Allowance for a 10 year old in Canada
Double digits. At ten the pocket wage has roughly doubled since five, and they know it.
A 10 year old in Canada earns
$11.86an hour
About $38.55 a week if they do 3¼ hours of paid jobs. That's 67.4% of the minimum wage in Canada.
Worked out from Government of Canada — Minimum Wage Database, rates from October 1, 2025.
The rate at every age in Canada.
Pocket Wage is a straight line, one step every birthday, until it meets the real minimum wage. Here's the whole ladder in Canada.
- Pocket wage, paid by you
- Real minimum wage, paid by a boss
At 14, the legal minimum in Canada is $16.60 an hour. Pocket Wage draws a straight line from there back to zero, and a kid's age picks the spot on it.
What a 10 year old can do, and what it pays.
Every paid job has a standard time: how long it should take, not how long it did. Dawdle and you earn less a minute. Get good at it and you earn more. There's no timer to game and no price to haggle.
Ten year olds can mow a small lawn with supervision, cook a simple dinner, clean the whole bathroom and wash windows. Forty-five-minute jobs are realistic on a weekend. They are also old enough to keep their own record of jobs done and compare it to the payslip, which is the beginning of financial literacy nobody has to teach.
This is the age to talk about the ladder itself: show them the rate at eleven, twelve, thirteen. A ten year old who can see next year's pay rise coming has a reason to stick with the system through the boring weeks.
The payslip at 10
Jobs, pay, interest, balance. Ten is where a basic income line, if you use one, should be shown separately from earned wages so the difference is plain.
The Jobs Board at age 10, $11.86 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Mow the lawn | 45 min | $8.90 |
| Cook a simple dinner | 40 min | $7.91 |
| Clean the whole bathroom | 30 min | $5.93 |
| Wash the windows | 30 min | $5.93 |
Example jobs and times. Family Duties, like clearing your own plate, are unpaid: belonging isn't billable.
How junior wages work in Canada.
Canada's minimum wage is set by each province and territory, not nationally, and most of them index it to inflation once a year. There is generally no youth rate: a fourteen year old with a job is owed the same minimum wage as an adult, with the exception of Ontario's and Alberta's student rates for under-18s working part time.
Pocket Wage anchors on the province's minimum wage at fourteen, the youngest age most provinces allow ordinary work, and draws a straight line back to zero. Choose your province at the top: a kid in Nunavut and a kid in Alberta are on different ladders.
Most provinces allow ordinary work from 14, some from 12 with consent for light work. The minimum wage has no lower age limit, so a working 14 year old is owed the rate shown.
Source: Government of Canada — Minimum Wage Database, rates from October 1, 2025.
By province or territory
The rate for an 8 year old, worked out from each one's own minimum wage.
- Alberta$7.43
- British Columbia$10.43
- Manitoba$9.14
- New Brunswick$9.09
- Newfoundland and Labrador$9.34
- Northwest Territories$9.83
- Nova Scotia$9.57
- Nunavut$11.53
- Ontario$9.49
- Prince Edward Island$9.71
- Quebec$9.49
- Saskatchewan$8.77
- Yukon$10.58
Questions parents ask about 10 year olds.
How much pocket money should a ten year old get?
The old rule of a dollar per year of age would give ten a week for nothing. A pocket wage at the rate for a ten year old, for about three hours of jobs a week, comes to the figure on this page, and it is earned.
Should a ten year old get pocket money without doing chores?
Family Duties are unpaid and expected. If you want a safety net, Pocket Wage supports a basic income line on the payslip, marked as not earned, so the kid sees the two kinds of money side by side.
What is a fair hourly rate for a ten year old?
The rate on this page: the country's minimum wage, scaled to age ten by the same straight line the law draws for junior workers. It is not a number anyone made up.
How much allowance should a kid get in Canada?
The traditional rule is a dollar a week per year of age, given for nothing. Pocket Wage replaces it with a rate: your province's minimum wage, scaled to your kid's age, paid for jobs actually done.
Every birthday is a pay rise.
The app runs the whole thing: the Jobs Board, the standard times, a sacred weekly payday with a payslip, and Pay-Rise Day on every birthday. No cards, no stored money. The parent is the bank.