Statutory Holidays and Vacation Pay in Nova Scotia: A Complete Guide

Nova Scotia has only 6 paid general holidays under the Labour Standards Code, but a separate Retail Business Designated Day Closing Act adds 3 more mandatory retail closing days, and Remembrance Day runs under its own Act entirely outside both lists.

Information last verified on 2026-09-25. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

This article covers general holidays, retail closing law, and vacation entitlement under Nova Scotia's Labour Standards Code, RSNS 1989, c 246, the Retail Business Designated Day Closing Act, SNS 2007, c 32, and the Remembrance Day Act, RSNS 1989, c 396. It does not cover federally regulated workplaces, which follow the Canada Labour Code instead, or Nova Scotia's minimum wage rate; see Minimum Wage in Canada for that. For the general employment standards hub, see Canada Employment Law. For how Nova Scotia's holidays compare across the rest of Canada, see Statutory Holidays in Canada.

The 6 General Holidays in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia's Labour Standards Code defines a general holiday directly. Section 2(ga) states:

"general holiday" means New Year's Day, Good Friday, Canada Day, Labour Day, Christmas Day, the third Monday in February and a day specified as a general holiday in a regulation, and includes any day substituted for one of those days pursuant to Section 39.

The Act itself does not name the third Monday in February holiday. The government's own holiday chart supplies the name: Nova Scotia Heritage Day. Remembrance Day is not part of this list; it is governed entirely by its own separate Act, covered later in this article.

What Is Not a Statutory Holiday in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia's own holiday chart states plainly that some commonly recognized days carry no legal weight at all:

Some days, such as Easter Monday, Victoria Day, and Natal Day, are commonly recognized as holidays but are not paid general holidays under the Nova Scotia Labour Standards Code or retail closing days.

Retail businesses are free to open on these three days, and employees who have the right to refuse to work on retail closing days do not have that right on these days. An employer may still choose to grant a paid day off for any of them, and the Labour Standards Division may enforce that agreement if the employer makes one, but there is no statutory entitlement behind it. For how Easter Monday is treated elsewhere in Canada, see Is Easter Monday a Stat Holiday.

Three Separate Lists, Not One

Nova Scotia's holiday law runs three distinct regimes, not one list with a few extras. A page or calculator that treats paid holidays and closing days as the same thing will be wrong on three specific days.

1. The 6 paid general holidays under the Labour Standards Code, listed above.
2. The 9 designated retail closing days under the Retail Business Designated Day Closing Act, SNS 2007, c 32, section 2(a): Boxing Day, Canada Day, Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, Good Friday, Labour Day, New Year's Day, Thanksgiving Day, and the third Monday in February. This adds Boxing Day, Easter Sunday, and Thanksgiving Day to the 6 paid holidays; those three days are mandatory retail closures but not paid days off. See Is Boxing Day a Stat Holiday for how Boxing Day is treated across Canada.
3. Remembrance Day, governed by its own Act with a broader, non retail specific closing rule, covered separately below.

Retail Closing Law: The Designated Day Closing Act

On each of the 9 designated days, the default rule is a full closure, not a scheduling restriction. Section 3(1) states:

no person shall, on a designated day, (a) sell, offer for sale or purchase any goods or services by retail; or (b) admit the public into any premises where a retail business is carried on.

That is a stricter default than the narrower Remembrance Day only closing window used in some other provinces. Two blocks of exceptions soften it. Section 3(2) exempts specific activities regardless of the retailer, including drug stores outside large stores, farm gate produce sales, gas stations, restaurants, and hospitality services. Section 3(3) separately exempts specific store types outright, including a grocery store whose retail sales area is never greater than 4,000 square feet (unless that criterion is changed by regulation), a confectionery, and a handful of other small format retailers.

Section 3(5) closes a loophole: two or more small grocery stores under common ownership in the same building or nearby are treated as one store for the size exemption, so a large retailer cannot split into adjoining small stores to qualify.

The penalty is steep. Section 8(1) sets a fine not exceeding the greater of fifty thousand dollars or the retail business's gross sales on the designated day the violation occurred, so a large retailer's exposure scales with its own sales that day.

Who Qualifies for General Holiday Pay

Section 42 sets a two part test:

An employee shall be entitled to be paid for a general holiday if (a) he has received or is entitled to receive pay for at least fifteen days during the thirty calendar days immediately preceding the general holiday; and (b) he has worked on his scheduled working day immediately preceding and immediately following the holiday.

