The Canada Revenue Agency's annual reset of Canada Pension Plan, CPP2 and Employment Insurance figures took effect on January 1, 2026 — eight months ago. Most businesses updated their payroll systems in January and haven't looked at these numbers since. That's normally fine, but heading into Q4, with T4 and T4 Summary filing due by the end of February 2027, it's a reasonable moment for a quick reconciliation check: are the 2026 figures still the ones actually being applied, for every employee, all year?
This isn't a warning that anything has changed since January — nothing has. It's a checkpoint, because the two most common payroll errors involving CPP2 and EI don't surface at the start of the year; they surface at T4 time, when year-to-date totals don't reconcile against what should have been deducted.
The 2026 figures, for reference
Nothing below is new. These are the same CPP, CPP2 and EI figures that took effect January 1, 2026 and have applied to every pay run since.
| Deduction | 2026 rate | Earnings band | Max contribution (each side) |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPP (base + first additional) | 5.95% | $3,500 exemption up to $74,600 (YMPE) | $4,230.45 |
| CPP2 (second additional) | 4.00% | $74,600 up to $85,000 (YAMPE) | $416.00 |
| EI | 1.63% | $0 up to $68,900 (MIE) | $1,123.07 (employee); $1,572.30 (employer, 1.4×) |
*Source: Canada Revenue Agency — CPP contribution rates, maximums and exemptions and Canada Revenue Agency — EI premium rates and maximums. Full mechanics: our CPP, CPP2 and EI explained guide.
A fully maxed-out 2026 employee pays $4,230.45 (CPP) + $416.00 (CPP2) + $1,123.07 (EI) = $5,769.52 across the three statutory deductions; the employer pays $4,230.45 + $416.00 + $1,572.30 = $6,218.75 per employee.
Where the Q4 check actually matters
The figures above are the ones every payroll system should already be applying. The errors worth catching now are almost always about which employees those figures were applied to correctly, not whether the numbers themselves are right.
Employees hired mid-year. CPP, CPP2 and EI ceilings reset per employer, not per employee across jobs — so an employee who joined your payroll in March or June has their own $74,600 YMPE, $85,000 YAMPE, and $68,900 EI ceiling counted from their first pay cheque with you, regardless of what a previous employer already withheld this year. If a new hire's start-of-year deductions were configured off a prior pay stub instead of your own payroll system's fresh count, year-to-date totals can be off by Q4.
High earners crossing the CPP2 band. CPP2 only applies between the YMPE and the YAMPE, and it stops the moment year-to-date pensionable earnings cross $85,000 — a different stop-point than base CPP, which stops at $74,600. Any employee who received a raise, bonus, or commission payout this year that pushed them past $74,600 for the first time should now be seeing a CPP2 line on their pay stub (T4 Box 16A, separate from CPP's Box 16). If that line isn't there for an employee who's clearly over the threshold by Q4, that's worth catching now rather than in February.
EI maximum insurable earnings. At $68,900, EI premiums should stop for any employee once their insurable earnings cross that figure for the year — a lower ceiling than either CPP threshold, so it's reached earlier in the year for a high earner. Continuing to deduct EI premiums past $68,900 over-collects from the employee, which then needs to be refunded.
Don't confuse this with the 2027 CPP rate cut
Separately from anything above, the CPP base contribution rate is legislated to fall from 9.9% to 9.5% combined (4.95%/4.95% to 4.75%/4.75% per side) — but not until January 1, 2027. Nothing about that change touches 2026 payroll; the 5.95% combined CPP rate on earnings up to the YMPE stays exactly as shown in the table above for the rest of this year. See our CPP base rate cut explainer for what changes (and doesn't) once 2027 arrives — it's a separate event from the Q4 check this post is about.
The provincial layer on top
CPP, CPP2 and EI are federal and identical everywhere outside Quebec, but the total statutory payroll cost stack differs by province. Alberta has no employer health tax or provincial payroll tax layered on top of these federal figures. British Columbia employers above the $1,000,000 payroll exemption also owe Employer Health Tax — a notch rate of 5.85% on payroll between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000, and 1.95% on the whole payroll above $1,500,000. A Q4 payroll cost review should confirm both the federal figures above and, for BC employers, that EHT instalments reflect current-year payroll growth rather than last year's estimate.
A Q4 checklist
- Spot-check three or four employees' year-to-date CPP, CPP2 and EI totals against what $74,600, $85,000 and $68,900 would produce at their pay frequency and salary — a fast way to catch a misconfigured ceiling before T4 season does it for you.
- Confirm every mid-year hire's deductions started from zero on your payroll system, not carried over from a previous employer's year-to-date figures.
- Verify CPP2 is showing separately from base CPP on pay stubs for any employee who crossed $74,600 this year — T4 reporting requires Box 16 and Box 16A separately.
- Check no employee is still having EI deducted past $68,900 in insurable earnings for the year.
- BC employers: confirm EHT instalments reflect actual 2026 payroll growth, not a flat carry-forward of last year's estimate.
Key takeaways
- The 2026 CPP, CPP2 and EI figures took effect January 1, 2026 and are unchanged since — $74,600 YMPE, $85,000 YAMPE, $68,900 EI maximum insurable earnings, at 5.95%, 4.00% and 1.63% respectively.
- The most common errors surface at Q4/T4 time, not in January — mid-year hires with carried-over ceilings, high earners missing a CPP2 line, and EI deducted past the $68,900 maximum.
- The CPP base rate cut to 9.5% is a 2027 change, not a 2026 one — no action needed on current payroll for it.
- BC employers should pair this check with an EHT instalment review; Alberta has no equivalent provincial layer.
- A 15-minute spot-check now is cheaper than a T4-season reconciliation in February 2027.
RN Canada runs payroll and payroll-tax compliance for owner-managed businesses across Alberta and British Columbia, including CPP, CPP2 and EI calculation, remittance, and T4 preparation. If a Q4 spot-check turns up a discrepancy, or you'd rather have it checked than check it yourself, our bookkeeping and payroll team can review your setup before year-end.