EI overpayment and recovering EI premiums

See EI overpayment if you have overdeducted your employees' employment insurance (EI) premiums and Recovering EI premiums if you have underdeducted your employees' EI premiums.

EI overpayment

If, during a year, you over deducted EI premiums from your employee (for example, the maximum amount of insurable earnings was exceeded, or the employee was not employed in insurable employment), reimburse the employee the amount deducted in error and adjust your payroll records in the same year the overpayment was made to reflect the reduced deduction. This will result in a credit on your payroll program account equal to the employee and employer portion of the over deduction. You may reduce a future remittance in the same calendar year by that amount.

Do not include the reimbursed amount on the T4 slip. If you cannot refund the overpayment, show the total EI premiums deducted and the correct insurable earnings on the employee's T4 slip.

If you reported the employee's overpayment on the T4 slip, you can ask us for a refund by filling out Form PD24, Application for a Refund of Over deducted CPP Contributions or EI Premiums. Make your request no later than three years from the end of the year in which the overpayment occurred.

Recovering EI premiums

If you receive a notice of assessment or discover that you have under deducted EI premiums, you are responsible for remitting the balance due (both the employer's and employee's shares).

You can recover the employee's premiums from later payments to the employee. The recovered premiums can be equal to, but not more than the premiums you should have deducted from each payment of remuneration.

However, you cannot recover the premiums that have been outstanding for more than 12 months. As well, you cannot adjust the employee's income tax deductions to cover the EI premiums shortfall.

If you should have made a deduction in a previous year and you recover it through an additional deduction in the current year, do not report the recovered premium on the current year's T4 slip. You may have to amend your employee’s T4 slip. For information on how to amend a T4 slip, see Guide RC4120, Employers’ Guide – Filing the T4 Slip and Summary.

The recovered amount does not affect the current year-to-date EI premiums deducted.

Each year, we check the calculations by matching the pensionable and insurable earnings you reported with the required CPP contributions or EI premiums indicated in the Payroll Deductions Tables. This ensures that your calculations are correct.

For more information, see Pensionable and Insurable Earnings Review (PIER).