British Columbia sick note restrictions now in force

As of November 12, 2025, British Columbia employers are prohibited from requesting sick notes for certain health-related employee absences. This legal update summarizes that prohibition.

Background

The legislative framework around employee sick leave and sick notes has been evolving rapidly in the past two years. As we outlined in our most recent “Canadian employment and labour quarterly” newsletter:

• All Canadian jurisdictions except Nunavut now provide for some form of statutory employee sick leave.
• Most Canadian jurisdictions now limit an employer’s ability to require sick notes to justify an employee’s health-related absence. It is worth noting that those prohibitions vary significantly in application.

In May 2025, B.C. passed Bill 11, Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2025, which laid the groundwork for a sick note prohibition applicable to all employers and employees covered by B.C.’s Employment Standards Act (the ESA). However, Bill 11 left out many key details, including the effective date of the prohibition and its scope, including potential exemptions. 

On November 12, 2025, the B.C. government declared the Bill 11 sick note prohibition in force and published regulatory amendments to flesh out necessary details.

The sick note restrictions in British Columbia

The B.C. sick note prohibition is set out in a new ESA section 49.2, along with revisions to the Employment Standards Regulation. Taken together, the following rules now apply to provincially regulated employers and employees in British Columbia:

• Applicable to employee illness or family member illness. An employer may not request, and an employee is not required to produce, a sick note in relation to a leave or other absence from work that is related to the health, illness or injury of the employee or an immediate family member¹.
• Limits on the prohibition. The prohibition does not apply if a health-related leave is longer than five consecutive days OR if, in the calendar year, the employee has already taken two health-related leaves of five days or less. In other words:
  • if an employee is absent for several consecutive days, the employer may request a sick note as of the sixth consecutive day of the absence.
  • if the employee has already been absent for five or fewer days on one occasion for a personal illness, and on another to care for an ill family member, the employer will be allowed to require a sick note for all short-term health-related absences for the rest of the calendar year.
• Not applicable to specified long-term leaves. The sick note prohibition does not apply to a number of long-term health-related leaves under the ESA. Specifically, an employer may still require a medical certificate supporting statutory “maternity leave”, “parental leave”, “compassionate care leave” and “critical illness or injury leave”.
• Exceptions for safety and accommodation. The prohibition does not apply to a request for medical information that is necessary to determine whether an employee is fit to work, or that is to be used in determining appropriate accommodations in returning an employee to work.

Next steps for employers

Adapting to a prohibition on sick notes does not mean accepting all employee absences without question. An employer might:

• Trust employees for short absences. B.C.’s sick note prohibition applies only to two short absences per calendar year and does not apply to lengthy absences. For this reason, employers could simply choose not to require any alternative evidence and trust their employees to use sick days appropriately for a few days per year unless suspicion of dishonest use arises.
• Require other evidence. Employers may require non-medical evidence supporting any absence. For example, employers may require employees to complete a signed attestation or other form explaining that their absence was related to an illness or injury and they were unable to work for the stated reason. While this is not medical verification, it is documentation the employer can rely upon to hold an employee to the reason for their absence if suspicion of misuse arises.
• Investigate suspicious absences. If an employer suspects that an employee has been dishonest about the basis for an absence it can investigate. This might involve requiring an employee to explain evidence showing the absence involved recreation or work at another job. It might involve requiring an explanation for patterned absences. Ultimately, there are still tools at an employer’s disposal to ensure proper use of medical leaves.

Our Vancouver employment and labour team would be pleased to answer any questions you have about this new development.