Allowance for an 11 year old in Canada
Eleven is the last year before the payslip starts to grow up, and the jobs are now genuinely useful to the household.
An 11 year old in Canada earns
$13.04an hour
About $45.64 a week if they do 3½ hours of paid jobs. That's 74.1% 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 an 11 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.
Eleven year olds can do a full load of washing from basket to wardrobe, cook dinner for the family with a recipe, clean the kitchen after it, and do the weekly vacuum and mop. An hour of work in a block is fine on a weekend. Many can also babysit a younger sibling for short periods with a parent in the house, which is a real job with a real standard time.
Talk about next year now: at twelve the payslip gets a locked savings line. Explaining it a year early turns it into a milestone rather than a deduction.
The payslip at 11
Jobs, pay, interest, balance, and a preview of the locked savings line that starts at twelve. Show it as zero this year so the change is not a surprise.
The Jobs Board at age 11, $13.04 an hour
| Job | Standard time | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Do a full load of washing, basket to wardrobe | 40 min | $8.69 |
| Cook dinner for the family | 45 min | $9.78 |
| Clean the kitchen after dinner | 20 min | $4.35 |
| Vacuum and mop the floors | 40 min | $8.69 |
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 11 year olds.
How much should an eleven year old earn from chores?
At the hourly rate for an eleven year old, for around three and a half hours a week, the weekly figure is on this page. What they earn depends on the hours, and the hours are the family's dial.
Can an eleven year old have a paid job outside the home?
In most countries not yet, apart from things like paper rounds where local rules allow. The pocket wage is the only wage they can earn, which is why it is worth getting right.
What is a locked savings slice?
A share of each payslip, from about twelve, that goes into savings they cannot spend until a date you both agree. It is the family version of a term deposit and it starts next year.
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.