5 on 3 off schedule

What the 5 on 3 off schedule is

Five eight-hour shifts, then three days off. Eight days from start to repeat on a fixed tour, sixteen if you change tour halfway through.

The working block looks like an ordinary week, which is a large part of the appeal. What is different is the third day off at the end and the fact that the block starts one day later each time.

Agencies usually run it inside a much longer template — thirteen to fifteen weeks is common — so squads move through days, swings and nights across a quarter rather than a fortnight.

How the cycle runs

The sixteen-day version, five days then five nights:

Print this rotation (PDF) One page — the cycle above, and a blank grid for your own dates.

Three days off, every time

This is the pattern's real argument. Three consecutive days off after every block is enough to sleep, recover and still have a day that belongs to you — which two days off never quite manages.

It is also long enough to be useful for paid duty work. A block of three can hold two details and still leave a day clear.

Hours and overtime

Five eight-hour shifts every eight days averages thirty-five hours a week, well under a standard forty.

That shortfall is deliberate. Agencies running it usually expect the balance to be made up with overtime, training days or court, which makes keeping your own record of the hours worth doing.

Who works it

Mostly eight-hour agencies that want longer breaks than a 4/2 gives:

• Municipal police services
• RCMP detachments
• Dispatch centres
• Corrections
• Provincial and campus services
• Security operations

The trade-off

Put it on your calendar

Five on, three off gives you the shortest average week of the common patterns, and days off that never land twice in the same place.

Save it once and the calendar keeps track of where they land.

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 35 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 many hours a week is 5 on 3 off?

Thirty-five on average — five eight-hour shifts every eight days.

Why do agencies use such long rotations with it?

Because eight days does not divide into seven. A thirteen to fifteen week template is what it takes for the pattern to come back round to the same weekdays.

Is 5 on 3 off better than 5-2 5-3?

It gives three days off after every block instead of every other one, but fewer hours on the roster. Which is better depends on whether you want the time or the pay.