The second part does not apply if the employer directed the employee not to report for work on the surrounding scheduled day. A continuous operation employee who is called in but fails to report loses entitlement under section 42(3). If employment ends before an agreed substitute day is taken, the employer must still pay for that day under section 42(4).

How Holiday Pay Is Calculated

Nova Scotia does not use a percentage of trailing wages formula the way some other provinces do. Section 40 sets three tiers by how the employee is normally paid:

• Weekly or monthly paid employees: the employer cannot reduce that week's or month's wages just because a general holiday fell in it.
• Daily or hourly paid employees: at least the regular rate for their normal hours of work.
• Any other wage basis: at least the regular rate for a normal working day.

There is no 30 day averaging window in the pay formula itself. The 30 day count in section 42 measures only whether an employee qualifies for holiday pay at all, not how that pay is calculated once they do.

Working on a General Holiday

Section 41(2) sets the default stacking rule:

an employer of an employee who is required to work on a day on which he is entitled ... to a holiday with pay shall pay that employee an amount equal to the amount he would otherwise have received for that holiday and at a rate at least equal to one and one-half times his regular rate of wages for the time worked.

Time and a half for the hours worked stacks on top of the holiday pay itself; it does not replace it.

A continuous operation employer has a second option under section 41(3): instead of the 1.5 times premium, the employer may grant a substitute paid holiday on the working day following the employee's vacation, or another agreed day, and pay for it under the section 40 formula above. Continuous operation is broadly defined at section 41(1) to include a business that runs without regard to Sundays or public holidays, trucking, and telecommunications operations, not just factories that never stop.

When a Holiday Falls on a Non-Working Day

Section 38 covers a holiday landing on a day the employee was not scheduled to work. The employer must grant a holiday with pay on either the working day immediately following the general holiday, the day after the employee's vacation, or another day both agree on.

Substituting Another Day for a General Holiday

Section 39 allows an employer to substitute a different day for a general holiday two ways. Where a unionized workforce is involved, the parties to a collective agreement notify the Director in writing of the substitute day. Where there is no union, the employer applies to the Director, who may approve the substitution only if satisfied that a majority of affected employees concur. That Director approval requirement is a heavier process than a written agreement alone.

Remembrance Day in Nova Scotia

Remembrance Day sits outside both the Labour Standards Code and the Designated Day Closing Act. The Remembrance Day Act, RSNS 1989, c 396, imposes a general industry prohibition, not a retail only rule. Section 3 states:

no person shall, on Remembrance Day, (a) sell, offer for sale or purchase any goods or real property; or (b) for gain or reward engage as employer or employee in any industry.

Industry is defined broadly as a business, trade or profession, with five exclusions in section 2(e): farming; fishing and aquaculture; Christmas tree operations; tree harvesting, logging and forest industry as defined by the Labour Standards Code; and industrial undertakings as defined by the Labour Standards Code. Work in those excluded operations falls outside the industry closure and outside the section 6 substitute-day right, which applies to an employee in an industry. Section 4 lists 19 activity specific exceptions, including hospitals, child care facilities, service stations, the hospitality industry, and a small shop exemption for any shop with no more than three people operating it at a time.

Section 5 goes further than the industry closure itself: alcohol sales and performances are additionally banned until noon.

If a qualifying employee is required to work, section 6 gives them a substitute paid day off on the working day after their annual vacation, or another day the employee and employer agree on, not a cash premium, using the same 15 of 30 days test as the general holiday rule. Section 7 requires a three minute suspension of operations at one minute before eleven in the morning. Penalties under section 9 run up to $1,000 for an individual and $15,000 for an employer who authorizes a violation, well below the Designated Day Closing Act's penalty scale.

The two closing Acts do not cancel each other out. Section 5(3) of the Designated Day Closing Act provides that nothing in that Act empowers a municipality to permit an industry to operate on Remembrance Day in contravention of the Remembrance Day Act, and nothing in the Remembrance Day Act permits a retail business to operate in contravention of the Designated Day Closing Act. For how Remembrance Day is treated in other provinces, see Is Remembrance Day a Stat Holiday.

Vacation Time and Vacation Pay

Section 32(1) of the Labour Standards Code sets both vacation time and vacation pay. On vacation time, paragraph (a) entitles an employee to an unbroken vacation of at least two weeks, rising to at least three weeks once the employee has worked for the employer for more than eight years. On vacation pay, paragraph (c) sets the rate at at least 4 percent of wages, rising to at least 6 percent once the employee has worked for more than eight years. Paragraph (c) applies that rate to the employee's wages for the twelve month period during which the right to vacation was established, and requires the employer to pay it at least one day before the vacation begins. Paragraph (a) requires the employer to give the vacation no later than ten months after the twelve month period ends, and paragraph (b) requires at least one week's notice of the date the vacation begins.

