The gap between what a shift pays and what actually lands in your account is roughly the size of a coffee and a snack every week, which over a semester is a textbook. Most students have never added it up, partly because reading a pay stub is miserable.
This tool does the addition for an Ontario part-time job. Give it your hourly wage, how many hours you work a week and how many weeks you work in a month, and it works through federal tax, Ontario tax, CPP and EI to show the net weekly and monthly figures. It is an estimate with 2024 rates, not a promise, and the note under the results says so.
Estimate your weekly and monthly take-home pay after Ontario taxes. Built for students working part-time.
How the calculation works
Hours times wage gives a gross weekly figure, and the tool multiplies that by 52 to get an annual salary. From there it stacks four deductions in the order the payroll system does.
First the basic personal amount, a round $15,000 here, comes off before any income tax is charged. Then federal tax runs at 15% on the first slice of taxable income, 20.5% on the next and 26% above that. Ontario tax follows the same shape at 5.05% then 9.15%. CPP is 5.95% on income above a $3,500 exemption, and EI is 1.66% on the gross, both with annual caps so high earners stop paying past the ceiling.
Those last two are the part that surprises people, because they apply whether or not any income tax is owed. Subtract all four from the annual figure and divide by 52 for the weekly answer and by 12 for the monthly one.
Two real paychecks
Take a campus job at $17.20 an hour for 15 hours a week. Gross weekly is $258.00 and annual gross is $13,416. Under the $15,000 basic personal amount, so federal and Ontario tax are both $0.00. CPP comes to $590.00 and EI to $222.71, which is $812.71 off the year. Net weekly: $242.37. You keep about 94% of it, and the entire bite is CPP and EI.
Now more hours: $22.00 an hour for 30 hours a week is $660 gross weekly and $34,320 a year. Taxable income drops to $19,320, federal tax is $2,898.00, Ontario tax $975.66, CPP $1,833.79 and EI $569.71. Net weekly comes out at $539.29, monthly at $2,336.90, and the keep rate falls to about 82%. That drop is what moving from a small campus job to near full-time hours actually looks like.
What this does not model
Plenty, and it is better to list it than to pretend otherwise. There is no claim code, no Canada Employment Amount, no tuition or education credits, no Ontario health premium and no surtax. Student status does not lower your tax rate, so none of that is hiding in the background either. If you have two jobs, each employer calculates tax as if that job is your only income and you can end up owing at the end of the year.
There is also an inconsistency worth naming: gross monthly is weekly pay times your weeks-per-month figure, which defaults to 4, while net monthly is annual net divided by 12. A real month is 4.33 weeks, so the gross monthly line is a little optimistic over a year. Compare weekly to weekly and you are on solid ground.
The rates are 2024 figures and they move. Check your actual pay stub, and for anything with real money riding on it, the Canada Revenue Agency’s published brackets and your employer’s payroll department are the sources that count. This is a planning estimate, not tax advice.
Other tools
- Pay period calculator — work out which dates each cheque covers
- Procrastination hours — what the hours not spent working are costing
- Screen time budget — the hours competing with the shift you just planned
Frequently asked questions
Is this accurate for a part-time student?
It is accurate for the shape of the numbers and rough at the edges. The four deduction lines are calculated the way payroll calculates them, but a real stub includes your claim code, employer-specific items and any credits you are entitled to. Expect the real figure to land close, not identical.
Do students pay less tax?
Not on employment income. Wages are taxed at the same rates for everyone, and being enrolled does not create a discount. What can reduce what you owe later is tuition and other credits claimed on your return, which this tool does not include. Scholarships and bursaries have their own rules, and CRA publishes what qualifies.
Why is my take-home higher than this says?
Usually hours or timing. If you are under the basic personal amount you should be paying no income tax at all, only CPP and EI, so a stub with tax on it is worth checking against your claim code. Overtime, tips and a second job all shift the answer too.
Why does gross monthly use 4 weeks?
Because the weeks-per-month field defaults to 4 and feeds the gross figure. The net monthly line comes from dividing annual net by 12 instead, which is the more accurate route. Over a year the difference is about two weeks of pay in the gross column, so treat the weekly figures as the ones to budget with.
Does CPP start from the first dollar?
No. The first $3,500 of income is exempt, so contributions start above that, and the rate here is 5.95% with an annual cap. CPP also only applies once you are 18, while EI applies to most employees from the start of the job.