WSIB clearance expiry calendar
Last reviewed 27 August 2026. Ontario. Free, and there is nothing to sign up for unless you want the reminder.
Most Ontario WSIB clearances expire on the 20th of February, May, August and November. Here are the dates, a calendar file that puts them in Outlook with alarms on, and the checklist for the three weeks before each one.
The dates
- 20 November 2026Lands with year end billing and shutdown planning.Next
- 20 February 2027The quietest month of the construction year, and the easiest cliff to get ahead of.
- 20 May 2027Lands with the start of the season, when the same people are mobilising crews.
- 20 August 2027Lands in vacation coverage, so it is usually somebody's second job that week.
- 20 November 2027Lands with year end billing and shutdown planning.
- 20 February 2028The quietest month of the construction year, and the easiest cliff to get ahead of.
- 20 May 2028Lands with the start of the season, when the same people are mobilising crews.
- 20 August 2028Lands in vacation coverage, so it is usually somebody's second job that week.
- 20 November 2028Lands with year end billing and shutdown planning.
Put them in your calendar. The file below is an ordinary .ics that imports into Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar. Each date comes with two alarms, three weeks out and one week out, because a date with no alarm on it is a date you read on the morning it happens.
No address needed. It is generated when you ask for it, so it always runs three years forward.
Why they cluster on four days
A clearance is valid for up to 90 calendar days from the date it is issued. Ninety days is a quarter, and the WSIB runs its clearance cycle on quarters, so a certificate pulled part way through one runs to the end of that quarter rather than ninety days from the day you asked. The certificate you pull on 3 September and the one you pull on 14 October both expire on 20 November.
The WSIB says most rather than all, and that word matters when you are looking at your own list. A roster is usually a large cluster on the quarterly date with a scattered tail either side of it, and working only to the four dates leaves the tail unwatched.
The three weeks before
The work is not the renewal. Clearances renew themselves at no charge for any account in good standing. The work is finding the handful that will not renew, and finding them before the date rather than after it.
- Pull the list of subtrades on an active site, rather than everyone you have ever hired. The exposure is on the contracts where work is actually happening.
- Run a clearance on each one now. A contractor who has fallen behind needs time to sort it out with the board, and three weeks is roughly what that takes.
- Chase anything that comes back as other than clear. The usual answers are an account in arrears, a business that changed its legal name without telling anyone, and an account number nobody recorded correctly.
- Save what the board actually said, with the date on it. A dated record of the response is worth more than a note saying "checked, fine".
- Check the insurance certificates at the same time. They renew on the policy's own anniversary, which has nothing to do with the WSIB's cycle, so a roster that is clean on clearances can still be carrying three expired policies.
Get a reminder three weeks before each date
One email a quarter, about three weeks before the cliff, with the date and the checklist above. Nothing else, and nothing until you confirm the address.
Related
- WSIB clearance expiry datesWhy most of them land on 20 February, 20 May, 20 August and 20 November.
- What you owe when a subcontractor owes the WSIBSection 141, the labour portion of the contract, and what a clearance waives.
- Onboarding a subcontractor in OntarioThe paperwork to collect before they set foot on site, and what to diarize.
Written by the team behind TradeClear. TradeClear tracks WSIB clearances and insurance certificates for Ontario general contractors. It keeps records; it does not give legal advice. This page is general information about how the paperwork works. What you owe under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act and under your own contracts is a question for your lawyer and your broker.