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5-2 5-3 schedule
Five on, two off, five on, three off. A fifteen-day cycle that has run American patrol divisions for decades.
Also called: 5-2 5-2 5-3, 5 on 2 off 5 on 3 off
- Shift length
- 8 hours
- Cycle
- 15 days
- Average week
- 37.3 hours
- Days off
- 5 per cycle
What the 5-2 5-3 schedule is
Five shifts, two days off, five shifts, three days off. Fifteen days from start to repeat, ten of them worked.
It grew out of the eight-hour three-watch model that covered most departments through the twentieth century, and it survives because it keeps a familiar Monday-to-Friday shape while still covering seven days a week.
The three-day break at the end of each cycle is the payoff, and it is the part officers plan their year around.
How the cycle runs
One fifteen-day cycle:
Set a start day, set the length to 15 days, and paint each one. This pattern walks, so each time round it lands on different weekdays — which the app works out for you.
Start day: 1 September 2026Days: 15
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
Set the template once. Your days show up on every month after it.
September 2026
Print this rotation (PDF) One page — the cycle above, and a blank grid for your own dates.
Weekends off on this rotation
This cycle is 15 days, which does not divide by seven — so it drifts through the week and every squad gets much the same share. Around 9 to 12 full weekends a year, wherever you sit in it.
A year on this rotation: 12 full weekends off, spread through the calendar. A weekend counts only when both the Saturday and the Sunday are free. All 21 rotations compared →
Why the days off move
Fifteen days is not a multiple of seven, so the pattern walks through the week. Your three-day break falls on a different set of weekdays each cycle, working its way around roughly every three months.
That drift is manageable on paper for a month and miserable beyond it, which is why so many squad rooms keep a printed year planner on the wall.
Hours and overtime
Ten eight-hour shifts every fifteen days is eighty hours a fortnight and a bit — about thirty-seven and a quarter hours a week averaged out.
Most agencies running it schedule additional training days or make up the difference with overtime and court time, so the real number on your check is usually higher than the schedule suggests.
Who works it
Eight-hour rotations remain standard in a large share of departments:
- Municipal police patrol
- RCMP members
- Dispatch centres
- Corrections officers
- Court and transport units
- Campus and transit police
BlueShifts. Plan Your Year. Own Your Time.
The shift calendar built for your rotation, off-duty work, and life on and off the clock.
Save this pattern once and the year fills itself in — forward as far as you want, and back over the months you have already worked.
The trade-off
What works
- A three-day break built into every cycle
- Eight-hour shifts are easier on the body than twelves
- Three watches mean a familiar day, evening and midnight structure
- Plenty of days off spread through the cycle
What hurts
- The cycle drifts through the week and never repeats on the same weekdays
- Five shifts in a row before the short break
- More shift starts per month than a twelve-hour pattern
- Hard to project without a calendar that does the arithmetic
Put it on your calendar
Fifteen days is long enough that nobody holds it in their head, and the every-other-weekend part is what people get wrong.
Save the cycle once and the calendar tells you which weekend is yours without you counting back to the start.
What Canadian law does to this rotation
The cycle is the same shape in both countries. What sits underneath it is not, and in Canada it is provincial rather than federal — so the same rotation can be worked and paid differently depending on where you are.
Eleven consecutive hours off between shifts is the ESA minimum and it applies whatever the pattern. A 8-hour shift leaves 16 hours before the next one is due, so this cycle clears it — but a held-over shift or a court appearance on the turnaround eats straight into that margin.
The weekly rest rule is the one long runs meet. The ESA requires at least 24 consecutive hours off in each work week, or 48 consecutive hours off in every period of two consecutive work weeks. This cycle runs 5 shifts back to back, so it is the two-week version that has to carry it.
Overtime is triggered differently by province, and this rotation averages 37.3 hours. The weekly threshold runs from 40 hours in Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, the territories and federally, through 44 in Ontario and New Brunswick, to 48 in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Ontario and Quebec have no daily trigger at all; British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the territories have both, so exceeding 8 hours in a day counts even if the week does not. BC adds double time past 12 hours in a day. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador calculate overtime at 1.5 times the minimum wage rather than your own rate. Same roster, a different answer in almost every jurisdiction.
And one Quebec rule that catches shift workers out: premiums added to the hourly rate, such as night or evening shift premiums, are not taken into account when calculating overtime. Your overtime is worked out on the base rate, so a night premium does not carry into it.
Averaging is what makes a cycle like this work on paper. Where the pattern does not fit a calendar week, hours can be averaged over two to four weeks for the purpose of overtime, by written agreement. If you are in a union, your union can make that agreement with your employer — and in a policing or fire service it usually has, which is why your collective agreement rather than the statute is the document that decides your pay.
Two employers sit outside all of that. The RCMP works under one national agreement with the Treasury Board rather than provincial standards — its default workweek is forty hours from Monday to Friday with a workday of a minimum of eight consecutive hours, and separate articles for variable and shift work that take a detachment off that default. Federal enforcement uses a Variable Shift Schedule Arrangement, negotiated branch by branch, so two workplaces under one contract can run different rosters. In both cases the agreement is the whole answer and the province you live in does not enter into it.
Checked 7 August 2026. Provincial rules are quoted from the Employment Standards Act of the province named and, for Quebec, from the CNESST; federal provisions from the Treasury Board agreements. Employment standards are amended and collective agreements are renegotiated — check the current text before relying on a threshold or a figure.
Common questions
How long is the 5-2 5-3 cycle?
Fifteen days — ten worked and five off — before it repeats.
Do the days off stay on the same weekdays?
No. Fifteen days doesn't divide into a seven-day week, so the days off shift each cycle and work around the calendar over a few months.
How many hours a week is 5-2 5-3?
About thirty-seven and a quarter on eight-hour shifts, before overtime and court time.
Put the 5-2 5-3 schedule on your calendar
Save the 5-2 5-3 schedule once, tell BlueShifts the day your cycle starts, and the rest of the year draws itself. Then the paid duty work you pick up around it goes in beside the shifts.
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