Both the time increase and the pay increase in section 32 use the identical phrase, more than eight years. On the statute's own text, the 3 week entitlement and the 6 percent rate arrive at the same point in an employee's service, with no gap between them.

Nova Scotia's own plain language guidance describes the 6 percent rate differently. It says vacation pay rises to 6 percent at the start of an employee's eighth year of service, after completing 7 years, a full year earlier than the statute's more than eight years text supports. That guidance is more generous to employees than the Code strictly requires, so following it carries no compliance risk for an employer. But it is not what the Labour Standards Code itself says. This article states the statute's more than eight years threshold as the legal minimum for both increases, while flagging that the government's own guidance describes the 6 percent rate starting a year sooner.

Vacation Pay When Employment Ends

Section 34 applies when employment ends and the employee is not entitled to a vacation with pay or pay in lieu of a vacation under sections 32 and 33. The employer must pay, within ten days after the employment terminates, at least 4 percent, or 6 percent where the employee has been employed for more than eight years, of the employee's wages during the time they were employed. For the broader rules on what an employer owes on a final paycheque in Nova Scotia, see Final Paycheck Deadlines in Canada, and for what is owed on top of that when a job is terminated, see Nova Scotia Severance Pay.

Complaint Deadlines

Nova Scotia uses a single six month window for both vacation pay and general holiday wage complaints, a simpler structure than a split filing and recovery period. Section 81 states:

Where, within the preceding six months, an employer has failed or refused to pay an employee any pay earned by or becoming due and payable to an employee in accordance with Sections 21, 32, 33, 34, 58, 60D, 71, 79, 79A and 80 ..., the employee may make a complaint to the Director.

A general holiday complaint under section 43 is folded into this same section 81 process once it alleges unpaid pay. The Director's own order making power is separately capped at six months under section 21(3D), so both the filing deadline and the Director's authority point to the same six month period in practice. A person against whom the Director makes an order may appeal to the Labour Standards Board within ten days of service.

2026 Dates

The Nova Scotia government's own tables give the 2026 dates below. As of this writing, 2027 dates have not yet been published.

Paid general holidays:

Designated retail closing days:

Disclaimer: This article provides general information about statutory holidays, retail closing law, and vacation entitlement under Nova Scotia's Labour Standards Code, RSNS 1989, c 246, the Retail Business Designated Day Closing Act, SNS 2007, c 32, and the Remembrance Day Act, RSNS 1989, c 396, current as of September 2026. It is not legal advice and does not cover every exemption in those Acts. Consult the Province of Nova Scotia or a lawyer licensed in Nova Scotia for advice on your specific situation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many statutory holidays does Nova Scotia have?

Nova Scotia has 6 paid general holidays under the Labour Standards Code: New Year's Day, Nova Scotia Heritage Day, Good Friday, Canada Day, Labour Day, and Christmas Day.

Is Boxing Day a stat holiday in Nova Scotia?

No. Boxing Day is a mandatory retail closing day under the Retail Business Designated Day Closing Act, but it is not one of the 6 paid general holidays under the Labour Standards Code, so there is no paid holiday entitlement tied to it.

Do I qualify for holiday pay if I just started my job in Nova Scotia?

You need to have received pay for at least 15 of the 30 calendar days before the holiday and to have worked your scheduled shifts immediately before and after it, unless your employer directed you not to report on one of those days.

How is holiday pay calculated in Nova Scotia?

There is no percentage of wages formula. Weekly or monthly paid employees keep their normal wages for the week or month the holiday falls in. Daily or hourly paid employees get their regular rate for a normal day or week worked, and other wage bases get the regular rate for a normal working day.

Does Remembrance Day give Nova Scotia employees a paid day off?

Employees required to work on Remembrance Day get a substitute paid day off after their annual vacation or on another agreed day, not extra pay for that day, under the Remembrance Day Act, provided they meet the same 15 of 30 days test used for general holidays.

How much vacation pay am I owed in Nova Scotia?

The Labour Standards Code sets vacation pay at at least 4 percent of wages, rising to at least 6 percent once you have worked more than 8 years for the employer. The government's own guidance describes the 6 percent rate starting a year earlier, after 7 years, which is more generous than the statute's text but not what the Code itself states.