Skip to main content
Tiercord
Start free

The Tiercord guides Canadian construction law

Construction prompt payment laws in Canada

Understand the deadlines, documents and disputes that shape a construction payment. Start with a topic, then find the rules for your province.

Reviewed September 2026 Research & primary sources

Find your guide

Six practical guides, from the first invoice to a payment dispute. Each one connects to the province-specific deadlines.

The rules depend on where you build.

Canada has no single prompt-payment law. Each province runs its own statute, with its own deadlines, notice forms and adjudication authority. Tiercord supports six of them, and every province below opens a complete, citation-backed guide.

The 28-day and 14-day columns describe each statute's core model. For a pending province, those clocks are not operative until the legislation is proclaimed and the required regulations take effect.

Ontario

Construction Act

R.S.O. 1990, c. C.30

In force since Oct 2019
Owner pays
28 days
Owner disputes
14 days
Adjudication authority
Ontario Dispute Adjudication for Construction Contracts (ODACC)
British Columbia

Construction Prompt Payment Act

SBC 2025, c. 24

Enacted, awaiting proclamation
Owner pays
28 days
Owner disputes
14 days
Adjudication authority
To be designated
Alberta

Prompt Payment and Construction Lien Act

RSA 2000, c. P-26.4

In force since Aug 2022
Owner pays
28 days
Owner disputes
14 days
Adjudication authority
ARCANA (AB) and ADACC
Saskatchewan

Builders' Lien Act (Prompt Payment Amendment)

SS 1984-85-86, c. B-7.1 (am. SS 2019, c. 2)

In force since Mar 2022
Owner pays
28 days
Owner disputes
14 days
Adjudication authority
Saskatchewan Construction Dispute Resolution Office (SCDRO)
Manitoba

The Builders' Liens Act

C.C.S.M. c. B91

In force since Apr 2025
Owner pays
28 days
Owner disputes
14 days
Adjudication authority
Manitoba Prompt Payment Adjudication Authority (MPPAA)
New Brunswick

Construction Prompt Payment and Adjudication Act

SNB 2023, c. 15

Enacted, awaiting proclamation
Owner pays
28 days
Owner disputes
14 days
Adjudication authority
To be designated
Nova Scotia

Builders' Lien Act (prompt payment and adjudication amendments, SNS 2019, c. 12 and SNS 2022, c. 43)

RSNS 1989, c. 277 (am. SNS 2019, c. 12 and SNS 2022, c. 43, not proclaimed)

Enacted, awaiting proclamation
Owner pays
28 days
Owner disputes
14 days
Adjudication authority
To be designated

In force is not the same as enacted

Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan currently operate prompt-payment and adjudication frameworks. Their statutory clocks can affect live contracts now, subject to each law's application and transition rules.

British Columbia, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have passed laws or amendments, but their new prompt-payment frameworks still depend on proclamation, regulations or implementation work. Planning against the likely model is useful; representing those working assumptions as current law is not.

Federal projects

Work on federal real property is governed by the Federal Prompt Payment for Construction Work Act instead: one ladder of payment days counted from the Crown's receipt, excluded days rather than rollover, no lien, and CanDACC adjudication, with the work province supplying the holdback cap and, in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta, every tier below the Crown.

The federal guide

Every figure in this table as machine-readable JSON, with the section citation behind each one.

deadlines.json

Follow the payment, from invoice to resolution.

Prompt-payment legislation sets hard clocks for proper invoices, payment, notices of non-payment and fast construction adjudication. The model is similar across Canada, but the law, its status and the exact rules are provincial: seven provinces, seven statutes, six sets of dates.

  1. Step 1

    A proper invoice starts the clock

    The invoice must contain the information required by the governing statute and contract. Its receipt date anchors the payment chain.

  2. Step 2

    The owner pays or disputes

    Under the common model, payment is due within 28 days. A dispute requires a detailed notice of non-payment within the shorter 14-day window.

  3. Step 3

    Payment cascades downstream

    Contractors and subcontractors generally pass received funds down within 7 days, or follow strict notice rules if payment is withheld.

  4. Step 4

    Adjudication resolves payment disputes

    A party can refer an eligible dispute to a statutory adjudicator for a fast, enforceable interim determination instead of waiting years for trial.

That linked sequence is the prompt-payment cascade effect: one invoice at the top of the construction pyramid creates a chain of legal response and payment dates below it. Read the detailed construction payment deadline guide.

Common questions

A starting point for understanding the national model.

What is prompt payment in construction?

Prompt-payment law replaces open-ended construction payment cycles with statutory deadlines. A proper invoice starts the clock, the owner must pay or dispute within fixed periods, and payment then moves down to contractors and subcontractors on a short cascade.

Which Canadian provinces have prompt-payment legislation?

Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have operative provincial prompt-payment frameworks. Québec has a distinct regime for qualifying public construction contracts, outside Tiercord’s current launch scope. British Columbia, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have enacted legislation or amendments that still require proclamation or supporting regulations before their prompt-payment rules operate.

What are the usual construction prompt-payment deadlines?

The common model gives an owner 28 days to pay a proper invoice and 14 days to deliver a notice of non-payment. A contractor generally has 7 days after receiving payment to pay its subcontractors. Exact triggers, exceptions and downstream rules vary by province.

What is the prompt-payment cascade effect?

Payment and dispute deadlines flow down the construction pyramid. The owner's response to one proper invoice creates the next contractor and subcontractor deadlines, so one missed event can affect every tier below it.

Is adjudication the same as going to court?

No. Construction adjudication is a fast statutory dispute process before a qualified adjudicator. A determination is generally binding on an interim basis and must be followed unless it is later displaced through a permitted court or arbitration process.

Put every statutory clock on one timeline.

Tiercord applies the right province, trigger, section citation and holiday rollover to each project, then drafts the matching document and preserves the event in a tamper-evident record.

Start free See live demo