP (the RQAP) and both income taxes — then comes back out further down, on a deduction line, since it goes to the CCQ.

The taxable benefit: taxed, never paid

The employer contributes to the industry's group insurance for each employee. Part of that contribution is a benefit in the eyes of the tax authorities: the CCQ explains that its value must be added to wages to calculate income tax, and publishes the hourly amount by trade and by sector.

The two governments do not treat it the same way:

• In Québec, life insurance and health insurance are both taxable, and the employer must take the benefit into account in source deductions on every pay. At year end the CCQ gives the employee an RL-22 slip that adjusts the actual amount.
• Federally, only life insurance is taxable, and the employer does not have to take it into account in source deductions. The CCQ gives the employee a T4A slip.

On the stub, this benefit is neither paid nor deducted: it only widens the base used for QPP and Québec income tax. That is why Québec income tax can look high compared with the gross pay shown.

The deductions, line by line

Still for our electrician, on the first pay of the year:

Net pay is gross pay, plus the equipment allowance, less the deductions: $2,295.71 + $32.00 − $1,258.21 = $1,069.50.

Five notes on this table:

• Union dues are not in it. They depend on your union and appear on your stub as one more deduction. Most often they are a share of your hourly rate taken once a week, plus a few cents per hour worked: “50% of one hour worked + $0.035 per hour”, for example.
• The employee's pension contribution varies a lot. $5.165 an hour is the rate of a journeyperson electrician in this sector: 9% of the wage plus the 13%. The agreements set a base rate of $0.80, but nearly every trade has its own, and it changes with the apprenticeship period and the sector. Pension explains most of the gaps between two stubs at the same wage.
• Where to find your own rates. The CCQ wage rate tool gives, for a date, a sector, a trade and a skill level, the employee's share of pension and insurance, the taxable benefit and each union's dues.
• The sector contribution of $0.02 is deducted from the employee in institutional and commercial, industrial, and civil engineering. In residential, the employer pays it.
• Other deductions may be added depending on your situation: an RRSP, shares in a labour-sponsored fund, extra tax you asked for, a wage garnishment.

Why net pay changes during the year

Three deductions stop once you reach their annual maximum. From that point your net pay goes up, even though your wages have not changed:

Conversely, a new line appears during the year for anyone earning more than $74,600: the second QPP contribution. Your stub must show the year-to-date total of every amount; that is how you can see where you stand.

Checking your stub in five minutes

• Hours and rate. Compare the hours with your timesheet, and the rate with the one for your trade, your class and your sector.
• The 13%. It must equal 13% of wages, and reappear for the same amount in the deductions.
• Employment insurance and QPIP. 1.30% and 0.430% of gross pay — gross pay that includes the 13%.
• The CCQ levy. 0.75% of gross pay.
• Pension and insurance. An amount per hour worked: divide the deduction by your hours, and compare the result with your trade's rate in the CCQ wage rate tool.
• Year-to-date figures. They must go up from one pay to the next by exactly the amount of the pay.

The two income taxes are harder to check by hand: they depend on the amounts you claimed on your TD1 and TP-1015.3 forms. Both governments offer an online calculator to work them out again.

And on the employer's side

This stub shows only half the story. For the same week the employer also pays its share of QPP, employment insurance and QPIP, the health services fund, the CNESST, $5.21 an hour to the pension plan, the trade's insurance and its tax. The hour paid $50.79 costs the employer a little over $75. The detail is in CCQ wage rates 2026: wages and real cost, and the Real cost of a CCQ worker tool redoes the calculation for your trade.

The BatiCore team

We build BatiCore, management software for Québec construction contractors — estimates, job sites, CCQ payroll, compliance. Our articles cite dated public sources; when a fact comes from a regulator or a competitor, we say which one and when. Spotted an error? Write to us, we fix it.