Payroll services in Calgary
Alberta charges no provincial payroll tax, which makes a Calgary payroll structurally simpler than the same payroll in Toronto or Vancouver. What it does not make simpler is the general holiday calculation, which uses a formula Alberta shares with nobody. EverStone runs payroll for Calgary businesses remotely.
Quick answer: Alberta levies no employer payroll health tax, so a Calgary employer’s statutory costs are CPP, EI and WCB-Alberta premiums. Alberta general holiday pay is at least 4.2% of wages, vacation pay and general holiday pay earned in the four weeks immediately before the holiday. Payroll is included in monthly bookkeeping from $325 a month.
Payroll for Calgary employers is part of our monthly package, which starts from $325 a month with the bookkeeping and GST/PST filings included.
On this page
What Alberta does not charge, and what that is worth
Alberta levies no employer payroll health tax of the kind British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador impose. For a Calgary employer, the statutory cost of employing someone is federal: CPP and EI, employee and employer sides, plus workers’ compensation premiums. Nothing provincial is layered on top of the wage bill.
That absence is worth quantifying. A British Columbia employer with $2,000,000 of remuneration pays employer health tax at 1.95% on the entire amount; the same payroll in Calgary pays no provincial equivalent. For a company deciding where to place a growing team, or already operating in several provinces, that is a real recurring cost. Both sides are tabled on the Alberta tax facts page and the BC equivalent.
General holiday pay: Alberta’s 4.2% formula
Holidays are where Alberta is not simpler: nine general holidays, plus four optional days an employer may adopt. General holiday pay for a general employee is at least 4.2% of the wages, vacation pay and general holiday pay earned in the four weeks immediately preceding the general holiday. The base includes vacation pay and prior holiday pay, so a holiday soon after another uses a slightly larger base.
This differs from the average day’s pay used in British Columbia and Ontario’s divide-by-twenty formula, and a national payroll template can silently get it wrong. Employers with rotating shifts, camp schedules or project-driven staffing must compute it, not approximate it. Optional holidays need a stated policy, not a decision made the week of the day.
WCB-Alberta and the cyclical payroll
Workers’ compensation in Alberta is administered by WCB-Alberta, with premiums set by industry classification and charged on assessable earnings. Registration and reporting are separate from your CRA accounts entirely.
The other feature of a Calgary payroll worth planning for is volatility. Energy services, engineering, construction and the businesses that supply them expand and contract on project timelines. Each contraction produces a batch of records of employment with insurable hours and earnings reported by pay period. Employers who keep clean pay-period records produce them in an afternoon; employers who do not spend a week reconstructing them while also managing the layoff itself. Variable compensation compounds the same problem, since bonuses and retroactive increases have their own withholding method rather than following the ordinary periodic tables.
What the engagement covers
- Pay runs with Alberta tax tables applied to Alberta employees
- Income tax, CPP and EI withheld and remitted on your assigned CRA schedule
- General holiday pay calculated on the Alberta 4.2% basis, including optional-holiday policy
- Vacation pay accrued and tracked as a liability
- WCB-Alberta registration support and assessable earnings reporting
- Records of employment produced from pay-period records, including layoff batches
- T4 and T4A slips and summaries filed by the last day of February
Remote, with no office visits
EverStone is a sole practitioner CPA firm that works online. There is no Calgary office to visit. Payroll travels well remotely because the inputs are data and the outputs are documents. One accountant holds the file from the first remittance through to the February slips. The deduction calculator is there if you want to check a single cheque before you call.
Who this suits, and who it does not
This is for a Calgary employer with a core staff that grows and shrinks with project work: an engineering consultancy, an oilfield services contractor, a construction firm or the supplier behind them. You want general holiday pay worked on Alberta’s formula, layoff ROEs produced quickly and T4s that match the ledger. A large unionized workforce on shift-scheduling software needs a dedicated payroll platform instead, and we will say so at the first call.
Project payrolls swing with contract timing, so the remittances belong on forecasting the cash it needs.
Prepared and reviewed by a Chartered Professional Accountant at EverStone CPA, a CPA firm working with small businesses and incorporated contractors in BC, Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba. Updated . About the firm · Send an enquiry
Payroll obligations for a Calgary employer
| Obligation | What it involves |
|---|---|
| Source deductions | CPP, EI and income tax withheld from each pay |
| Remittance | Due on the schedule the CRA assigns to your payroll account |
| T4 slips and summary | Filed after the calendar year end |
| Provincial payroll tax (Alberta) | None — Alberta levies no provincial payroll tax |
| Sales tax where you operate | 5% GST only. Alberta levies no provincial sales tax |
Source: Alberta tax facts. General information, not advice.
In Calgary, EverStone also works with farms and trucking firms.
Free tools for Calgary businesses: remittance calculator.
What happens when you get in touch
Alberta payroll has no provincial tax layer, which makes the first month simpler than most.
- A free thirty-minute conversation. What you do, what is filed and what is overdue. You leave with a fixed fee in writing and no obligation to take it.
- Access, in the first week. We are authorized with the CRA, so notices and balances get looked up rather than requested from you. If you are switching firms, your file is requested the same week.
- Current, then ahead. Books set up or brought current, anything overdue scheduled oldest year first, and the next twelve months of deadlines set before they arrive.
Send an enquiry, or ask one question first — both go to a CPA, not a queue.
Calgary payroll questions
Does Alberta charge an employer health tax?+
How is general holiday pay calculated in Alberta?+
How many general holidays does Alberta have?+
Can we use the same holiday pay formula across provinces?+
Who administers workers’ compensation in Alberta?+
Does EverStone have a Calgary office?+
Alberta payroll, handled remotely
Deductions, WCB reporting and general holiday pay calculated correctly by a CPA. Send an enquiry.
“…We switched to him last year for both our personal and small-business taxes — responsive, knowledgeable and quick.”
Related services and local guides
Nearby cities, the rest of what we do for Calgary businesses, and the reference pages behind this one.
Starting fees
Every fee is fixed in writing before any work begins.
- Payroll, remittances, T4s and ROEsincluded in monthly bookkeepingThis page
- Monthly bookkeeping, GST filing includedfrom $325 a month
- Books, payroll and the year-end T2 together$500–$700 a month
- Corporate year-end and T2 returnfixed fee, quoted in writing
- Personal tax return (T1)from $125; self-employed or rental $275–$500
- Catch-up bookkeepingfrom $2,200 per year of records
- Controller or CFO supportcontroller from $1,650, CFO from $2,750 a month
- One-off advice call with a CPA$225 plus GST
