By OptiVal Editorial Desk
Ontario job posting rules changed on January 1, 2026, and plenty of employers are still posting ads the old way. If you employ 25 or more people on the day a posting goes up, Part III.1 of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) and Ontario Regulation 476/24 now dictate what a publicly advertised job posting must say, what it cannot say, and what you owe candidates after the interview. The rules apply whether the ad runs on a job board, on your own careers page, or through a recruiter acting for you.
This is a plain-English walkthrough of the six obligations, who they catch, and the template fixes that bring an old posting into line. The full text lives in the Ontario government’s guide to the Employment Standards Act and in O. Reg. 476/24 on e-Laws. Treat this as general information, not legal advice.
Who the Ontario job posting rules apply to
The threshold is headcount on one specific day. An employer with fewer than 25 employees on the day the posting is posted is exempt. At 25 or more, every publicly advertised job posting has to comply. Headcount is not a once-a-year test, so a business hovering near 25 can drift into coverage mid-year as it grows.
A publicly advertised job posting is an external posting for a specific position that the general public can see. The definition leaves out four things: a general recruitment campaign that names no specific position, a general help wanted sign, a posting restricted to your existing employees, and a posting for work performed entirely outside Ontario (or partly outside Ontario where the outside work is not a continuation of work done in Ontario). That last carve-out is worth noting for remote roles: a position performed wholly outside Ontario sits outside these rules, while a hybrid role anchored in Ontario does not.
1. State the expected compensation, inside a $50,000 range
Every covered posting must include the expected compensation for the position, or a range of expected compensation. If you post a range, the spread cannot exceed an amount equivalent to $50,000 per year. A range of $60,000 to $95,000 complies. A range of $55,000 to $120,000 does not, even if your internal pay band really is that wide. In practice, most employers now pick the narrower hiring range for the specific opening rather than copying the full band from their compensation grid.
One exemption exists: if the expected compensation is more than $200,000 a year, or the top of the range passes $200,000, the compensation information does not have to appear at all. Note what the exemption does not do. It only removes the pay disclosure. The other five obligations still apply to a $220,000 posting.
2. Disclose any use of artificial intelligence
If artificial intelligence is used to screen, assess, or select applicants, the posting must say so. The regulation defines artificial intelligence broadly: a machine-based system that infers from the input it receives to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions. That definition reaches well beyond a chatbot interviewer. The auto-ranking and resume-screening features built into many applicant tracking systems can qualify, including features an employer never deliberately switched on.
The practical step is an audit, not an assumption. Ask your software vendor, in writing, whether the product screens, ranks, or filters applicants. If it does, add a short disclosure line to every posting. Silence is the risky option here, because the duty sits with the employer, not the vendor.
3. Say whether the posting is for an existing vacancy
Each posting must state whether it is for an existing vacancy or not. An existing vacancy means a real opening that a qualified candidate could fill now. Pipeline postings, used to build a bench of resumes for future needs, are still allowed. They just have to be labelled honestly as not for an existing vacancy.
4. No Canadian experience requirements, anywhere
A covered posting cannot include any requirement related to Canadian experience, and neither can the application form that goes with it. “Two years of Canadian payroll experience required” has to come out, even if what you really meant was familiarity with Canadian payroll rules. There is a workable rewrite: name the actual skill instead of the geography. “Experience running payroll with CPP, EI, and T4 reporting” tests the same knowledge without the prohibited requirement. This change pairs naturally with the rules we covered in our guide to non-compete agreements in Ontario: Ontario keeps narrowing what employers can demand up front.
5. Tell interviewed applicants the outcome within 45 days
The duties do not end when the posting comes down. If you interview an applicant for a publicly advertised posting, you must tell that applicant whether a hiring decision has been made, within 45 days after the date of the interview, or within 45 days after the last interview if you interview them more than once. The update can be given in person, in writing, or using technology, so a short email from your hiring inbox satisfies it. What does not satisfy it is silence. Build the 45-day deadline into your hiring calendar the day interviews start, the same way you would diarise the timelines in our severance pay guide, because a missed deadline is a compliance failure even when the hiring decision itself was fair.
6. Keep the posting and application records for three years
Employers must keep copies of every publicly advertised job posting, the associated application forms, and a record of the information provided to interviewed applicants, for three years. For most employers this is a filing habit, not a project: one folder per posting, holding the final ad text, the application form as it stood, and the outcome notices sent. If your postings live inside a job board account that purges old ads, export them before they disappear.
A five-minute template fix
Most non-compliant postings can be fixed with the same short checklist. Add a compensation line inside a $50,000 spread, or confirm the role clears the $200,000 exemption. Add the vacancy statement, one sentence either way. Add the artificial intelligence disclosure if any tool in your process screens or ranks applicants. Search the posting and the application form for the word “Canadian” next to “experience” and rewrite any hit as a skills requirement. Then set two calendar reminders per hire: the 45-day applicant update and the three-year record retention date. Employers under the 25-employee threshold are exempt today, but adopting the same template early is cheap insurance for the year growth pushes you over the line.
Hiring is also where remote staffing decisions get made. If you are weighing a local hire against remote support for bookkeeping, payroll, or admin work, our services page and pricing page lay out what structured remote support costs (payroll support runs $29 per employee per month plus a $149 setup, CAD, HST extra). OptiVal is led by qualified professionals with more than 75 years of combined experience, PwC-trained, who have worked at world-leading multinationals in CFO-level positions, and our remote HR and staffing support includes the posting templates and hiring checklists that keep this paperwork straight.
Not sure whether your current postings comply, or whether your headcount puts you over the threshold? Book a free consultation and we will walk through your template with you.
