Quick answer: The 2027 CPP and EI figures have not been published — the CRA and ESDC set the new ceilings and rates late in the prior year, and this page will carry them the day they land. Until then, the 2026 maximums apply for the rest of 2026, and nothing about 2027 should be assumed from them: the ceilings are recalculated for each calendar year.
What is already known about the 2027 CPP and EI rates
The structure. CPP contributions apply up to the year’s maximum pensionable earnings (YMPE), with the second ceiling (YAMPE) above it for CPP2, and EI premiums apply on insurable earnings up to that year’s maximum. Those mechanics carry into 2027 — the dollar figures attached to them do not exist yet.
What resets each January
The ceilings and the resulting maximum contributions are calendar-year figures. Payroll that straddles the new year picks up the new limits from the first pay of January, which is why every “max CPP” figure you rely on needs a year attached to it. The current-year figures, each with its CRA citation, live on the payroll quick card.
How to hear the moment it changes
The new limits arrive as one announcement, and payroll needs them immediately. The deadline reminder list sends a short note when figures like these land — one email, the numbers and the source, nothing else.
General information, not tax advice. Every situation differs — confirm anything that affects a decision on a free consult.
Why the 2027 figures matter before 2027 arrives
A wage bill quoted in the autumn is paid in the new year, and the employer’s share of CPP and EI moves with the January reset. For a business budgeting a hire, or quoting a fixed-price contract that runs across the year end, the current year’s figures are the wrong ones to plan on.
The employer cost of a salary is not the salary. On top of the wage sit the employer half of CPP, the employer share of EI at 1.4 times the employee rate, the second CPP contribution on earnings in the CPP2 band, and workers’ compensation premiums set by industry. A rise in the maximum pensionable earnings raises the ceiling on all of it, so the increase reaches every employee paid above the old maximum rather than only new hires.
What an owner-manager should do with the numbers
Two decisions turn on them directly. The first is the salary-and-dividend mix: CPP is payable on salary and not on dividends, so the contribution ceiling is one of the real costs of paying yourself a wage, and it is also what buys the pension entitlement. The second is the timing of a bonus, because a bonus paid in January contributes against the new year’s ceiling rather than exhausting the old one.
Neither decision needs to wait for the final figures. The direction of travel is set by the year-over-year change in average weekly earnings, and both the maximum pensionable earnings and the EI maximum insurable earnings have moved in the same direction every year for a decade. Planning on last year’s numbers is what produces a January surprise.