Guides

How to count employees in Ontario for the AODA and ESA thresholds (20, 25 and 50)

Updated 2026-10-30. Rules current to October 23, 2026. A plain-language summary, not legal advice. EmployerReady is not affiliated with the Government of Ontario.

Four Ontario rules depend on how many people you employ: the accessibility compliance report (20 and 50), the disconnecting from work and electronic monitoring policies (25), the job posting rules (25) and the new hire information sheet (25). The numbers are simple. The traps are which day you count on and who counts, because the ESA and the accessibility regulation answer those questions differently.

The thresholds at a glance

Counting for the Employment Standards Act

The ESA policy and posting rules all count employees in Ontario, and the Ministry of Labour’s guide explains the method for the two policies. The same reasoning is used in its job posting guide.

• Count heads, not hours. A part-time or casual employee counts as one person, the same as a full-time employee.
• Add up every Ontario location. A chain with four stores of six staff each has 24, and with a head office of two it has 26.
• Include employees on leave, on lay-off while the employment relationship continues, on strike or lock-out, on probation, on definite-term or task contracts, homeworkers, officers who perform work for wages, and employees in jobs the ESA otherwise exempts from some standards.
• Related employers that the ESA treats as one employer add their counts together.
• Temporary help agency assignees count for the agency, not for the client business they work at. (For the electronic monitoring policy only, a client that must have a policy must still give assignees a copy.)
• Exclude people who are not employees: the regulation counts employees in Ontario, so volunteers and independent contractors are not counted on its plain words, and nor is anyone working outside Ontario.

For the two policies, the count is taken once, on January 1, and sets the answer for the whole calendar year. Grow past 25 in March and the policies are not required until the following year; shrink below 25 in March and they remain required until the next count.

For job postings, count on the day the posting is published. An employer with 24 employees in February and 25 in September is bound by the posting rules only for postings published from September on. For the information sheet, count on each new employee’s first day.

Counting for the accessibility standards

O. Reg. 191/11 sorts organizations by the number of employees in Ontario: a small organization has 1 to 49 and a large organization has 50 or more. The report rule uses the same words: fewer than 20 employees means no report; 20 to 49 means a report on the Customer Service Standards only; 50 or more means the full report. The regulation does not name a counting day or define “employee” beyond “in Ontario”, and the Accessibility Compliance Reporting Portal simply asks for your number of employees when you file. Volunteers and independent contractors are not employees, so on the plain words of the regulation they are not counted, and nor is anyone who works outside Ontario.

If your count sits near 20 or 50, record how you arrived at it and when. The report is certified by a director, senior officer or someone else with authority to bind the organization, and the number of employees is one of the facts they certify.

Worked examples

• A clinic with 18 staff in Ontario. No accessibility report is due, but the clinic still has to meet the accessibility standards that apply to it (policies, training, feedback, customer service). No ESA policies, posting rules or information sheets.
• A café group with 23 employees on January 1 that hires 4 more in April. It files the one-question accessibility report in 2026. No disconnecting or monitoring policy this year. Any job posted after the 25th hire is covered by the posting rules, and new hires from that point get the information sheet.
• A manufacturer with 52 employees, 48 of them in Ontario. For every Ontario rule above, the number is 48: a small organization under the AODA that files the customer service report, and an employer that needs both ESA policies, follows the posting rules and gives new hires the sheet.

Sources

• O. Reg. 191/11, Integrated Accessibility Standards (s. 2 definitions; s. 86.1 reports)
• Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ss. 21.1.2, 41.1.1)
• O. Reg. 476/24 (s. 1 application of the job posting rules)
• O. Reg. 285/01 (s. 1.2 new hire information)
• Your guide to the ESA: written policy on disconnecting from work (ontario.ca counting method)